Page 30 of Stolen Love

Of course it would rain today, when it barely ever does. The gray skies suit the mood I’ve been in since the doctor called with my test results. Or lack thereof, I suppose.

Rogue and Jackson stand a few yards away. Close enough to protect me. Far enough away that I have some privacy for when I find the words I want to say to my dad. Privacy I desperately need with the way Rogue keeps checking in with me.

I turn the rock on my finger around and around. He’s only loving me. I know that. But his concern is too much right now. I feel like I’m suffocating under the weight of everything that’s happening to us. It makes me want to scream. Add to this the realization that I could be pregnant…

“I didn’t even want a baby, Daddy.” I can’t believe these are the first words out of my mouth to him, but they are. It’s like an avalanche has been set off inside me since the doctor suggested I could be pregnant. “Not now anyway. Not when I just found out that Nicole paid someone to kill you. And I don’t know if Rogue and I have any kind of future where we get to be together. The timing is just so bad. So why am I hoping that I’m having Rogue’s baby? And why am I crying about it like it’s breaking my heart?”

I kneel in the damp grass. Touch the earth with my fingertips. “You died and I didn’t know if I could ever recover from that, you know? It took medical intervention and a lot of therapy. Although I’m not entirely sure I would have gotten that bad without Alec’s help. Did you know he was a monster? Did you realize how much he hurt me as a child? Did you have any clue that every time you told me to keep the peace you were condemning me?”

The silence is painful. He can’t have been a monster too or what hope is there for me? I can only hope that he didn’t know what all went on when he wasn’t around. Because otherwise everything I knew about him was a lie, and I can’t face yet another piece of my life crumbling right now. I need my dad to have been a good man. Even if that good man failed when I needed him most.

“You could have taught me to stand up for myself. To fight for the things that matter to me. Instead you left me alone to work it out for myself. And I am drowning. All these things keep happening to me and I feel so powerless. I don’t even know who I am. How can I want a baby when I don’t know who I am? How can I be so sad about the chance that we might not be starting a family when ours are so screwed up?”

“Because our family won’t be screwed up, baby.” Rogue touches my shoulder. I didn’t realize he’d moved until he spoke, but his touch brings me comfort. I find myself grateful for less distance. “Whether that’s now or later. It will be full of the happiness and love that we share.”

And that love and happiness is what I crave. The safety I feel with Rogue… the warmth and comfort…it’s everything to me. I want to spend the rest of my life surrounded by it.

I straighten and brush off my knees. “It feels like it’s slipping through our fingers. Like it’s only a matter of time before it will be nothing but the ashes of a memory.”

And I don’t know how to make it stop.

“We won’t let that happen.” He wraps his arms around my shoulders and kisses the top of my head. Tiny raindrops cling to his hair and eyebrows and coat.

I want to believe he’s right as I hand him the umbrella to hold over both of us. I stare at my dad’s headstone. My brow wrinkles as the sense that I’ve been here recently rolls over me. But it’s been a year and a half. Maybe more. So why is it that I’m having déjà vu? “He had to have an inkling that something was wrong before he went on that trip.”

“What makes you say that?” Rogue’s warmth seeps into my back.

“He didn’t just make me promise to be good. He made me promise not to get on my mother’s bad side. He told me he was sorry for not taking my side more often, but then he doubled down on making sure I didn’t make her angry.”

“It sounds like he wanted to protect you,” he says.

“He could have taken me with him.” I’m glad he didn’t because if he had I would be next to him in the cemetery and not standing here with the man who owns my heart. But part of me still wishes my dad had whisked me away and protected me from having to go through all this pain and heartache.

“Unless he knew he was going to die,” Rogue says.

My heart squeezes. I try to recall my dad’s face the last time I saw him, but time and trauma has muddied the details of his expression and the tone of his voice. “Do you think he did?”

“Perhaps.”

“What I don’t understand is why he didn’t warn me,” I say. “If he didn’t take me with him because he thought there was a chance he was going to die, then why didn’t he warn me about her?”

Jackson clears his throat, interrupting us. “Someone is approaching.”

Chapter Fourteen

Rogue

Nicole Hawthorne strides across the lawn toward us in a chic, black pantsuit and killer heels. A white coat hangs about her shoulders and her hair is pulled back in a classic chignon. As usual her makeup is flawless and there is a string of pearls around her neck.

Nathaniel Croft, that asshole lawyer, walks beside her, holding an umbrella over her head, leaving the rain to darken the lapels on his navy Tom Ford suit.

My grip on Ivy tightens. “What the fuck are they doing here?”

Ivy averts her eyes as she touches her hair. That look explains more to me than I wanted to know. “Tell me you didn’t know she would show up here?”

“I didn’t.” She draws those two words out far too hard to be innocent. “But I suspected she might.”

Now that I think about it, I would be unsurprised if Nicole has someone watching the cemetery. She probably paid the caretaker to tell her if Ivy showed up. I take Ivy’s hand and tug her toward the car. “We’re leaving.”

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