Thorns (The LeBlanc Family #1)

by Bella Scott

  She’d gotten Lenore’s text from her new number as well as several texts from Alex. Most of the calls, as she’d suspected, were also from him. Three were from her parents’ home number, and one was from her sister.

  Rose closed her eyes and laid her head against the steering wheel. What was she going to tell her family? There wasn’t a way to phrase “I left Alex and spent the night with Luke” that wasn’t going to make her sound like a terrible person. She knew she should call Alex, but she needed a few more minutes.

  As soon as I talk to him, she told herself, it’s all going to shatter. I’ve let myself be happy again for the first time in… I don’t know how long, honestly. It’s been so long since things felt right. With Alex, I thought things were fine for a while, but that’s not the life I want. For the first time in years, I feel like I’m going down the right path. I’m not ready to hear him tell me to turn around.

  Instead, she dialed her sister. She waited while the phone rang twice, and then Morgan’s familiar alto greeted her.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Rose let out an indignant breath. “Hi, Morgan. How’ve you been?”

  “We’ll catch up on all that crap later. Right now, I want to know why Alex called me in the middle of the night, freaking out. Did you really leave?”

  Rose leaned her head back against the seat and stared at the at the car’s gray roof. “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “Why? What happened? If he hurt you, I swear I’ll—”

  “No, no, he would never do anything like that.”

  “Then what? Did you have a fight?”

  “Yes and no. The fight came after I said I was leaving.”

  “So why did you?”

  Rose looked out the window and stared at the cars coming and going all around her, at the children holding their parents’ hands as they walked into the restaurant or down the sidewalk in front of it. A little blond girl tugged at her father’s arm and pointed excitedly at a dalmatian on a red leash across the street.

  “I realized I made a huge mistake,” she said. She heard Morgan inhale.

  “I could just start listing them, but that might take a while, so you might as well tell me.”

  “You do know this isn’t the best time to give me shit, right?”

  Morgan sighed. “I know. I’m sorry, I just keep expecting you to say something really bad and I’m not sure how to handle it.”

  There had been a time when Rose never would’ve imagined that she’d be calling her sister with this type of news. There had been a brief period when they hadn’t spoken through no real fault of their own; when Morgan had gotten pregnant and had been kicked out of their parents’ home, Rose had been young enough to be grounded whenever her parents had caught her trying to talk to the daughter they’d still been furious with—or they’d tried to ground her, but since she’d been in college, it had only really worked when she’d been home, so she’d started coming back less often. Rose didn’t know whether they’d actually gotten less overbearing since she’d moved out permanently or whether they’d just realized there wasn’t much they could do without her living in their house, but she’d spent her last few years in college rebuilding her relationship with her sister, and now, it was hard to imagine calling anyone else, except maybe Lenore. Given what Morgan had been through, Rose knew she was the most likely to empathize.

  “I never should’ve broken things off with Luke,” she said.

  “Luke? I don’t even remember the last time you talked about him.”

  Rose felt herself starting to blush for what had to be the tenth time over the past twenty-four hours, and she glanced on reflex back toward Luke’s office as she mentally cursed herself for it. “I was with Alex. What was I supposed to do, tell you I never stopped loving my ex?”

  A beat of silence followed. “Well, yeah, if that’s how you really feel.”

  “It is. I love him, Morgan.”

  “What about Alex?”

  Rose fidgeted in her seat. “I care about him. I really do. He’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and I don’t want to lose him, I just… I don’t love him that way anymore.”

  “Then I’d say you made the right decision.”

  A bit of the tension radiating through Rose’s body relaxed. “Thank you.”

  “But what brought it on?”

  Rose swallowed. She still didn’t know the best way to give this news—her opportunity to tell Luke had been taken away from her. Now that she had the chance to tell her sister, her throat was tight, her pulse rapid.

  “I’m pregnant.” The words still felt wrong, like her lips wanted simultaneously to reject them hard enough to spit them out and to close and trap them inside in denial.

  “I… did not see that coming.”

  “Wow. Insightful.”

  “Well obviously I’m thrilled for you.” Morgan’s pleasant tone supported her words. Rose knew her well enough by now to know when she was lying, and at the moment, she was being genuine. “It just seems like a difficult time to take on the added stress of two ridiculous men.”

  Rose laughed, and the sound cracked through more of her worries. Her sister didn’t seem to be judging her and hadn’t demanded she turn around and go back to Alex.

  “Does he know?” asked Morgan.

  “Which one?”

  “I never thought we’d have to ask that question with you, but either.”

  Rose felt her blush deepen. Her sister’s tone was teasing, but a bit of her guilt had returned with the words. Luke and Alex were the only two men she’d ever slept with. She’d waited almost a year after her engagement had ended to accept Alex’s offer to take her out for dinner, and the two of them had taken things slowly, despite the rumors that had circulated that they were dating long before that. They had been close friends, yes, and they had still hung out like nothing had changed, but the trip to the Chinese restaurant a few streets over from her parents’ home had been the first official date. She supposed she hadn’t been completely sure whether she’d been ready to pursue another relationship so soon after losing Luke, but she’d felt comfortable around Alex. It had been easy to let things progress after she’d decided she was willing to, and they had been together ever since, until now. Rose knew she should probably feel worse than she did about having sex with Luke so soon after leaving Alex, but she was finally sure of what she wanted, and she was ready to have it and to undo the damage she’d done to her relationship with Luke all those years earlier. She couldn’t lie to Alex and pretend that she felt something she didn’t.

  “Luke knows,” she said. “Which doesn’t make any sense, because I hadn’t told…” Rose’s eyes widened as she remembered where she’d left the pregnancy test: the trashcan at her apartment. She felt as though the breath had been crushed from her lungs. “Alex found the test. That’s the only way Luke could’ve found out. I didn’t think about it because I was too busy trying to explain why I hadn’t told Luke sooner, but—oh, shit.”

  Her pulse quickened, her heart beating so hard and fast against her ribs that she had to pause to take a few long, deep breaths.

  “Rose, it’s going to be okay. Take this one step at a time. When Alex called me, he sounded worried about you. I don’t think he’s going to be—”

  “He’s going to be furious,” Rose interjected with a shake of her head. “I would be.”

  “Okay, but he loves you. He’s going to want you to come back. He can’t afford to go off on you too much.”

  “What about when I tell him I have no intention of coming back?”

  Morgan paused. “Do you want me to come with you? Sam’s home today, so he can watch Noah, if you want me to be there.”

  “No, I need to talk to him alone. But thank you. I really appreciate you not telling me I’m being a complete idiot.” And you reminding me that you married your son’s dad and that everything worked out fine for you, despite what our parents thought.

  “Hey, you’ve seen me do a lo
t crazier. Maybe.”

  Rose rolled her eyes. “I love you. I have to go deal with this.”

  “I love you. Let me know what happens and if you need anything.”

  “Will do.”

  Rose hung up and tabbed over to her voicemail, and she clicked one from Alex at random.

  “Please tell me this thing I found in the trash is a bad joke. Are you actually pregnant? We need to talk about this, Rose, please. Please call back, or better yet, come home. Please.”

  By the time the message ended, his voice was so panicked that it brought tears to her eyes. She fought them back and told herself she could handle this. It wasn’t like she had another choice.

  ***

  She knocked on the white-painted front door and held her breath. She still had her apartment key on the ring with her car keys, but it didn’t feel right to barge in, given the circumstances.

  It’s going to be okay. Just be honest with him. That’s all you can do.

  When the door opened, Rose fidgeted on her feet. She’d changed out of the dress in the car for a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved pink shirt, because she was certain showing up in the short black dress without her underwear would’ve ended badly. She already felt like he was looking straight through her with those brown eyes she’d stared into for the past three years. She could still see the small cleft in his chin through his short brown beard, and she couldn’t deny that he was handsome, just as he’d always been. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and the sight of them twisted her stomach.

  “Hey,” she said lamely.

  “Hey.” The word came out hard and rough, and when Alex stepped back to give her room to enter, his movements were stiff. He’d already begun to shut her out. She knew she couldn’t begrudge him that, but it stung all the same.

  She stepped into the apartment—her apartment, until yesterday. It had been that since a year after her college graduation. After she’d returned to Chicago from Carbondale, she’d moved back in with her parents for a little while, but that had quickly proven to be a bad decision. Then she’d taken the leap with Alex, which had seemed like a far better option, at the time. She had loved him. She had wanted to try to start their life together.

  As she surveyed the familiar cream-colored furniture of the living room and the sculptures and flower arrangements full of chrysanthemums and daffodils she’d selected herself, a wave of dizziness swept over her. The apartment building had been her first real project after she’d graduated with her bachelor’s in interior design. Her firm had partnered with the one where Alex worked for architecture, and in Rose’s mind, there had been no better place to move than one they’d designed together. Alex had been delighted to watch her work, to listen to her explain every little detail about the way she’d envisioned the space.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The words slipped out before she registered exactly what she was sorry for. She’d never meant to hurt Alex or to throw away the good memories they had shared. She hated that he would be left staring at everything she’d made here, like some kind of twisted memorial. Rose sank down onto the nearest chair and dropped her head into her hands.

  “I don’t even know where to start,” said Alex as he quietly closed the door.

  “I need you to hear me when I say that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She looked up to meet his eyes, and he stood watching her hesitantly from just beside the door.

  “That doesn’t sound like you’ve changed your mind.” His tone was even. Controlled. He’d shut her out more fully than she’d realized—she knew he hated showing the extent of his emotions to anyone other than the people he trusted most, and the fact that she’d lost that trust gnawed at something within her.

  She forced herself to sound as calm as she could manage, though her voice trembled with her next words. “No, I haven’t.”

  “Then why are you here, Princess?” Alex snapped.

  The words cut deep, and Rose stared at him, her eyes narrowing. She hadn’t anticipated him turning his pet name for her into something that hit her with the force and bite of an insult.

  “Because I wanted you to know that I still care about you, Alex. That I’m not just going to run away and never talk to you again. I want you to be in this child’s life, regardless of how you may feel about me.”

  He took a step toward her and then stopped again, a frown creasing his brow. “You care about me. How nice of you.”

  Rose gripped the cushion beneath her so tightly it stung. “I can’t change the way I feel. I can’t make myself live a lie.”

  “How long has it been a lie?” Alex demanded. “Was it a lie the last time we made love? How about when we made ‘this child,’ as you’ve phrased it? Our child, Rose. My child. You’re damn right I’m going to be in his or her life.”

  She closed her eyes tightly against the tears she couldn’t stop from forming. “Yes, our child. And of course you are. I would never keep you from doing that.”

  “No, you’ll just keep me from you.”

  “Things are different, now. All of this made me realize that I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and—”

  “So I’m a mistake now.”

  “No!” Rose let out a frustrated cry as tears began to spill down her cheeks. “I don’t regret loving you, Alex. But things have changed.”

  His lips twitched. “Let me guess. Luke?”

  She couldn’t look at him any longer. She lowered her gaze to the brown-and-white-checked rug.

  “You mean to tell me that you’re actually in love with him?”

  Several seconds passed that felt more like years, and at last, Rose managed one word. “Yes.”

  “I want to hear you say it. Tell me again.”

  “I’m in love with Luke!” Rose pushed herself to her feet, her fingernails biting into her palms as her fists clenched. “I’m sorry, Alex. I really, truly am. I never meant to hurt you, and I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  She brushed past him and opened the door without processing the world around her. She vaguely heard Alex calling after her, but she didn’t turn around.

  I’m sorry, she repeated in her mind. I’m so sorry.

  Chapter Nine

  Luke tried to focus on his work for the rest of the afternoon, but he couldn’t get her out of his head. The way her dress had hugged her breasts and her hips so perfectly, the seductive way she’d walked… she was all he saw every time he closed his eyes, and it was all he could do to keep his thoughts from getting carried away. For the first time in years, though, he had the idea of going home to her to propel him through the drudgery of working on a Saturday, and he managed to leave a little over an hour early.

  He took the opportunity to make a pit stop on his drive out of the city—it was an instinct he wasn’t certain whether he should follow at first, but he told himself things were going so well that it would be fine. When he and Rose had first gotten together, she’d told him how she’d envied the women who could pull off lingerie, who were confident enough in their sexuality to own it and use it the way they wanted. Over the time they’d been together, he’d watched her grow confident in herself and her wants, and seeing her blossom from the sheltered young woman whose parents had barely allowed her to date into an absolute goddess had been an intoxicating experience. As she’d grown to realize she, too, could pull off lingerie and own her sexuality, he’d seen a side of her that no one else had ever been privy to.

  Other than Alex, now, whispered a voice at the back of his mind, but he hushed it.

  He hoped that stopping by what had been her favorite lingerie store—a small but expensive boutique downtown—on the way home and buying her something in a style he remembered she liked wouldn’t be considered overreaching. After all, his attempt to keep a bit of distance between them when he’d gone to work instead of staying at home longer had been unsuccessful. Rose had made it clear that she wanted things to progress between them. To return to the way they had been before she’d walked out of his life.

  Don’t
think about that, he ordered himself as he drove. That’s over. Everything is in the process of getting back to normal.

  Luke smiled at the sight of her white car in his driveway when he arrived. He could definitely get used to her being here, sharing his home. To waking up to her lying beside him every morning, just like she had when they’d traded off which of their apartments they would stay at back in college.

  He grabbed the lingerie bag out of the passenger seat and started up the driveway, and as he walked, the gravel crunching beneath his shoes, he found that there was a spring in his step for the first time in a long while.

  ***

  When he couldn’t find Rose anywhere on the first floor, Luke checked his bedroom only to find it empty, as well. He left the bag in the closet and then continued his search, a frown sliding onto his lips as he started down the hallway. He’d hoped that after what had happened at his office, she would feel more comfortable here than she’d seemed that morning and that she might be starting to make herself at home.

  The door to the room he’d shown her to the night before was closed. He knocked twice and listened for movement on the other side. The only thing he could hear was muffled weeping. His frown deepened.

  “Rose?” he called.

  She didn’t reply.

  Luke pulled in a deep breath and opened the door. The lights in the guest room were off, though the afternoon sun streamed through the thin curtains to bathe the room in a muted glow. Rose lay beneath a mound of tan bedding that shook each time she sniffed.

  Slowly, Luke approached the bed and sat down on its edge, studying her. Her face was partially hidden by the blankets, but from what he could see, her mascara had left trails down her cheeks, and her eyes were shut tightly.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head against the pillow and hid her face behind her hands. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Everything was going so well.”