Our Cracked Pieces (The Pieces Series Book 2)

by M. E. Clayton

  Watching him ignore me made me wonder if we were ever going to be able to get past this thing between us to be the godparents the twins deserved. I still had plans on apologizing, but I had an awful feeling it wasn’t going to go well.

  After talking with Dr. Willis on Monday, the plan had been to find Lorcan and apologize, but Mandy had called to tell me that she and Darnell were in town, visiting his stepbrother and his family, and knowing I was on vacation, we had met up for dinner, and yesterday had been spent at the spa, catching up and getting pampered. And tonight had been arranged when Darnell had mentioned wanting to see Grayson before they headed back to California. Despite the age difference, Darnell and Grayson had hung out often while we were younger because Mandy had always been over our house.

  Dinner and drinks commenced after Lorcan and his date had left, but it was taking everything I had in me not to ruin our good time. My chest felt hollow, and I was paranoid that everyone could see how fake my smiles were.

  While I wasn’t sure what Gage knew, Grayson and Mystic knew the basics. Of course, I hadn’t given details, but I had told them that we’d hooked up again, but that it had ended in a huge fight. And as expected, they had automatically jumped to my defense and had taken my side.

  The side that had been wrong.

  The side that was still wrong.

  “So, who wants to go dancing after this?” I asked, thinking dancing and drinks would help.

  Rubbing her tummy, Mystic said, “Not me. My feet have a curfew.” Gage put his arm around her, and I knew they were done for the night.

  “I’m not on vacation, Row,” Grayson chuckled. “I have to work in the morning.”

  I looked over at Mandy and Darnell, my brows raised. “What about you two?”

  Mandy shook her head. “We have a big family breakfast in the morning before we head back home,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “Okay, from now on, we start planning this shit better,” I teased.

  “You better plan it around winter break, spring break, or summer break,” Grayson teased back.

  “Well, once these babies come along, I think dinner, drinking, and dancing are all going to happen at our house,” Mystic laughed. “Good thing our place is so big.”

  From there, the conversation turned to the twins and all things babies. With Mandy and Darnell having three kids of their own, the pressure was put on me and Grayson to add to the mix. Grayson laughed it off, while all it did was make me think of Lorcan and the beautiful Korean woman he had been with.

  And, God, was she beautiful. Beautiful in the way only Korean women could be. Delicate and refined. Porcelain skin, dark hair and eyes, and a graceful figure in a knockout dress. Politely standing by his side, she probably didn’t give him attitude like I did. She was probably going to let him do whatever he wanted to do to her tonight.

  She probably didn’t have any cracks marring what a perfect person she was.

  Snapping out of my depressing thoughts, I forced myself to be present with my friends and brother. I engaged in the conversation and did all the right things. I laughed when I was supposed to. Answered questions when they were directed at me. And even promised to make it back out to California soon. Besides, Grayson and I were due to visit our parents soon, anyhow.

  Finally, calling it a night, Gage paid for dinner, but only after a dick bumping of the ages. Mystic, Mandy, and I had watched in fascination was all three men had fought to pay the bill. It had brought on a whole new meaning to men and their egos. The only reason Gage had won was because he had argued that this would be the only time he would probably be able to pick up the tab since the babies were going to keep them from traveling for a while.

  After everyone had gone their separate ways, I realized I hadn’t been that convincing because all three-Grayson, Mystic, and Mandy-had asked me if I had wanted to come over or if I needed company. While Mandy didn’t know the details about me and Lorcan because I hadn’t wanted to ruin our spa day, she’s known me since we were kids. She knew my tells.

  Having assured everyone that I was fine, I had gone home alone.

  Fresh out of the tub, I had decided on a good mystery book. I didn’t think I could handle romance, and I really needed to get out of my head for a bit, and nothing did that better than a good book.

  Throwing on a tank top and underwear only, I wrapped myself in my fluffy bathroom robe, and got settled on the couch. I turned on the television, just for some background noise, and then opened my e-reader for the latest Harlan Coben novel. Glancing at the time in the corner, it was already close to ten, and I could only hope to read myself to sleep. My couch was comfortable enough to sleep on, so no worries there.

  Four chapters in, there was a knock on my door that had me cursing my brother. It could only be him. Sure, it could be Victor, but I was betting on Grayson.

  Putting down my e-reader, I got off the couch and went to answer the door. If it was Grayson, and not Victor, I was going to have to send him on his way. I really wanted to get lost in my book, and Grayson being here would only depress me since he’d make me talk about my feelings. And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk with him, I was just tired of being depressed. It’s been four days.

  Answering the door, it wasn’t Grayson standing there, being an overprotective big brother.

  No.

  It was Lorcan Cavanaugh standing at my door, and my first thought was that something happened to Mystic or Gage.

  My panic jump front and center. “Oh, God…is Mystic okay? Gage? The babi-”

  “No, no,” Lorcan rushed out. “They’re fine. Mystic, the babies, Gage, they’re all fine. Well, as far as I know.”

  I closed my eyes and let out a deep breath. “Oh, thank God.” I shook my head and pushed back my premature panic. Opening my eyes again, they narrowed with confusion. I tightened my robe around my body. “Then…then what are you doing here? It’s past ten, for Pete’s sake.”

  His voice was cool and slightly unfriendly as he asked, “Am I interrupting something?”

  My head reared back at his tone. Then remembering his date earlier, I asked, “Did you cut your evening short for any particular reason?” His grey eyes raked over my face, and I hated how we’ve come to this. “What do you want, Lorcan?”

  “We need to talk, Rowan.”

  Chapter 36

  Lorcan~

  She looked beautiful.

  Her blonde tresses perched on top of her head, fresh-faced, wrapped up in her fuzzy robe, her feet bare, Rowan looked beautiful.

  “About what?”

  “Us,” I told her honestly. “I know I said I’d never come back here, but we can’t go on like this. Not with what Gage and Mystic have entrusted us with.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment, and I seriously didn’t think she’d let me in, but soon, she stepped back and allowed me entrance to her apartment. As she closed the door behind me, I noticed the television on and an e-reader on the coffee table near the couch.

  I’d had an entire speech planned in my head when I had made the decision to come over here, but now, looking at her, there was only one thing I wanted to know. “Was Darnell Tyson your date tonight?”

  Genuine surprise appeared on her face. “No,” she choked out. “His wife was the woman sitting in between him and Grayson. Molly Tyson. Molly’s been one of my best friends since we were kids. I’ve known her and Darnell forever.” I could feel my shoulders relax, and I felt like a fucking pussy for it. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  Her brows shot upward. “The gorgeous woman with you tonight? Her?”

  “Mrs. Kyo?” My brows furrowed. “That was a business dinner. She’s part of an engineering firm who’s looking for investors.” I blinked. “If she were my date, do you honestly think I’m so rude as to not introduce her, if she were?” Then I laughed at that. “Never mind,” I said. “You already think I’m the type of man to take advantage of a woman, so what’s a little rudeness.”
r />   “Lorcan…” she whispered, and my chest thumped with the emotion she was displaying in that one word.

  “It’s true, Rowan,” I said. “You’ve made your opinion of me pretty clear.”

  Her eyes were shiny, but I could see her blinking away the emotion. When I was sure she was going to kick me out again, she asked, “Do you want to sit down?” I nodded and made my way to the couch. “Do you want something to drink?”

  I shook my head. “No. I just want to talk, Rowan.”

  She walked over and sat down on the couch, making sure there was plenty of space between us. I watched her take a deep breath, and it appeared as if she were just as uncomfortable as I was.

  “Row-”

  “Can I tell you something?” she asked, interrupting me. “Just…do you think you can just…just sit there and listen until I’m finished?”

  I really didn’t think I could, but what choice did I have? I imagined she was going to recite all the reasons why we had to make this work, and there was going to be nothing to do but agree with her.

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long moment, but then, finally, she began to speak. “When I was eighteen my friends and I participated in senior prank week, only our prank turned out to be more than just a harmless prank. We had kind of broken the law.”

  “Lots of kids-” Remembering I promised to just listen, I broke off what I’d been about to say. “Sorry. Go on.”

  “We were tasked with taking freshmen transcripts from the Administration offices, but because those student files contained medical information and financial information, that’s what made it illegal.” She let out an unsteady breath, and her hands were tangling in her robe belt. “During our escape, I got caught up on the fence, and the security cameras that we hadn’t known where there, had notified our on-campus utility officer of the break in.” She stopped, and asked, “Is it okay if I get something to drink?” And the request for permission had surprised me.

  “Of course,” I agreed easily.

  Rowan stood up to go get something to drink, and Gage’s suspicions were crawling up my spine. If she needed something to drink and a fucking break from this story, then it couldn’t be good.

  When she sat back down, she immediately started her story again. “With us so close to graduating, us getting arrested would have been a real threat to our college plans. Off…Officer Connors had laid out the ramifications, but he had also…he had also offered a compromise.”

  “Rowan…”

  “For weeks, I let him…he….”

  “Baby-”

  She threw her palm up to shut me up. “Since I was…well-developed, he would always make sure to run his hand down my chest before…” Rowan grabbed her water and took a healthy drink. “He always ran his hand down my chest before he stuck his fingers in me.”

  It was hard to explain what that bit of information did to me. What that kind of information did to a man. Apart from the murderous rage I was feeling at the man who had hurt Rowan, unrealistic regret at not being able to help a girl I hadn’t known back then was there, too. Added to what Molly’s been through in her life, I was ready to kill.

  But first, I had to finish listening.

  “The touching wasn’t for me. In fact, it was so painful sometimes, I would bleed,” Rowan went on. “It was to get him hard quicker. And once he was ready, he’d…he’d push me to my knees and make me take care of him that way.”

  “Jesus Christ, Rowan,” I swore under my breath.

  “I thought I was protecting everyone, but when he said he planned on taking it further, before I graduated and he lost his chance, I broke down and called Grayson,” she continued. “He’d been at BU at the time, but he’d flow home and made me tell our parents. After it all came out, it had been a bit of a mess, but he’d gotten arrested and had gone to jail.” She started playing with her robe belt again. “I’d gone to counseling, and after a couple of years, I started dating again. But…but the anxiety of worrying that I might freak out if a guy touched my breasts or tried to…well, that’s when I made my sex-only decision. I didn’t want to embarrass myself if I wasn’t healed enough to enjoy everything else.”

  “Rowan-”

  “And I’m sorry, Lorcan,” she rushed out. “I’m so sorry for how I treated you and the things I said and accused you of. I really don’t believe you…I don’t think you’re like that. I never thought you were like that. I just…I have issues.”

  “Rowan, I-”

  “I just panicked,” she continued. “I panicked because you’re the first man who’s ever made me feel like I…like I wanted more. I wanted to try with you. I wanted…but what if I freaked out? Oh, my God, what would you think of me? You’re so perfect and-”

  “Okay,” I said, cutting her off. “Let me stop you right there.”

  Chapter 37

  Rowan~

  My heart was thumping inside my chest and my palms were sweating. While it had been hard to tell Lorcan the truth, it had been easier than I had anticipated. However, I still didn’t know if he was going to accept my apology, or where this would leave us, but what’s done was done.

  “Rowan, I am not perfect,” he said. “I’m far from it, in fact.”

  “I don’t believe that,” I told him truthfully.

  “I can’t imagine what you went through, and how that shaped you differently from the person you were supposed to be without that experience, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you, Rowan. While I understand you better, my feelings for you haven’t changed.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because we all have shit that happens to us that shapes us differently,” he said. “Some shit more detrimental than others, but the experiences still shift us a bit.” He leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. “Take me for instance.”

  “What about you?”

  “While I tell you what I’m about to tell you, please understand that I am not comparing our situations. Not at all. What you went through is a horror I can’t even fathom. But I want you to understand that I’m not perfect and have my own baggage.”

  “Okay.”

  “In high school, I had a girlfriend named Vanessa,” he began. “We’d been together for two years, but a couple of months from graduating, she had turned up pregnant.” Since I knew he didn’t have kids, I imagined the worse. I imagined her getting an abortion without telling him. “I found out by accident, and when I had confronted her, she admitted to being scared and confused.” He straightened and leaned back against the couch. “I made her all the promises, and I had meant them at the time. See, I had suspected her of cheating for a while, but when I found the pregnancy test, all her weird behavior had begun to make sense. She hadn’t been cheating, she had just been anxious and scared.”

  “That’s understandable, I suppose.”

  Lorcan gave me a tender smile. “It would have been had she not really been cheating on me,” he said.

  I gasped. “What?”

  “I found out she’d been having an affair with one of our teachers, and that the baby was his. He was older, and married, and Vanessa had really believed they were going to be together.”

  “Oh, God, Lorcan,” I whispered. “That’s awful.”

  He just shrugged a shoulder. “I kicked his ass, a scandal ensued, and Vanessa had gotten an abortion in hopes of getting rid of the only proof of their affair. However, my parents had hired the best lawyers around, because he’d had me arrested for assault, and they’d been able to uncover a pattern he’d had of affairs with his students. I’d been put on probation, but I had developed some serious issues where women were concerned.”

  “I suppose you would.”

  “Now, while nowhere near what you went through, the experience still shaped me in an unhealthy way,” he went on. “I had trust issues, and while I still exercised respect, I didn’t hold women in a very high regard. With the exception of my mother and sister, every other woma
n in my life has been disposable.” Those grey eyes of his narrowed thoughtfully. “Until you.”

  “Lorcan-”

  “Until. You,” he repeated. “The same way I make you want to try at something more, you make me want to be better, Rowan. I want someone I can trust enough to love. I want someone who will call me an asshole when I’m being an asshole, but still love me despite my less-than-charming personality.” He smirked. “I want to be able to fucking trust the woman I love.”

  “Christ, we’re a pair,” I muttered, and I thought back to everything Dr. Willis had said. I had assumed Lorcan had no baggage, but here we were, and entire matching set between the both of us.

  “I think I’m in love with you, Rowan,” Lorcan said smoothly, and it took a second for the words to register.

  “Uhm, I’m sorry, come again?”

  “Come here,” he said.

  Hesitant at first, I finally made my way over until I was sitting next to him, but that wasn’t good enough for Lorcan. His hands on my hips, he lifted me until I was straddling his lap. However, he made sure to keep his hands on my hips, and my heart thumped in my chest as I noticed.

  His eyes on mine, he said, “You have no idea what these past four days have been like for me, baby.”

  “I think I might,” I grumbled.

  “And maybe I’ve always loved you, because that’s the only reason I have for chasing your ass for over a year, but these past four days have been hell,” he went on to explain. “And when I thought you were out on a date with someone else…well, I’m here, aren’t I? Thinking what I was thinking, I knew I was risking showing up here to see you with another man, but I didn’t give a fuck, Rowan. I came over here ready to fight for you.”

  Since he was being honest, he deserved it back. “I was crushed when I thought your business dinner was a date,” I admitted. “It didn’t help that she was so beautiful.”

  Lorcan let out a laugh. “And you think a professional football player who had too much in common with your brother wasn’t like a kick to the chest?”