Page 29 of Claiming Charlotte

I stood quickly and retrieved the little black box that I’d hidden in my drawer when we had returned from Hawaii. The ring still sparkled just as brightly as the day I bought it, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she would ever be the same beautiful, sexy, carefree woman I had known all these years and tears pricked at my eyes.

I couldn’t give her that ring. Just looking at it brought back the memory of Charlotte tied to her father’s office chair, unconscious and bleeding, and facing the first of many times Walker would be assaulting her. No, it would have to be a different ring, and I’d get one as soon as I had the chance.

I looked up, noticing baby tendrils of steam rising from beneath the bathroom door, and my eyebrows knit together. How long has she been running that water? I thought, rising from my place on the end of the bed.

I went to the door and knocked lightly. “Charlotte?”

There was no response, but beneath the sound of running water was the unmistakable sound of pills being dumped out.

“Charlotte, open the damn door,” I said gruffly, my heart pounding against my chest. To get my point across, I slammed my fists into the door repeatedly.

I heard a sob from within, and it was the final straw. Growling, I backed away and kicked at the door, slamming all of my weight into it until it popped open with a sickening crack. Steam billowed out through the gaping hole that the door left in its wake, and I stepped inside. Through the steam, I saw the orange pill bottle tipped over and empty on the counter, and Charlotte on the floor next to the toilet with a handful of pills.

“Lottie,” I said, my tone softer. “Give me those. Please don’t do this.”

She looked at me with blank, dead eyes and smiled weakly. “I love you, Rowan,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

I briefly registered the blood running down her legs before she moved her hand to her mouth shoving the pills in.

“No!” I shouted, lunging at her. She's crazy to think she's allowed to leave me.

I pushed her down onto her stomach as she struggled to shake me off, pinning her arms behind her back, holding her captive on the cold tile. My heart lurched in my chest as she begged me to get off her. I reached around her and pried her mouth open hearing the pills fall out of her mouth and all over the floor below us.

“Damn it, Charlotte. What the fuck were you thinking? What did you take?” I growled as I swept my finger through her mouth to get every last pill out.

Using my forearm, I swiped the pills away from her as she sobbed on the floor, covering her face.

Relief washed over me and I sat next to her pulling her into my arms. Her head laid on my chest and I stroked her hair as she sobbed.

“I can’t get it off, Rowan,” she whispered. Her whole body seemed to deflate. “It won’t come off.”

I remembered hearing her first scream, and I wondered if that had been when they branded her. She had been bleeding for a few days, and that didn’t bother me. What did was the main source of the blood that was mingling with the sticky steam and spreading ominously across the floor. She must have been scrubbing at her wound, causing the area to become irritated and bloody.

“Charlotte, I’m sorry,” I replied softly, peeking discreetly at her thigh to determine how bad the bleeding was, but it was fine. That was not where the blood was coming from.

“Come here,” I said, standing and pulling her along with me into the steaming shower.

She whimpered, but I ignored her weak protest and pulled her against my chest, letting the hot water engulf both of us. It burned threatening to break through every layer of skin I had, but she needed this.

“I had a miscarriage Rowan,” she cried, turning her face away from the water while her hands twisted in my shirt, unable to look at me. Trapping her chin in between my fingers gently, I tilted her head up toward me, afraid to ask; and she read my mind as my eyes glazed over with tears.

“The most infuriating thing is I am so conflicted, because I don’t know if it was yours…or one of them,” She choked out.

I took her lips gently in mine before resting my forehead against hers.

“It would have been our baby either way, so don’t you dare feel guilty or upset over who fathered it. It takes way more than fucking to be a dad, Lottie.”

I’ll never forget the broken cry that ripped from her throat, a mix of sorrow and relief. It took a lot of power to hold myself together for her, yet, I couldn't escape the choked sob that spilled from my own mouth.

“It's easy to sob in the shower Roe; you can tell yourself it's just water, even taste it too,” she said. “It’s just water.”

She just kept repeating that to herself, and I held her tighter.? I don’t know how long we stood in the shower like that, I just remembered rocking her until she relaxed against my taut chest and the water turned cold.

I kissed her forehead gently. “I will make this better if it’s the last thing I do. Your light will come back, I promise.”

I finally brought her out of the bathroom and led her sullen form toward the bed. Climbing in after her, I lay on my side staring at her as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. Even in such deep sadness, she managed to look beautiful. It was that very beauty that had me so relaxed and comforted that I began to drift off to sleep as well.

There was a pang of sadness inside of me that she lost the baby, but I was also a bit angry that she didn’t tell me in the first place, maybe she didn’t know herself; to her it could have just been a flare up. I also want to know how she managed to sneak away to the hospital without me, then I remembered her saying she needed to text Nikki a few days ago. Though things were tense between us, I lightened up on Nikki after the lengths she went through to prove her innocence, and I’m glad she was there to help her when she felt she couldn’t come to me.

---