I follow Harry down the street into Westhill, frowning when he stops outside the community garden. Parking outside the council chambers, I get out of the car and follow him.
“So, how much do I prune them? Right. Okay. Yeah. I’ll send you a picture of the first one, and you tell me if it’s all right.” Harry says. “Okay, bye, Jo.”
The sound of her name makes my pulse thump. I can’t even hear my footsteps over the sound of the blood rushing in my ears. All I know is that fucking Harry was on the phone with the woman I love, and it’s time for him to lose an arm or two.
I stomp into the community garden, ready to raise hell. Ready to kill. Destroy. Ruin.
Except I can’t, because the gardener is bending over a rose bush, carefully pruning its branches. He takes a photo and sends it to Jo, just like he said he would. My eyes widen, sweeping across the side of the community garden.
The rose bushes. My rose bushes. Jolie and Marcel and Violet’s rose bushes. They’re here, bare and unpruned, devoid of leaves and flowers…
…but they’re here.
They didn’t die. Jolie didn’t let them perish. She saved them.
A noise escapes my lips, as if a hand squeezes all the air out of my lungs. It’s halfway between a wheeze and a grunt, and it makes Harry turn his head.
“Oh, Your Highness,” he stammers. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“What are you doing?”
Harry stares at me, his eyes flashing dangerously. It only lasts a second, though, and then the man inclines his head. “I’m pruning the roses, Your Highness.”
“The roses… The royal roses?” My voice is low. Menacing. Dangerous.
Harry nods. He straightens his shoulders. “We brought them here after…”
His voice trails off.
“…after I ruined them.” I don’t even know why I’m angry. I should be elated. I should be happy that Jolie chose to save whichever plants that she could, instead of letting them die.
Doesn’t that mean she’d want to save whatever she could of us, too? Doesn’t that mean there’s hope? That I have a chance?
But instead of hope and happiness, my mind chooses anger—always anger. It rips through me, and I welcome it with open arms.
“Did you fuck her?” My voice is black.
Harry’s eyebrows arch. “Excuse me?”
“Jolie. Did you put your cock anywhere near her?”
“What if I did?” He puffs his chest out, his eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.
It doesn’t matter that I’m a Prince, and he’s a groundskeeper. It doesn’t matter that I’m his boss, and I could ruin his life with the wave of a hand.
Right now, we’re equals. Equally angry. Equally fucked up. Equally in love with a woman who’s painfully out of reach.
Harry’s lip twitches, and he lets out a scoff. “No. Never. Even though I wanted to. Even though I tried. All she ever wanted was to make you happy—to fix you, or fuck you, I don’t know. I don’t get it—I never will. The only thing I know for sure is that you never deserved her.”
My nostrils flare. My foot scratches the dirt like a bull about to charge.
Harry doesn’t seem threatened, though. He shakes his head. “You didn’t deserve her love, or her body, or any piece of her heart that she gave you. None of it.”
He drops the pruning shears, his hands balling into fists. I watch him gulp, and every fiber of my being is screaming at me to kill, kill, kill.
Maim him. Punch him. Destroy him.
But his words hold me back. The truth of them hits me in the face, and I know I can’t hit him. If I hit him, I’m denying it—but isn’t it the awful, plain truth? I didn’t deserve her. Not then, not now—not at all.
I turn on my heels and head for the exit.
“She won’t take you back,” Harry calls out behind me. I pause, not turning my head. I hear the snap of the shears as he prunes a branch. “Not as you are, anyway—angry. Violent. Not since she had the baby.”
I start walking again, his words peppering my back like bullets. When I get to my car, a parking ticket is slipped under my windshield wiper. I tear it into pieces and let them flutter to the ground.
When I’m back in the castle, I find myself walking toward the rose garden. I frown when I see my daughter sitting in the middle of the ashy, charred circle, reading a book.
She looks up when she sees me, smiling. “Hi, Daddy.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“Reading.”
“I can see that,” I sigh, my heart easing slightly. “Why here? Why in the dirt?”
Flora’s face reddens, as if she doesn’t want to tell me. Then, she takes a deep breath and hands the book over to me. When I see the author’s name on the front cover, heat flashes through my body, from my chest outward to every extremity.
My hands shake. I try to swallow, but I can’t.
“Jolie Beaumont,” I say in a strangled voice. I flip the book open, my eyes landing on a short, handwritten note:
Flora,
I wrote this book while thinking of you. Your bravery, your smile, and your unwavering confidence.
I hope you’ll see yourself in these pages.
You’d be a wonderful big sister—just like the girl in this book. Take care of your father.
Jo
I’m trembling so hard I struggle to read. Then, I read the note over again.
Big sister.
Those words stick in my mind, and my whole body feels hot.
Big sister.
I glance at my daughter with tears in my eyes, because I know the truth. Jolie’s baby is mine—and she doesn’t want me anywhere near him.
Flora slips her hand over my arm, her big blue eyes staring up at me.
“You want to read the book? I’ve already read it twice. It’s really good.”
“Twice? When did she send it?”
Flora shrugs. “A few months ago.”
“Months?”
My daughter grins, shrugging, and then steps around me and skips away. I stare after her, speechless, and then drop my gaze to the book.
After half a page, I take my daughter’s place and sit on the charred patch of land that used to be the rose garden, and I read.
35
Jo
I didn’t know it was possible to be this tired. Thorne is a fussy baby, and he’s always keeping me awake. The only time he falls asleep is in my arms, which makes it almost impossible to do anything—including sleep myself.
Right now, though, my mother is rocking him back and forth and he’s babbling happily to his grandmother. I slink out of the room, rubbing my temples. There’s baby vomit on my shirt, and I haven’t changed my underwear in three days.
I’m not proud of my appearance—I’m just explaining what I look like when I hear a knock on the door.
Sighing, I drag myself to the front door.
I immediately regret not at least wiping the vomit off my shirt when I see Prince Gabriel standing in the doorway. Not only does he not have a single speckle of bodily fluid anywhere on his impeccable body, but he’s also clean-shaven and dressed in a tailored suit.
His eyes soften when he sees me, and his full, kissable lips part ever so gently.
I’m weak. So, so weak.
I’ve spent the better part of a year convincing myself that I was over him, that I didn’t want anything to do with him, that I was stronger without him—but as soon as I see the Prince, I know I’ve been lying to myself.
“Jolie,” he breathes. “You look beautiful.”
I bark out a laugh, and then start giggling. That’s the funniest shit I’ve heard in months. Beautiful? Beautiful?
“Okay,” I snort between chuckles. “Right. What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
The pain in his eyes shoots an arrow straight through my chest. He gulps, and I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down.
&n
bsp; “I read your book,” he says quietly.
Why does that make me nervous? I didn’t write it for him. It shouldn’t matter what he thinks—but it does.
It always matters what he thinks. Even if I try to tell myself it doesn’t.
“Yeah?” I say, sweeping my gaze over his shoulders, his jaw, then down to his hands. I close my eyes for a second, afraid that if I look at him too much, I’ll invite him in.
“It’s good.”
Opening my eyes again, I nod. “Thanks.”
The air is pregnant between us. It hangs heavy with everything we haven’t said to each other. The day he tore apart the rose garden stands between us like an impenetrable wall, and neither of us moves to tear it down.
The Prince takes a deep breath. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. “Can I meet him? Our son?”
Heat flares through my chest, all the way up to my hairline. My eyes narrow. “My son.”
“Jolie…”
“You’re violent, Gabriel. I’m a mother now. I have to think about what’s best for my baby. I can’t have him around someone who’d act the way you do. I’m sorry.”
In the second before I close the door, I see Gabriel’s face crumple. Then, I fall to my knees and cry.
36
Gabriel
For the first time… ever, probably… I don’t choose anger. I don’t fly off the handle and rip Jo’s door off her hinges. I don’t put my fist through a wall.
Instead, I get in my car and drive to Farcliff Castle. I find my brother, Damon, and I do the one thing I’ve been terrified of doing since I was a child.
I ask for help.
“I need to talk to your therapist,” I say.
“Why?’
“Because I’m fucked up, Damon, and I need to un-fuck myself so that the woman I love will love me back.”
Damon chuckles, nodding. “I know that feeling.” He walks to his desk and pulls out a business card. It’s pale green and has the name ‘Agnes Fournier’ written on it with a phone number.
“Just be warned,” Damon says. “She won’t take any of your shit.”
My hands shake when I make the call, and my stomach is in my throat when I go to her office that afternoon. She’s an old woman with a shock of white hair and bright, blue-rimmed glasses. She wears chunky jewelry and socks that don’t match. She stares at me through her big glasses, tilting her head to the side.
“What can I do for you?”
I take a deep breath, not quite sure what to say. How can I explain how fucked up I am? Where do I start? What am I even trying to fix? My problems are like one long piece of string, knotted a million times over. They’re a big ball of painful knots, sitting in my stomach, and I don’t even know where to start pulling to unravel them.
So, I don’t start at the beginning. I don’t start with the death of my mother, or my anger as a teenager, or my father being a murderer. I start in the middle—or maybe the end. I start with Jolie.
Agnes sees me every day. She challenges me on everything. I quit therapy a thousand times, and then show up a thousand more. I break down, build myself back up, break down again.
I work harder than I’ve worked in my life, and I have nothing to show for it. I look the same. I sound the same. I feel different.
Flora moves to Farcliff with me, and she’s the first one to notice a change.
“Your eyes look different, Dad,” she says to me one day, taking my cheeks in her hand. She inspects my eyes one at a time before releasing me, satisfied. “They look brighter.”
“That’s good, right?”
My daughter grins. “Yeah, it’s good.”
I’m changing. I know I am. How can I prove it to Jolie, though?
When I ask my therapist, Agnes just shakes her head. “Don’t worry about that now. Work on yourself first, and then we’ll worry about her.”
“I don’t want to wait.” I’m breathless, impatient, needy.
“You have to.”
Slowly, torturously, Agnes helps me loosen the ball of knots. It’s still there, but it’s looser. I don’t turn to anger quite so quickly. Now, there’s a pause. There’s a choice.
A lot of times, I still choose rage—but not every time.
I draw more sketches, and I force myself not to burn them.
Jo releases another book, and I devour it the day it launches. I call her a few times a week, but she never answers. I don’t blame her—I wouldn’t answer either.
It kills me, though.
By the end of June, I feel like a new man. It’s been a year since Jolie and I were laying in the wildflowers. A year since she stole my heart. A year since I knew I’d never be the same.
On a warm evening, I decide to walk down the streets of Farcliff. I’ve been doing it more and more lately, just walking by myself—well, me and a couple of bodyguards, but they stay far enough back that I sometimes forget they’re even there.
Usually, I take the same route through the bustling center district of the city. I put a hat and sunglasses on, hoping that it’ll be enough for me to go unnoticed. I stroll down the sidewalks, heading nowhere in particular. People are eating and drinking on patios, laughing together. I soak up the happiness, breathing in the scent of flower boxes and letting my heart dance in my chest.
My feet take me to the botanical gardens that wrap around part of Farcliff Lake. I make my way to the rose garden there, floating along the gravel path. I inhale the scent of late spring, of flowers, freshness, and earth, and my heart is at ease.
So, when I see a woman with a stroller, sitting beside a trellis of climbing roses, I don’t panic. I pause for a moment, staring at her.
Jolie still makes my heart flip. She still makes my mouth go dry. I rake my fingers through my hair and watch her pick the child out of the stroller and rock him in her arms. Taking a couple of steps forward, I clear my throat.
As Jolie turns her head, the sun angles across her face and makes her look like a queen among the roses.
“May I?” I ask, motioning to the bench.
She nods. I glance at the baby, noting it has bright blue eyes—my eyes. The baby waves his chubby arms at me, gurgling and smiling as he drools all over himself.
Jolie puts a protective hand over the baby’s stomach, and then stares at me. She looks deep into my eyes, reading everything that I’ve ever written in them.
“You’re not angry,” she says. It’s a statement, not a question.
I nod. “I’ve been going to therapy.”
Her eyebrows arch, and then she smiles. “I’m proud of you.”
As her smile fades, panic wells inside my chest. I need to see that smile again. I need to hear her voice again.
Say something. Do something. Make her see.
She’s air, she’s oxygen, she’s food and water and everything I need to live. My heart starts thumping, and I turn my head away to try to compose myself. Closing my eyes and inhaling the scent of the flowers, I gather my courage to say the words I still haven’t said to her.
“I’m sorry, Jolie. I was wrong to react like I did when I saw the book in your cottage. You have every right to be mad at me until the end of time, but just know that I’m trying to change. I’m going to therapy. I’m trying to be better. I am better”
I’m doing it for you. All for you. Because I love you now and forever, and I’d do anything to have you again. I love you. I love you. I love you.
The words stay stuck somewhere in my esophagus.
Jolie’s throat bobs as she swallows, and she turns her eyes to the baby. Our baby.
“Thank you,” she says. “I’m sorry I brought the book back to Westhill.” She takes a deep breath, and lifts her eyes to me. “You want to hold him?”
Holy mother of Farcliff, I think my heart just exploded. I can’t speak, I just nod. She transfers the baby into my arms, and all my organs melt. Thorne wraps his tiny little fingers around my thumb and babbles happily at me. I lean down and kiss his forehead, just brushing my lips
over his soft skin. He smells like only babies do, and I kiss his skin again.
I don’t even realize I’m crying until Jo brushes a tear away.
She smiles. “I called him Thorne. I hope you don’t mind.”
“He’s perfect.”
Jo snorts. “Maybe he’ll be perfect when he sleeps through the night.”
We sit in silence for a while, and I just stare at my son. My perfect, tiny, glorious son.
“Jo,” I whisper, my eyes still glued to Thorne’s round face.
“What?”
“I can’t let you go.” I’m still whispering, still not looking at her. “I’ll do anything. Counselling, therapy, I’ll get a lobotomy if I need to. I can’t live without you.”
Finally, I lift my eyes to hers. Her brows are drawn together, and I can see the pulse thundering in her neck.
“Gabe…”
I exhale, relishing the sound of my name on her tongue. “Don’t say no. Please, please don’t say no. I can change. I have changed. I want to be a father to our son—a husband to you, if you’ll let me. I want you in my life, in my bed, under my skin. I’ll let you rip my fingernails off with rusty pliers if it means I get to spend the day with you.”
Instead of jumping into my embrace, Jolie’s lip starts trembling. She reaches for Thorne, taking him out of my arms. My heart starts to thump violently in my chest. I’m losing her all over again. I can see it in her face that she doesn’t want me. Maybe she never wanted me. She doesn’t think I can change.
I open my mouth to say something—but I’m interrupted by the snap of a camera shutter.
37
Jo
It takes me a couple of seconds to recognize the woman cat walking up the path. Her long, sleek, black hair shines in the sunlight and a cruel smile twists her lips.
Royally Unexpected: An Accidental Pregnancy Collection Page 58