by Bella Scott
Thorns
By Bella Scott
Published by Scarlet Lantern Publishing
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
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Chapter One
No matter how many times Luke had imagined this, he hadn’t actually believed it would happen. He’d pictured thousands of ways he and Rose could be reunited, but with each text, email, and voicemail she’d ignored, he’d found a little more of his hope slipping away like sand through his fingers. He’d wanted her back in his life with every fiber of his being, but she’d seemed determined not to allow that to happen.
Yet here she stood, rain-drenched and trembling on his doorstep. He would’ve called it a miracle if he couldn’t see the pain in her beautiful blue eyes. Her long-sleeved white shirt clung to her slim body, and he refused to allow himself to look below her face for more than an instant. He wanted to take in all of her, to soak up her presence, but it wasn’t the time. The fall air would’ve been cold enough without the rain, and he could see her shivering.
“Come in,” he said quickly, reaching out to rest a hand on her arm and guide her inside before closing the door. Rainwater dripped from her clothing onto the polished hardwood floor of the foyer.
In the silence that filled the air between them, he simply looked at her. Rose Mercer, the woman he’d loved for longer than he could recall. The one he’d had and lost. Her long, wet strawberry-blond hair clung to her pale cheeks, and her wide eyes held a hint of panic, as though she thought he might send her out into the night again.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said, her voice so quiet he was almost certain he’d imagined it.
“What do you mean?”
Rose opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her eyes filled with tears.
I’m not going to push her, thought Luke, shaking his head. He laid his hand on her shoulder and guided her toward the lounge.
“Let’s get you warm,” he said, “and then we can discuss anything you want.”
Rose nodded and followed, and he led her down the hall and into the first door they reached. The right wall was dominated by a bar and the leather-upholstered stools that lined it, and in front of them was a fireplace nearly tall enough for someone to step into. A pair of green armchairs sat beside the fireplace, and Luke led Rose to the black leather couch to the left of them. He pulled a plush white blanket from its back, and when Rose sat, he draped the blanket around her shoulders.
At the sight of her there, sitting in the same spot where they had spent part of their last weekend together, Luke’s palms tingled, and a twinge of excitement shot through him.
***
Four Years Earlier
He watched her over the rim of his glass. He took in the way the corners of her eyes wrinkled just slightly when she smiled and the plumpness of her lips, which were that perfect shade of crimson he’d come to love so much on her. His sister Lenore was staying with a friend and his parents were out of town, and he hadn’t wanted to waste a perfectly good spring break that he could spend with his fiancée. He’d invited her over for a few well-earned days alone together.
Luke leaned over to set his wineglass on the table in front of the couch, and then he laid his hand on Rose’s cheek, his thumb trailing lightly over her skin as he fixed his eyes on hers.
“As fascinated as I am to hear about how bad your classmates’ speeches were,” he breathed, shifting closer and sliding his free hand down her side to rest on her waist, “and I am, don’t get me wrong… why don’t we come back to it? I’d rather focus on you, right now.”
He leaned close to let his lips just barely brush against hers, and he felt her shiver in his arms.
“You have my complete attention,” Rose said softly. She kissed him, the gesture tender at first. Luke’s grip tightened on her waist. He tilted his head slightly to deepen the kiss as he began to allow himself to release more of the passion he’d been restraining since her arrival.
Slowly, as their kisses became more desperate, Luke shifted their positions, laying Rose down gently on the couch and positioning himself on top of her as he began to nip and tug at her lips.
“Should we—go—to your room?” asked Rose breathlessly, her hands twisting into Luke’s hair.
He pulled back just slightly to take in the sight of her face. Her pale cheeks were flushed, her desire unhidden in her eyes. Luke grinned.
“No,” he said, running his hands along her waist slowly and resting them on her hips. “For now, the house is ours. Let’s stay here.”
Rose smiled, and Luke leaned in to capture her lips once again.
***
Now
He swallowed. “I’ll be right back,” he said, mentally cursing himself when his voice came out strained. Before she could respond, he flipped the switch set into the wall beside the fireplace to ignite it and then turned away and went into the kitchen.
Over the past four years, Luke had worked to persuade himself that he was better off for having lost Rose Mercer. He’d loved her more than life itself, but she’d handed him back his engagement ring in the pouring rain outside his favorite bar and left him there to wonder what he could’ve done to deserve this. He’d tried for months to get her back, but she’d wanted nothing to do with him. Why was now any different? Why had she come to him in the middle of the night, drenched and shaking? Was he suddenly good enough for her?
As he microwaved a mug of water and dumped in a packet of hot cocoa mix, he allowed himself a cynical laugh at the thought. Luke LeBlanc had been raised to believe he was more than good enough—as the son of a prominent senator, he’d grown up wealthy and had never run into trouble when it came to getting people to like him. But when it came to relationships, things were different. He’d dated before Rose, but she was the only woman he had ever really loved.
And she’d broken him.
He stirred the cocoa quickly and left the dirty spoon in the sink, and then he made his way back to the lounge. She was still sitting on the couch, shivering beneath her blanket, and she thanked him quietly when he passed her the drink. He sat down beside her, saying nothing for a long while and hoping she would be the one to break the silence. Eventually, though, it became too much to bear.
“It’s nice to see you again,” he said softly.
Her hand twitched, and for a moment, it appeared as though she planned to reach for him, but she then tightened her grip on the mug as she sighed.
“I couldn’t keep lying to myself,” she said. “Or to you. None of it was fair to you, and you deserve to know the whole truth. When you do… well, feel free to send me back out into the rain, and I’ll understand. But I can’t keep living like this.”
“Rose, what are you talking about?” Luke frowned, watching her carefully. With each word she spoke,
she seemed to be holding back a thousand more.
“I mean with Alex.”
Luke’s jaw tightened. He hadn’t expected the name of the man who’d once been his best friend to enter the air so soon. Rose seemed to sense this, as she hurried onward.
“Because I don’t love him.”
Luke’s pulse had begun to accelerate, and he allowed himself a moment’s pause before questioning her. He couldn’t appear too eager for a particular answer—he’d nearly come to accept things as they were, and he couldn’t allow the walls he’d put in place to shield himself from this particular brand of pain to fall too quickly. “You don’t?”
“No. I thought I did, but… Luke, I never stopped loving you.”
For a long moment, he expected to wake up and find that this entire experience had been a strange, beautiful dream, like the ones he’d had before in which she’d said the same words. But the scene in front of him showed no sign of changing, and the room and the couch and the fire’s warmth and her warmth were no closer to fading.
“Then why did you leave?” he asked. He wondered after he’d spoken whether the question was too direct, but he couldn’t rescind it, and regardless, he needed to understand.
Rose stared at the mug in her hand, and her shoulders lifted and fell with a deep breath. “I was pregnant.”
Luke opened his mouth, but no words would form. His throat was suddenly dry.
“I was going to tell you,” Rose went on quickly, “but I didn’t know how. I was so scared, Luke. After what my parents did to Morgan, I didn’t know what to do.”
Luke remembered that Rose’s sister had gotten pregnant in high school and had had to move in with her boyfriend’s family—the Mercers had been too embarrassed to keep her under their roof. But Rose had been in college when that had happened and when she’d left Luke; they had both been less than a semester away from graduation. What could her parents have done to her at that point?
“I’d been trying to figure out how to tell you for a week, since I’d found out. But after that night at the bar, I—” She paused, closing her eyes.
The night in question attempted to flood Luke’s mind, but he shut it out. He refused to think about it right now, when he could almost convince himself that the damage it had caused would be undone.
After a moment had passed, Rose opened her eyes, and the first tear slipped down her cheek. “I was completely terrified,” she said. “I couldn’t handle what my life was turning into, and I needed to get away and clear my head for a while. I didn’t think I would stay gone, Luke. And I didn’t know if you wanted to be a father yet, and I… well, before I managed to convince myself to tell anyone at all, I… I lost the baby. And I was alone with that, with knowing that I’d failed at something as simple as keeping that child alive when I should’ve been able to. I’d failed them, and I’d failed you, too. And I didn’t know how to tell you that—to tell you that I wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t handle that every time I saw you in the hallway or your name came up on my phone, I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to know that I was dying inside, but it was so selfish of me to think about sharing that pain when you were already going through so much. I thought it would hurt you less to stay away. That might’ve been stupid and I—I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry for what I put you through. I never wanted to hurt you, and I had to go and wreck everything, and—”
As she spoke, her tears began in earnest, and by the time she’d lost the ability to continue, her trembling had begun once again. Luke listened to every word, every crack in her voice, and as the pieces clicked into place, he felt as though one enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulders only to be replaced by another. He’d lost a child he hadn’t known existed. He’d almost been a father. He could’ve had a son or a daughter with the woman he’d loved more than anything else in the world.
His chest ached, and the pain worked its way up his throat. He reached out to shift the mug gently from her hand to the table and pulled her into his arms. She rested her head against his shoulder as she wept.
Minutes passed slowly as he stroked her hair and she clung to his shirt. He felt her warmth against him, felt the curves of her body pressed to him, and the familiarity of having her so close sent a shiver through him that he couldn’t stop. His anger wasn’t completely gone; he didn’t believe that her pregnancy was the only reason she’d been scared enough to leave him. What had happened at the bar had certainly played a part in it, though he wasn’t about to press that angle at the moment.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he breathed. “You did not fail, and there was nothing you could’ve done to prevent what happened to the baby.” He tightened his arms around her and pressed a kiss to her hair, breathing in as he did so the combination of vanilla and cinnamon he’d come to associate with her.
“I don’t love him, Luke. I think I was trying to—trying to get back what I had with you. That was impossible. I could never feel for anyone else the way I feel about you.”
Luke stared into the slowly dying fire as his hand unconsciously resumed the stroking of Rose’s hair. He’d lost one chance at having her, and part of him didn’t want to allow that chance to slip away again.
But another part of him wanted to laugh. To close the door on this chapter of his life and the pain it had already caused him. She could hurt him like no one else could, and he wasn’t convinced that she wouldn’t do so a second time. How could he trust her not to run? If he got too attached—if he let himself love her again—losing her twice might kill him.
“I need some time,” he said quietly. “I need to think.”
She nodded, wiping the moisture from her cheeks. “I understand. I’m so sorry to dump all this on you at once. When I left him, I didn’t know where else to go. I’m planning to stay at my sister’s, but she lives in Missouri, and I can’t exactly get there before—”
“You can stay here tonight,” he said. “We’ll talk more in the morning, and we’ll go from there. We’ll… figure something out.”
Maybe he could keep her nearby long enough to determine whether she really planned on staying, this time.
Chapter Two
When Rose had left the apartment she shared with Alex, she’d left most of her things behind. She’d been too distraught to be practical, and she’d only packed one suitcase. When she had reached Luke’s home, she hadn’t even had the presence of mind to remember that she’d left that suitcase in the trunk of her car. Now, as he led her up the stairs, she told herself she would retrieve her belongings the next morning. Facing the rain again was the last thing she wanted to do.
She let her fingertips graze the oaken railing as she followed Luke to the second floor, and when he led her to the room where she’d spent countless nights with him when his parents had been away, her heart jumped into her throat.
Luke opened the door, and at the sight of the room beyond it, Rose’s heart sank. The silver sheets had been replaced by bedding of a more neutral tan, and none of Luke’s high school hockey trophies remained on the shelves. Instead, landscape paintings covered the walls—a beach at sunset here, a lush forest there.
“It’s a guest room now?” Rose asked before she could stop herself.
“I don’t know how much you’ve been keeping up with the news, but Mom and Dad moved to Washington full-time. The house is mine, now. So is the master bedroom.”
Rose’s pulse quickened at the thought. Naturally the first time they truly had the house to themselves, there was far too much distance between them for that to matter.
It’s your own fault, she told herself, staring at the wide brushstrokes of the beach painting above the pale wooden dresser. You never should’ve left in the first place.
“That’s great,” she said at last as she returned her focus to his face. His hair was a very light blond, missing the reddish tints of her own, and it was combed back and to the side. His chin was pointed and covered with a fine layer of stubble, his jawline sharp enough that she’d always be
en half-convinced he’d been sculpted from marble. No face should be so handsome. His pensive green eyes were fixed on her, and it took her a moment to regain her bearings enough to continue speaking. “I’m glad your mom’s kept her Senate seat and that you get the place to yourself.”
Luke shrugged stiffly. “I guess it’s alright.”
Rose studied him. He’d seemed startled to see her when she’d arrived, but he’d held her while she’d released four years’ worth of tears on his couch. Now, his expression was guarded again, like he wanted to pretend he hadn’t let her open up to him and opened up to her in return only a few minutes earlier. She knew she deserved this determination to keep her at a distance. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d caused him anything but pain, and she hated herself for it. But still, she couldn’t stand that his walls had gone up once more, shutting her out.
“Thank you for letting me stay,” she said quietly, fidgeting on her feet. “I think I’ll turn in, if that’s okay with you.”
He nodded. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Without another word, he stepped back out into the hallway and closed the door behind him. Rose let a few seconds pass and then leaned against the wall with a heavy sigh, her palms pressed to her face.
How was she going to tell him? She’d had enough of a hard time believing the truth herself. When she’d seen the second line form on the pregnancy test, she’d sat in a heap on the bathroom floor for hours before she’d managed to pull herself together enough to start packing her suitcase. She’d thought she’d loved Alex, but at the idea of raising a family with him, she’d been absolutely crushed. The only one she’d been able to think about was Luke. The one who’d held her while she’d cried until she’d run out of tears the night her parents had kicked her sister out of their house. The one who’d asked her to marry him, who had planned to spend his life with her before she’d thrown it all away.