1993–1995
Placed for adoption as a baby, Kendall Hart is raised in Florida by her adoptive parents, Alice and Bill Hart. They keep her adoption a secret from her until she overhears them discussing it late one night. Though raised by loving parents, Kendall feels displaced all her life and when she is old enough she accesses her adoption papers. When she learns that her birth mother is her childhood idol, Erica Kane, she dreams of a mother-daughter reunion and of basking in her idol's approval. She arrives in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania as a teenage runaway and aspires to a job at Enchantment, her mother's cosmetics company, keeping her identity a secret at first. Erica hires Kendall as her personal assistant to help plan her wedding to Count Dimitri Marick. In April 1993 Erica's mother, Mona Kane Tyler, recognizes a familiar birthmark on Kendall's neck, identical to the birthmark she saw on Erica's firstborn when she held her as a baby. Mona suspects Kendall is the daughter Erica bore at 14 after being raped on her 14th birthday by movie actor Richard Fields. Fields had hoped to act in a film that Eric Kane, Erica's father, was producing. Young Erica had suppressed the memories but they return in May 1993 after learning Kendall is her daughter. Meanwhile, Kendall reveals to Myrtle that Erica is her mother, showing her adoption papers listing Erica's name. Jealous of the attention her half-sister Bianca Montgomery receives after a horse-riding accident in May 1993, Kendall blurts out her real identity to Erica, who welcomes the young woman into her life as her daughter and invites her to live with her.
Erica, Dimitri, Kendall, and Bianca all work to grow as a family, and it works for a time, but Kendall's jealousy of Bianca, and of the attention she receives from Erica, persists as she and Bianca continue to bicker and act out. Bianca, likewise feeling jealous by Kendall's developing relationship with Erica, ruins Kendall's bridesmaid dress with ink in an unsuccessful attempt to remove her from Erica's wedding party in June 1993. Kendall manipulates Bianca and when Bianca locks herself in the Wildwind mausoleum in August 1993, Kendall ignores her sister's cries but reveals her sister's location soon afterward. As Erica and Kendall work to develop a healthy mother-daughter relationship, an unaware Kendall accidentally stumbles upon her birth father's identity in August and begs Erica to tell her who her biological father is. Erica initially attempts to shield Kendall from this but, at Kendall's pleas to tell her, Erica reluctantly reveals this information, stunning Kendall. When Kendall begins asking questions, Erica demands that Kendall completely forget about him, explaining she wants to protect both herself and Kendall. Despite Kendall's promises to do so and repeated warnings from Erica against locating Richard Fields, a distressed Kendall resolves to find her biological father after expressing the need to understand everything about where she came from, earnestly trying to keep her search hidden from her mother. Dimitri offers to help Kendall and aids her in her search, hiring Hayley as a private investigator. During the successful operation, Kendall develops a crush on Dimitri. Erica starts experiencing flashbacks to her rape after she comes across Kendall's research on her biological father in the stables in October 1993 and again, she forbids Kendall from finding him.
However, together with Dimitri and Hayley, Kendall finds Richard Fields in November 1993 to confront him over his violation of Erica but Richard Fields lies to Kendall that he never raped her mother and successfully deceives her. Desperate to believe she was not conceived in rape, Kendall makes herself accept Richard Fields' story. When Erica finds out Kendall has visited her biological father in California and discovers Dimitri's part in it, she lashes out at them both and leaves Dimitri, demanding a divorce. Shortly after, Kendall's adoptive mother calls in December 1993 and asks her to return to them in Florida but Kendall still wants another chance with Erica. Erica gently implores Kendall to stop hurting herself and return to the Harts after telling her she can no longer try to be the fantasy mother Kendall dreamed her to be. Kendall is distraught by this and finds Dimitri, mistaking his paternal feelings for her as attraction. As Dimitri explains he only loves Kendall as a daughter, Kendall unsuccessfully attempts to seduce her step-father and Dimitri rejects her. Devastated, Kendall goes to her friend, Anton Lang, to talk and she loses her virginity to Anton when they end up having sex. The following morning, a troubled Kendall, afraid she is pregnant, hysterically goes to Erica and claims Dimitri raped her. Enraged, Erica accuses Dimitri of raping her daughter and stabs him with a letter opener when she hallucinates him as Richard Fields.
Having learned Kendall is denying her accusation against Dimitri, Erica tries to coax an anxious Kendall into admitting that Dimitri raped her but Kendall eventually reveals she made up the claim. Upset, Kendall reveals she now believes Richard Fields' stories to her that he's not a rapist, despite Erica continuing to warn Kendall against him, and angrily says her lie about Dimitri was revenge against her mother for giving her up at birth. Erica says she was defending Kendall against Dimitri. Appalled, she disowns Kendall. At Erica's attempted murder trial in February 1994, Kendall states that Erica knowingly stabbed Dimitri because she was jealous he wanted Kendall romantically as well. Kendall tells the jury that the only thing she told Erica was that she had unprotected sex with Anton and was afraid she was pregnant. Kendall is continually cautioned against Richard Fields by everyone but remains unable to accept their warnings about him and wanting to believe Richard Fields loves her, brings him to Pine Valley in January 1994. A horrified Kendall catches Richard Fields attempting to rape Bianca in March 1994 and stops him, rescuing Bianca before she is assaulted. Having witnessed Richard Fields for what he truly is and devastated to accept that he raped Erica, Kendall banishes him from her life, apologizes to Erica and testifies for the defense, confessing her lies in court. She is charged with perjury by the DA and sentenced to 30 days at Green Briar, a correctional facility. Erica refuses to help Kendall out of her perjury charge but, feeling terrible over leaving her daughter in jail, she calls Alice Hart to help Kendall and Kendall is briefly reunited with her adoptive mother in March 1994.
While imprisoned, a newly embittered Kendall meets Janet Green (initially unaware of Janet's identity), who has received experimental plastic surgery on her face and the two gradually become friends. After both are released from jail in April 1994, Kendall keeps quiet about Janet's true identity when she learns she is masquerading under a new face and name "Jane Cox", in an effort to help Janet reunite with her young daughter, Amanda. Kendall helps keep Janet's secret, admiring Janet's love for Amanda, wanting Erica to love her in the same way. However, Janet's identity is revealed during her failed wedding to Trevor Dillon. Their friendship continues, lasting until Kendall witnesses what she believes to be Janet's death in May 1995. In love, Anton proposes to Kendall while she is in jail and Kendall accepts. She and Anton move into the Hunting Lodge at Wildwind near the end of April 1994, where she meets Julia Santos, igniting a lasting rivalry. Anton has Kendall promise that she will cease her plotting against Erica.
Dimitri, who has since learned Anton is his son, hires Kendall as his personal assistant on the same condition that she stop her schemes against her mother. However, hurt by her history with Erica, Kendall secretly agrees to write a tell-all book about her mother with Del Henry, a writer who initially proposed this idea to her while she was still incarcerated. When Kendall's grandmother, Mona, dies in August 1994, Kendall is deeply affected and attempts to pay her respects, only to be angrily confronted by Erica, who mistakenly believes that Kendall is faking her grief and had merely come to make a scene. Despite Kendall's heartfelt confessions, Erica orders her to leave. Later, when visiting Mona's grave, Kendall gets into another argument with Dimitri, which climaxes when Kendall demands to know why he still protects Erica after she stabbed him. She manages to intercept a thank-you note from Erica to Dimitri and forges a new letter in its place to thwart any reconciliation between them. Her work with Del on the misleading tell-all book continues and they start to develop a friendship. Del urges Kendall to let go of her revenge schemes, telling her to use her talents for good, and Kendall supports Del as he prepares for his kidney transplant, which he undergoes later in December 1994. However, Kendall's involvement in the book is discovered in August 1994. Though Anton lets Kendall stay at first, he throws her out of Wildwind when he discovers Kendall has been sabotaging her mother's relationship with Dimitri again.
After the tell-all book is dropped, Kendall briefly fakes a pregnancy and fakes a suicide attempt in an effort to win Anton back during September 1994. When this fails, she works for a short time as Brooke English's assistant at Tempo Magazine. In December 1994, Janet suggests to Kendall that she lie that Anton is Dimitri's son. Kendall, trying again to win Anton back and get revenge on the Maricks, tells this seeming lie to Anton, completely unaware it is true. After Dimitri confirms this to Anton, Anton finds Kendall and elopes with her as vengeance against their respective parents. Kendall and Anton experience a difficult marriage. She is hired as a waitress and Anton, angry at Dimitri, quits his medical training to become a car mechanic. Corvina convinces Kendall to steal fabled documents kept in a ceramic leopard at Wildwind that would make Corvina and Anton the heirs to Wildwind. When they find it empty, Corvina and Kendall forge these documents themselves. Kendall becomes worried as Anton and Julia grow closer but her relationship with Del grows stronger, conflicting Kendall. Del continuously attempts to persuade a torn Kendall from her revenge plots, assuring her that Erica doesn't hate her and she (Kendall) is good. Later, Del warns the Maricks that Kendall is developing a new scheme. The forgeries Kendall and Corvina created to inherit Wildwind fail and Anton has his marriage to Kendall annulled after she is tricked by the Wildwind residents into signing annulment papers due to her continuing plots.
Kendall's relationship with Del develops into a romance and they fall in love during May 1995. He helps Kendall to rebuild her life, and let go of her anger against Erica and the Harts. She renews her relationship with her adoptive mother, Alice Hart, after her father, Bill, dies suddenly from heart problems in June 1995, leaving Kendall grief-stricken. Together, Kendall and Del prepare to go to Florida so Kendall can take care of Alice after learning Alice is suffering from health problems. Before her departure, Kendall and Anton wish each other well. Kendall makes peace with her mother, Erica, and apologizes to her for all the bad things she had done, explaining that she did these things out of hurt and in order to get Erica's attention but now accepts that she was placed for adoption in an act of love and not selfishness. Erica forgives her and gives her Mona's ring, hugging Kendall before wishing her to be happy. Kendall leaves Pine Valley with Del on July 3, 1995. Erica later expresses sadness over Kendall's departure, noting that despite everything that transpired between them, she still cares for her daughter.
2002–2010
Seven years later in January 2002, Erica goes on trial for the murder of Frankie Stone, Bianca's girlfriend. Needing someone to help incriminate her, Erica calls Kendall, half-wishing that Kendall will not betray her in hopes she really has changed and they can bond. Newly embittered, Kendall implicates Erica. Having since amicably split from Del, Kendall stays at the Pine Cone Motel across from Ryan Lavery. The two come to verbal blows often due to their strong-willed personalities, but eventually begin dating. After Erica's house is set on fire, Kendall is charged with arson due to seemingly circumstantial evidence. Ryan hires Trey Kenyon to represent her at trial, not knowing that Trey is the real arsonist and has framed Kendall for burning her mother's house down (Trey is later imprisoned when he is revealed as the actual arsonist). Believing that Erica is framing her, Kendall becomes obsessed with the idea of exposing her mother, despite being engaged to Ryan. When Aidan Devane catches Kendall searching for evidence she is being framed, she attempts distract him with seduction but is found by Ryan in this position. Ryan ends his relationship with a devastated Kendall and leaves town. Erica learns evidence of Kendall's innocence and uses it to clear her of her arson charge.
Needing something beyond her flirtation with Aidan, Kendall begins a cosmetics company along with Greenlee Smythe, Mia Saunders, and Simone Torres, with start-up capital provided by Liza Colby, to compete with her mother's company, Enchantment. They name the company FUSION. It has a rocky start, as Kendall and Greenlee have been enemies in the past, but their company grows to be a success.
Kendall begins dating the charming Michael Cambias, unaware he is using her to take down her mother's company. She ends things after sensing menace behind his charms. He attempts to rape both Kendall and Erica but while mother and daughter save each other from Michael, he succeeds in raping her younger sister, Bianca. As Bianca's rape occurs elsewhere, Kendall helps Erica through a panic attack involving the night she was raped and Kendall was conceived. This marks a cornerstone of their relationship. Police are unable to make a strong case against Cambias. Kendall begins a convoluted plot against Cambias to help her mother and sister when he is released from prison. Kendall claims she married Michael in Las Vegas but shortly afterward, Michael is murdered by an unknown assailant. Her relationship with Erica, which has grown closer over the previous months, is again strained because of the marriage to Michael and the revelation that Bianca is pregnant with his child. Erica encourages her to get an abortion and Bianca prepares to go through it with the help of her friend, Maggie Stone. At the clinic, Kendall tells her sister how much she admired her, and though Kendall does not give an opinion on the abortion, Bianca lets Kendall know that she has secretly decided to keep her baby.
In an effort to help protect Bianca when her pregnancy is nearly discovered, Kendall claims that she, herself, is pregnant with Michael's child after marrying him. However, prior to Michael's murder, Kendall actually married Enchantment's chemist, Boyd Larraby, who masqueraded under Michael's identity so Kendall could fake a wedding to Michael. A skeptical Greenlee begins investigating her friend while Erica berates her daughter. Bianca, however, stands by her sister, as does a newly returned Ryan, who helps keep the secret. Kendall explains to Bianca that she is helping her and her baby partly because she sees herself in Bianca's baby since Kendall was conceived in rape herself. The sisters become close again.
Kendall is charged with Michael's murder. Jackson, David, Maggie, Ryan, and Lena help Kendall and Bianca with their ruse and, while Erica works to help Kendall as well, Bianca and Kendall keep their mother unaware of the truth. Kendall is put on trial for murder and begins wearing padding underneath her clothes to keep up the ruse. Not understanding the level of trust Ryan has in Kendall and frustrated everyone is protecting Kendall, Greenlee reveals the fake pregnancy by ripping the dress off a testifying Kendall. Kendall is forced to reveal that she had faked her pregnancy to protect Bianca, who has killed Michael, though Bianca doesn't remember. Working to protect her daughters throughout the trial, Erica lashes out at Kendall and Bianca for keeping the truth from her. However, upon learning the reasons behind Kendall's actions, Erica becomes close to her eldest daughter again and their relationship stays strong but Kendall's budding friendship with Greenlee is shattered, earning Greenlee the wrath and disgust of the entire town.
Kendall begins dating Ryan again, who suggests that she forgive Greenlee. Kendall refuses and uses the controlling interest of Fusion she had inherited after Michael's death to treat her former friend unfairly. To even the playing field, Ryan gives Greenlee the shares of Cambias he has inherited from the deceased Alexander Cambias. He proposes to Greenlee to help her out at Fusion but when an infuriated Kendall learns of this, she locks her nemesis in a room to stop the marriage. Kendall attempts to marry Ryan herself, but he chooses Greenlee after realizing what Kendall has done.
To help Kendall be on equal footing at Fusion with Greenlee, Zach Slater offers to marry her and give her his shares of Cambias Industries. Over time, Zach and Kendall's relationship turns into deep romantic love and Kendall's friendship with Greenlee heals. The two become so close that they consider themselves "sisters".
Kendall's first son, Spike Lavery, is born on May 31, 2006. He was originally conceived to be Greenlee's biological child, carried by surrogate mother Kendall. However, a power outage caused by Zach forces Kendall to use her own egg during the artificial insemination. She is almost killed when JR Chandler accidentally drops construction supplies on Kendall and her unborn son. Zach comes to consider Spike as his own son, though Kendall shares custody with Ryan and his wife Annie Lavery at the time. Kendall conceives her second son, Ian, with Zach during their second marriage in February 2007 while the "Satin Slayer" terrorized Pine Valley. Ian is born severely premature but survives.
In early 2009, Kendall is rendered comatose. Her half brother Josh then suffers a fatal gunshot wound. Devastated by the loss of her son and potentially losing her eldest daughter, Erica consents to transplanting Josh's heart inside Kendall to save Kendall's life.
