Hate Me Like You Love Me (Serena and Caleb) novel Chapter 67

Caleb’s POV

While Serena disappears into William’s study, I find my mother in the kitchen.

She’s preparing for the party—arranging flowers in crystal vases, checking items off a catering list, her hands constantly moving.

It’s what she does when her mind is in turmoil, this compulsive busyness. I’ve watched her clean entire houses at three in the morning when the memories of my father got too loud to sleep through.

She hasn’t looked at me the same way since she found us in bed together. The distance between us feels like a chasm I don’t know how to cross.

“Mom.” I step into the kitchen, and she stiffens almost imperceptibly. “Can you stop for a minute?”

“I have to finish these arrangements before the florist—”

“Please.” The word comes out softer than I intended. “I need you to sit down. I need you to listen.”

Something in my voice makes her pause. She sets down the roses she’s been trimming and turns to face me, her expression guarded in ways it never used to be.

“Alright.” She lowers herself into a chair at the kitchen table. “I’m listening.”

I take the seat across from her, organizing my thoughts.

This isn’t about me and Serena—that’s her conversation to have with William. This is about something darker. Something my mother needs to understand before tonight.

“I have to tell you about Lucas.”

Her jaw tightens at the name. “What about him?”

“The Halloween party.” I meet her eyes, holding her gaze even when I want to look away. “Lucas cornered Serena in a bedroom. He locked the door. He tried to…”

“Caleb.”

“I broke the door down before he could finish.” The words come out flat, factual. “But he would have. If I’d been five minutes later, if I hadn’t heard her—”

“Stop.” My mother’s voice is barely a whisper. “Just… stop for a moment.”

I wait, watching her process the information. Her face has gone pale, but there’s no shock in her expression, no disbelief. Just a terrible, knowing stillness.

“There’s more.” I push forward. “Rachel Weaver—you remember her?”

“Your girlfriend from high school.”

“Lucas did the same thing to her. Three years ago.”

I watch her reaction carefully.

“The Bennett family silenced her with lawyers and money. They buried her story so completely that even I didn’t know the full truth until recently.”

“And Serena?”

“Was meant to be the next. Lucas has been using blackmail and manipulation to trap her in this engagement. She never wanted any of it, Mom. She’s been terrified, and none of us saw it.”

My mother sits in eerie stillness, absorbing each revelation without gasps or interruptions. There’s something familiar in her quiet focus—the practiced calm of a woman who survived Simon Thornton.

Who recognizes the pattern of charming men and closed doors. Who knows exactly how predators operate because she lived with one for years.

The silence stretches between us until I can’t bear it anymore.

“Say something.”

She looks at me then—really looks, her eyes searching my face for something I can’t name. When she finally speaks, her voice is steady but fragile, like glass about to crack.

“Is that why you raced? To protect her?”

The question catches me off guard. I expected anger, horror, demands for more details. Not this.

“No.” I shake my head. “I raced to pay Dad’s debt. I protected her because I couldn’t not.”

“Because you love her.”

It’s not a question. I don’t insult either of us by denying it.

“Yes.”

My mother’s eyes glisten, but she doesn’t cry. Instead, she reaches across the table and takes my hand, turning it over to study my palm like she used to when I was small.

“Stepdaughter.”

“Daughter.” The correction is fierce, immediate. “Serena is my daughter. Maybe not by blood, but by every measure that matters. And I failed her. I didn’t see what was happening right in front of me.”

Her composure finally breaks.

The tears come silently at first, slipping down her cheeks without permission. Then harder, her shoulders shaking with the weight of everything she’s been holding back.

The discovery in the bedroom. The racing confession. Now this—learning that the monster she escaped in Simon has a younger version wearing Lucas Bennett’s face.

I round the table and pull her into my arms, cradling her the way she cradled me just days ago.

She feels smaller than I remember, more fragile, like the weight of the world has been pressing down on her for longer than I realized.

“It’s going to be okay.”

I hold her while she cries, her face pressed against my shoulder, her tears soaking through my shirt.

“I don’t know how yet. I don’t have a plan beyond today. But somehow, we’ll find a way through this.”

“Promise me.” Her voice is muffled against my chest.

“I promise.”

She pulls back to look at me, her eyes red-rimmed but steadier now. “Then let’s end this. Tonight.”

I nod, something fierce and protective rising in my chest.

Tonight, Lucas Bennett faces consequences for the first time in his privileged life.

And our family, fractured, complicated, messy as it is, will be the ones to deliver them.