“Burn it,” I say to no one in particular.
Harry glances at me, and then nods. I stand on the far side of the fence and watch the garden burn away to nothing. The heat of the blaze dries the tears on my cheeks. Its warmth sends a whisper of a feeling into my numbness.
Then, I walk back to the cottage. I shower, pack my bags, and drag them up to the castle. Before I leave, though, there’s one last thing I need to do.
32
GABRIEL
I FEEL HUNGOVER, but I haven’t had anything to drink. I have a skull-splitting headache and a persistent churning in my gut. Charlie and Damon come to the hospital. They say things to me, telling me Flora will be fine, but I hear nothing.
All I do is relive the past twenty-four hours, feeding off my pain.
I was right to snap. Jolie deserved it. She should never have brought the book to Westhill. She shouldn’t have been reading it at all.
She’s just like Paulette. Like every woman.
She was wrong, wrong, wrong.
I say it to myself again and again, as if it’ll help me believe it. I try to convince myself that my reaction was correct, that I was justified.
That I’m not an animal.
I do Cirque du Soleil-worthy mental contortions, telling myself that I’m right. I’ve always been right. My only mistake was trusting Jolie.
All the while, Flora lays in a hospital bed.
I SPEND two weeks like that, floating somewhere between life and death. Flora is strong, and the doctors are confident about her recovery.
I’m not strong, though. I’m weak. Damaged. Broken.
Charlie drags me back to Farcliff Castle every couple of days to sleep and eat. I’m not sure I’d need it—I’m fairly certain I can survive off of pain alone.
Insomnia sits on my chest like a laughing hyena, snarling its teeth at me whenever I get too close to sleep, so I just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling.
I eat a couple of bites of something as Charlie and Damon watch me. Then, I go back to the hospital.
On the morning of the fifteenth day in Farcliff, Flora wakes up looking rosier than before. She smiles at me, reaching her hand out to me. Her palm feels so tiny and frail in mine, but her voice is strong.
“Are you okay, Daddy?”
I chuckle. “I’m fine, kiddo. You’re the one I’m worried about.”
“You shouldn’t be worried,” she says.
My daughter reaches for the side table, where her bag rests. I hand it over to her, and Flora digs through it. When she finds what she’s looking for, her face brightens.
“See?” Flora opens her palm to reveal her good luck rock. “I knew I’d be okay.”
“Is that my rock?”
“I had Mrs. Grey take it from your desk,” Flora smiles. “I knew if I brought it with me, I’d be okay.”
I chuckle, kissing my daughter’s forehead. The tension in my chest eases the tiniest bit, and I lean my forehead against my daughter’s arm. She pats my head.
“It’s okay, Daddy.”
I squeeze her hand and nod, but I’m not sure I believe her.
THE DOCTORS URGE us to stay in Farcliff for a little while—at least until Flora is fully healed. I reluctantly agree. We spend two months there while Flora recovers.
I, on the other hand, don’t recover.
My heart has a hole in it the size of Farcliff. Jo’s essence is etched into my bones, and I see her face every time I close my eyes. I think of her all day, every day.
I miss her.
As pathetic as it is, I miss everything about her. I miss smelling her skin, and touching her hair. I miss the face she makes when she comes. I miss her laugh, and the softness in her eyes.
I miss her kindness, and how she made me a better person.
I miss her even though she betrayed me by bringing that book into my home. She wanted to read those lies about me—she was just as fascinated by my downfall as the rest of Farcliff.
My mind tears itself to pieces, one painful strip of flesh at a time.
One voice in my head tells me that I’m wrong—that she cared about me just as much as I cared about her. She told me she was writing a children’s book and she told me about the agent. She never lied to me. Not once.
The other voice—the louder one—tells me to burn. Kill. Destroy. Spread salt in the earth of my heart and make sure nothing ever grows there again. Shatter my love for Jolie into a million pieces and let the wind carry the shards to the end of the earth.
Even Flora’s smile doesn’t cheer me. Even when the flush returns to her cheeks, and when her laugh grows stronger while she heals.
I still miss Jolie.
I TAKE my daughter back to Westhill at the end of September. The weather is starting to turn, and both of us are happy to be home. Even though Flora’s eyes were bright with the sights and sounds of the big city, I can tell she’s glad to be back in Westhill. She sleeps longer and smiles more. She takes deeper breaths.
I try my best to survive, but the first time I see the remnants of the rose garden, the last piece of my heart dies. There’s a big, charred patch of ground in the middle of the fenced area. The rest of the earth has been cleared. Not a single rose bush remains.
For the first time since I left, I realize that I was wrong. Completely, utterly, irredeemably wrong.
Jolie brought the book to Westhill, sure, but I was the one who ruined everything.
Me.
What’s a book, anyway? A collection of words. A few hundred thousand letters, arranged in a particular order. The only power those letters have is the power we give them—and I gave that book all of my power. I let Paulette’s words be the key to my anger. I let her lord it over me, years after they were written.
Pushing the Royal Rose Garden gate open, I bend over to take the ashy soil into my fingers. I let the earth run between them, swirling around my legs in the wind.
It’s gone, and it’s all my fault. It’ll take years to plant a garden like the one that was here before.
Jolie is gone, too, and that’s my fault as well. As I survey the rose garden, I know that it won’t take years for me to find another Jolie. It won’t take a lifetime. It won’t even take an eternity.
It’ll never happen. There’s only one of her, and one of me—and I killed what we had.
Kicking my feet in the dirt, I turn away from the rose garden and make my way up to my studio. I know what I’ll draw when I get there. It’s the only thing I’ve drawn for the past five months, ever since that day at the beginning of May, when my new rose gardener walked through the front gate.
I’ll draw the face that’s burned forever into my memory. The smile that makes my heart break every time I think about it. The body that still makes me wake up with a cock as hard as steel.
Jolie. Jolie. Jolie.
33
JO
WITH MY ADVANCE from the publisher, I’m able to rent a small two-bedroomed house in Grimdale. Apparently, it’s across the road from the house where Queen Elle lived when she met the King. Rumor has it, the King walked through the yard of my new home when he was looking for her.
Good for him, and his fucking happily-ever-after.
I’m not bitter, I swear.
I do my best not to look at the house across the street, and try my hardest to forget about the royal family.
My parents move out of the tiny apartment they were in and stay with me. When I tell my parents about the rose garden, the heartbreak on my father’s face mirrors my own.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
My mother shakes her head. “It’s not your fault. We shouldn’t have sent you there.”
Then, I tell them I’m carrying the Prince’s baby, and their shoulders droop even further. I chuckle bitterly, shaking my head. I don’t know what else to say.
Apparently, the Prince spends a few months in Farcliff, but I never see him or hear from him. I tell myself it’s for the best.
I mostly just struggle to
write through my nausea and bone-crushing tiredness. When I hit my thirteenth week of pregnancy, I wake up refreshed for the first time in months. My father gets back from his latest appointment with the oncologist, and he tells me he’s officially in remission.
My face rearranges itself into a smile, and my muscles ache from the effort. I haven’t smiled in a long time.
“Let’s garden,” Dad says, rubbing his hands together. “I want to stick my fingers in some dirt and make something grow.”
I laugh, nodding. “Okay.”
Over the next few weeks, we build a compost bin together, deadhead some flowers, and water some of the plants that were already growing in the run-down yard. We plant a small veggie garden with some cold-weather crops. Color returns to my father’s cheeks—and to my own—and we both work on the garden as our bodies heal.
Him, from his cancer. Me, from my heartbreak.
In the afternoons, I write. I send off the first draft of my manuscript to the publisher, and start the second book the next day.
I still think of Gabriel all the time. I still miss his touch, and his words, his beautiful, broken soul.
Love is a wild animal—it can’t be tamed. Even though I know I can’t be with Gabriel, I still love him as fiercely as I did in the rose garden. Heartbreak is a gash in the heart that never heals. It doesn’t cauterize. Contrary to what everyone says, the pain doesn’t dull. You just get used to it.
I carry my heartbreak everywhere, just as I carry my child. They both simultaneously make me stronger and weaker than I was before.
After endless rounds of edits with half a dozen editors, the release date of my book is finally set. Jeremy smiles constantly whenever I see him. I try to match his excitement, but I can’t. It’s not his fault. It’s just that the brightness of the world has been dimmed. The volume is turned down low. True happiness is just out of reach.
It’s not until my baby moves for the first time that something shifts inside me. I’m outside, with my father, checking on our crops. I pause, hand on stomach, my eyes wide.
My baby moves against my hand, as if it knows I’m there.
I’m listening. I’m feeling—and a part of my heart stitches itself back together.
My eyes mist up, and a lump forms in my throat. I may be heartbroken over Gabriel. I may have led to the destruction of the rose garden at Westhill. I may be living with my parents, pregnant and partner-less, but I’m not doomed.
This whole time, I’ve felt like I’ve failed. I failed to keep the garden safe. I failed to make my way in New York. I failed to maintain my relationship with the Prince.
But when my baby moves, I realize that none of that is true. I’m not a failure. I can’t be, because I have a child who depends on me. Failure might have been my modus operandi a few months ago, but it’s not even an option now. I won’t let myself give up on the baby, or on my family, or on my writing.
A laugh bubbles up from my lips as I stand in the garden. My father glances up at me, frowning.
“Never mind,” I say, shaking my head. How could I explain that I’ve just had an earth-shattering realization? How can I tell him that I know, now, that I don’t need the Prince?
I don’t need his heart. I don’t need his bewitching smile or his shattered soul.
I just need my baby. My love. My writing.
I may never be complete without Gabriel, but it doesn’t mean I have to live wounded and crippled. I can still succeed.
My mother appears in the doorway, lifting up a package. “It’s for you, Jolie. Feels heavy.”
I make my way to the house, and rip open a package to find a little bundle of books—my books. I smile wider, taking the novels in my hand and flicking through them.
My words, printed and bound. My mother hugs me, and a tear slides down my cheek. I take one of the novels, lifting it up to my nose. It smells like paper and glue—like love and inspiration and ideas all in one.
Taking one of the books, I head to my room and sit down on my bed, grabbing a pen.
I hesitate, my hand hovering over the page. Then, I take a deep breath and write what’s in my heart—for Flora. The pen trembles, but I need to put it in writing. Maybe, a small part of me wants Gabriel to read this and see the meaning in the words.
The next day, I go to the post office and address the package to Sam. I write her a letter telling her how much I miss her jokes and her late-night dessert runs to the kitchen. I ask her to give the book to Flora, and beg her not to tell anyone.
Then, I post the package and let out a sigh. In a way, it feels like writing the final chapter.
I still care about Flora, and about her father, but I know that fixing him isn’t my responsibility. My heart will always be broken, and I know that my days in Westhill will stick in my mind like peanut butter on the roof of my mouth. I’ll always taste the memories on my tongue, no matter how much I try to get rid of them.
When I post that book to Flora, though, I accept the finality of it. I run my hand over my stomach and feel a wave of strength come over me that I’ve never felt before. I won’t break. I won’t crumble. I won’t fail.
I won’t burn like the mound of uprooted roses in Westhill.
I’ll live, and I’ll love, and I’ll thrive.
34
GABRIEL
I WORK up the courage to look for Jo only once in the six months that follow the destruction of the rose garden.
Flora and I go back to Farcliff for the holidays. For the first time in my daughter’s life, we’re surrounded by family for Christmas. To my surprise, I don’t hate it.
We’re in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, when shops are mostly shut and there’s a weird lull in everyone’s lives. The chaos of gift-giving is over, and the whole city groans with a collective holiday hangover.
I can sense Jo’s presence like a drug in the air. In Westhill, I could ignore her absence. In the city, though, I know she’s near enough to see. To smell. To touch.
Like an addict, I can’t resist.
It’s not difficult to find out where she lives. I wait until the palace is quiet, and Flora is in bed, and I take one of the dark-tinted royal cars out to Grimdale.
My mouth is dry when I pull up outside of her house. Jolie’s house is brightly lit. I stop my car on the opposite side of the street, trying to work up the courage to walk up to the door and knock.
I shouldn’t be hesitating. I’m royalty. I’m the third Prince of Farcliff. My family own this land and everyone who walks on it bends the knee to us.
Still, I hesitate. I watch the house like a starving dog, looking for any glimpse that I might get the sustenance I need to survive. That I might see her. Smell her. Touch her.
A van pulls up outside her house, and people pour out of it—people I recognize. There’s the red-headed maid from Westhill, and that fucking tall, GQ-model gardener that wouldn’t keep his eyes off Jolie. There are two other garden hands, and even Mrs. Grey appears. They’re all carrying presents.
The maid has a balloon—baby blue, with the words ‘congratulations’ written on it. Everyone is smiling. The red-head sprints up to the front door and mashes her finger on the doorbell. My mouth is so close to the car window that my breath fogs it up. I wipe it away hastily, my eyes still glued on the little group.
Behind them, I can see the door open.
I sense her.
Jolie.
So close. So, so far.
I see her arms. Did you know that when you love someone, you recognize their arms? Those arms wrap each of the guests in a hug—even fucking Harry the GQ gardener. When her arms wrap around his neck, hot jealousy spears my stomach. I sink my fingers into the seat of the car to stop myself from launching at him and tearing his head off.
Jolie has her back to me now, ushering everyone through the door. I can hear the laughter and exclamations from them, and my loneliness crushes me from the inside.
Jolie’s hand is on her lower back, rubbing it gently as if
it’s sore. I frown. Is she okay? Maybe I should send a doctor over.
At the very last moment before the door closes, I see Jolie’s profile.
More specifically, I see her stomach.
It bulges out slightly, and she lets her hand drift over it protectively. My mouth goes dry and my heart starts beating wildly. Jolie smiles, glancing once more through the door.
It closes, and I let out a strangled gasp.
The balloon, the presents, the party.
Is she…
...pregnant?
So soon? Did it take her no time at all for her to move on? Not only move on, but get knocked up by someone else?
Hot, angry blood starts pumping through my body. I count the months on my fingers, confused. Could it be…?
No, I decide. It couldn’t be mine. We were hooking up in, what, June? She doesn’t look six months pregnant…
But what do I know what a six-month pregnant woman looks like?
I open the car door, flinging myself towards her house. My feet carry me all the way to the stoop…
…and then I stop.
It’s not mine. She would have told me. She would have called, or sent a letter, or done something to let me know. It can’t be mine.
My mouth sours. If it’s not mine, then it’s even worse—it’s someone else’s. Another man had his cock inside her. Had his cum inside her. Another man tasted Jolie’s lips, her skin, her cunt. Another man wrapped his arms around her.
My body is vibrating with rage, and hurt, and confusion. I stand in front of her door, willing myself to knock. To find out the truth.
To see her. Smell her. Touch her.
Maybe it’s cowardice that makes me turn away. Maybe it’s pride. Maybe it’s jealousy.
Whatever it is, it forces me back into my car. It compels me to drive away, even though the last piece of my dead heart stays lying on Jolie’s front stoop.
I go back to Farcliff Castle and endure the rest of the holidays until I can hole myself back up in Westhill for the rest of eternity.
Cruel Prince: An Accidental Pregnancy Romance (Royally Unexpected Book 3) Page 19