My Rose

17. Rose

Chapter 17

Rose

“Every lover is a soldier.” ― Ovid

Briggs: Good morning, beautiful.

Briggs: I wish I could’ve seen you last night.

Briggs: Are you okay?

Briggs: Rose, I’ve been patient all day.

Briggs: I’m starting to think you’re not okay.

Briggs: I swear to god, if someone hurt you, I’ll murder them.

T he taxi stopped in front of the entrance to Briggs’ house and I checked my phone once more as I stepped out. Yep, he said he would murder someone if I were hurt. I wondered if that encompassed emotions too, though really, I was more pissed off than anything. Hurt didn’t quite cover it. I was livid.

My idea was to go see him and demand he give me a reason why he stood me up and kept trying to message me all day if he was just going to keep playing more games with me. I didn’t want to play anything like that with him. That was precisely what had happened between August and me, and I couldn’t stomach the thought of becoming a game to Briggs. I couldn’t get him out of my head. It was equal parts frustrating just as much as it was body-tingling.

Another message came through, and I stared at it, my jaw unhinged.

Briggs: Is there something you need to tell me? I’ll be at your house in 5. I’m done being patient.

He thought he was being patient? I was the one who waited for him for hours, all dressed up for a date he never cared to pick me up for, let alone told me he wasn’t planning on going to. Blood flooded my ears as I raised the phone to one.

He answered before the first ring finished.

“Rose, where are you?”

I sighed at his worried tone, irritated yet comforted in a strange way. He was concerned about where I’d been. I blinked up at the grey sky. “I’m in front of your house, I think.”

“You, what?” His growl rattled me through the phone. “Why would you go there? ”

“Umm.” I cursed under my breath, realizing how crazy I sounded that I’d tracked him down after he stood me up instead of simply calling or replying. “I called Jasmine and asked for your address, and she called your friend—her boyfriend. Dean. The one with the smoldering-type look.” I couldn’t stop sputtering over my words. My stomach was twisting, the snow on the ground seeping into my sneakers.

“You reached out to Dean to get my address?” I could hear the grin in his voice, and when he laughed, all of the tension in my shoulders relaxed. That laugh.

And then my body came back to planet Earth. “I need to know why you stood me up, Briggs. That’s why I came here.”

“I would never—”

“Nope. You did. I was there, and you weren’t. I waited all night”—I could hear his car picking up speed, the engine roaring in the background—“I dressed up and everything to go out with you, and you just never showed.” The weakness in my voice alone was going to make me cry.

“I didn’t stand you up. I…fuck.” I could almost picture his jaw grinding. “I promise you, Rose. You have no idea how badly I wanted to be there. Did—” He paused, his engine filling the silence in the background. I shuffled my shoes in the sludgy snow, waiting. “Did you not get my message?”

“What message, exactly?” I was starting to feel crazier. There’s a message ? I pulled my phone away from my face, searching our messages. But there was nothing. “I don’t have anything recent from you besides the slew you sent today. ”

“Oh, so you got those then, huh?” he quipped.

“Mhm. I…got—” The sounds of his engine grew louder and I slid the phone down my cheek as his car came into view, then screeched to a halt a few feet away from me. He was out of the car in seconds, the gull wing door flapping up like it would fly into the air.

My heart rate spiked as Briggs made his way to me, striding with a purpose I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen before in a man. Not while looking at me, anyway. His fingers were fast to cup my chin, guiding me to look at him. Those eyes—they were like the darkest of trees and the brightest of emeralds, all rolled into one. A beautiful kind of mystery about them I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Just like he was.

“Rose, you really shouldn’t have come here,” he said with that tone that used to come off metallic and authoritative, but now it just made the rest of my body numb like my mind had the second he stepped out of his car.

I straightened, trying to bring my thoughts back from where they had drifted off. “How else was I supposed to get your attention after you stood me up? I thought a text wouldn’t drive it home for you.”

“Did you really not get my message? I had to fly out of town with”—He glanced over to the wrought-iron fence behind me—“with my father.”

I pushed my phone into his stomach. He flinched but took the phone and then looked at me. “Go ahead. There’s no code, just go into my messages and check for yourself,” I bit out. And he did. His eyebrow cocked up, a mark that I hadn’t noticed before becoming clear as day—a thin, white scar right at the edge of where his brow tapered off. He read through what were probably several texts from him that I hadn’t replied to and then reached his arm around me and tucked the phone into my back pocket. “I’m not a liar, Briggs. Unlike some people.” I wanted to believe him. But I was so worked up over it that I almost wanted him to get on his knees again. No, I definitely wanted him on his knees again. It was as if my mind was chanting, ‘on your knees, on your knees’—relentlessly on replay in my mind at all hours of the day.

Briggs stayed towering over me, his warm breath brushing my skin as his hand slid up my back. I arched into the soft touch. “Rose, I’m sorry. I must not have hit send. I was rushing.” The corners of his eyes crinkled like he was trying to think through what had happened.

“Rushing?” I jerked back in his hold unsuccessfully. ‘Rushing’ sounded like an excuse I’d heard before. “You didn’t notice that your message never went through?” My eyes narrowed on him.

His hand stopped making those circles along the small of my spine. “My phone broke. Had to get a new one.”

I rolled my eyes, his citrusy scent enveloping me, making it harder for me to be angry at him. After being fed excuses for so long, it was easier not to believe any of them anymore. I pulled my head back and held onto his forearms. Damn. Even the feeling of his skin on mine, the way he was holding me, made it hard to be angry at him. And now that I was staring right into his eyes? I swallowed thickly. “So, let me get this straight. You not only didn’t send your text to me, but your phone also magically broke that same night, and now you have a new phone—”

He pushed his phone into me, smirking as he said, “Check it. Code is 112053.”

I cocked my brow in disbelief, but when I took his phone and entered the code, it was very…blank. Empty, save for messages to me and then a few from Dean that I hesitated clicking on. I decided against invading his privacy and pressed his phone to his chest.

Briggs smiled down at me, seemingly pleased with my silence. “Can you forgive me? Again?”

I put on the most steely, hard face I could manage, darting my gaze from him to hold it. “Mmm.”

“Are you not happy with that?” My eyes snapped back to him as his thumb rubbed down my spine. “Let me guess, I should be on my knees again?” Mind reader. I looked down to the space between us and then nodded. Amusement lit his features.

The drop to his knee was staggered, his hand shooting up and splaying over his ribs briefly before he pushed his forearm onto his knee for support. His movements had always been so meticulous and perfect before. Now that he was beneath me, I could see a slight shadow under his eyes that wasn’t there the last time I saw him. And that scar—I fixated on it, wondering when and how it got there.

He broke my thoughts as he asked, “Better?” The spot between my eyes crinkled, but I nodded anyway, watching intently as he rose with the same broken movements, leaning to the side and his knee to steady himself.

I suddenly felt ashamed for asking him to get on his knees when he clearly wasn’t fine. “Are you—”

“Uh-uh, Rose. You get to answer my question now.” He righted himself completely as if he hadn’t just wobbled on his legs to stand back up. Briggs took a step closer, right back to towering above me. “Is there something going on between you and August?” I snorted uncontrollably, the question so out of the blue it threw me off. He frowned. “I’m serious, Rose. I don’t think being a mistress suites me, and I sure as fuck don’t like to share.”

A shiver rolled down my spine as heat coursed through my legs. I cleared my throat. “What do, uhm…what do you mean?”

His eyes darkened. “It’s a simple yes or no. Is everything between you two done?”

I dug the tip of my sneaker deeper into the snow, wondering where I should start or how much I should tell him. “We never started. And I don’t ever want to see him again. So yeah, I’d say whatever we were is pretty done.”

“Thank fuck.” His arms wrapped around me, his fingers threading through my hair. “I don’t know what I would have done if you said something else.”

“What if I told you I may have thrown his guitar right at his car,” I deadpanned.

His laughter vibrated through my chest. “Good. He deserved that. And anything else that comes his way.” After what I discovered August had done to Briggs in the past, even if it might not have been all of it, I couldn’t blame him because I believed the same thing. He did deserve whatever ended up coming his way. I almost wished the gods and monsters I studied were real and that Zeus would smite him down with a bolt of lightning or that Medusa would turn him to stone.

Briggs gently kissed the top of my head, erasing any thoughts of August getting wiped out by fictional people. “I was coming to you, you know. You just had to wait.”

“What was it you said in that last message? ‘I’m done being patient?’” I repeated the words from his message, refraining from reaching back into my pocket and reading it aloud to him word-for-word.

Briggs stifled his laughter and then he cleared his throat. “Patience is a virtue, they say.”

“Not for either one of us, apparently,” I quipped. “Plus, if I’d been patient I wouldn’t be standing in front of the great Andrews Estate right now, about to receive the best tour because I have the best tour guide.” I waited, wondering if that was too much to ask of him while he seemed to mull it over.

His arms wrapped around me tighter, his head dipping into the sensitive spot between my collarbone and neck. “Is that what you want, Rose? To see where I sleep?” His voice oozed pure seduction as his nose brushed my skin. I had to pause again to recollect my thoughts before I nodded, his stubbled jaw grazing my cheek as I did so.

“Yeah. I’d like that.” I squeezed my arms around him, wanting to be closer, and his stomach jerked in the other direction. “Are you hurt?” I pushed gently against his front to pry him from me, then hooked my fingers into his jacket pockets to keep him from going too far .

He groaned. “No, I was actually quite comfortable just then.” He went to wrap his arms around me and tug me in again, but I locked my elbows in place.

“Seriously, Briggs. You keep wincing like you’re in pain. What’s wrong?”

His eyes moved back to the ominous wrought iron behind me. “It’s nothing, Rose.”

I moved one arm up to the front of his shoulder, unsure if I was hurting him more by keeping my arms locked out, pressing into him. I let my other hand trail over to the bottom of his jacket. By the looks of him, he’d just come from working out or running again, so maybe I was overreacting.

“Was it from boxing?” The lines of his mouth went taut, so I dropped my voice to a low whisper. “Can I touch you?”

Briggs tipped his chin down in a nod, still staring off at the gate. My fingers worked their way under his shirt, and by the time I reached the area right above a deep groove that outlined what I could only imagine were incredible abs, he seethed through his teeth.

His hand moved to push mine away, but before he could, I quickly reached down for the hem and tugged it up. Bile rose in my throat as a tightness formed in my chest. “Briggs…” I took in the deep purple and brown marks dotted with red blotches. He stopped pushing my hand away, his eyes refusing to acknowledge me. I continued to raise his shirt when I was met with no resistance from him other than the wild flex of his jaw as I did so. Goosebumps formed along his skin as my fingers outlined the bruises that swelled up to the middle of his ribs on his side. He may not have been comfortable, but comfort was far from my mind as I continued to search him over, the frown on my face sinking with my heart as it threatened to meet my stomach.

“What…” I paused, tears welling in my eyes. But it wasn’t a what. There was no way. “Do you box with other people?” He hesitated, then shook his head. I didn’t know much about boxing, but I did know that the bags didn’t come after you with a vengeance. “Who did this to you?” My words broke apart as they came out.

Briggs’ eyes slid over to meet mine as he pulled his shirt and jacket back down, then stepped back. “I told you, Rose. It’s nothing.”

I pointed to his side. “That’s not nothing, Briggs.”

“It’s not anything you need to be worried about.” He was trying so hard not to let me in, and it was maddening.

I snapped back at him, unable to control my anger like every time we were together. “Well, too fucking late for that, Briggs. I care. So tell me.”

His eyes roamed over me, stopping at the tear that started to slide down my cheek. He looked up to the sky and muttered incoherently, then dropped his head back down, rubbing the back of his neck. “You really want this?” His eyes darted to meet mine, a heavy challenge in them. “You want to know me?”

“Yes.” I may not have known much about him, but I knew how he made me feel. I knew he was worth it. I knew I wanted to know more . I was an all-in kind of person, and with how much he’d been on my mind lately, I didn’t have to think twice about that. “I want to know you. Everything there is to know about you, I want it all. I want you , Briggs. ”

The veins on his neck were visibly thrumming. He stepped closer and twined his fingers with mine, pulling me over to his car. “It’s a long walk back to the house from here. Come with me, and I’ll show you.”

His house wasn’t a house—it was a castle. Or what I imagined a castle to be like—I’d never actually seen one in person. I wondered if my grandparents knew what his house looked like and maybe that’s why they described him as if he were royalty — an ‘heir apparent,’ or whatever he was.

As I watched Briggs stand at the front door of his home, I struggled to make the pieces fit together. Briggs and his home didn’t blend well. They were off-kilter, like when you go on that ride at a carnival where you start spinning too fast in a circle, and the people around you start to blur almost together but not quite because their clothing didn’t line up or their glasses were floating to a head that didn’t reach the same height. That’s what it was like standing behind him and watching as he was greeted by a woman named Rhonda, who was maybe in her early fifties, a little shorter than I was, and had the same air about her that I imagined Martha Stewart had. She was homely and warm, yet his home was anything but.

Besides the people who also parked his car for him, it was just Rhonda waiting for him there. His father, whom I’d heard him mention a few times before, was noticeably absent. I wondered if that was always the case.

“It’s so wonderful to meet you, Rose. Let me take your jacket.” I’d worn the leather one Briggs gave me, but she smiled as she took it from me and didn’t act as if she knew it was his, although the size and smell were a dead giveaway. She turned to face Briggs again, who still hadn’t clicked into place with the flashy furniture that dotted the home or the marble flooring at my feet. “Do you need anything, Master Briggs?” Master?

He sighed as she took his jacket from him, delicately helping him out of it as if she knew about the injury. Her brows pinched together as she worked, avoiding the bruised area entirely. “Please, Rhonda. Don’t call me that. Just Briggs is fine, you know that.”

She nodded, her eyes darting between us both. The formality must have slipped with me standing beside him. “Of course, Briggs.” Her shoulders fell back down as she hung his jacket on a rack, then moved her gaze to the door behind us as if someone else might step through.

“Father won’t be back for another few days. He left for Amsterdam,” Briggs said. Rhonda sighed deeply as I turned my gaze away from the door and back to them.

“Right. Well, dinner will be ready in an hour. Is Rose dining with you tonight?”

Briggs angled his head, waiting for me to answer. I mentally added that to the growing list of things I liked about him—he didn’t try to take my voice from me. “Yeah, that would be great. Thank you, Rhonda.” Rhonda disappeared down one of the halls, and I turned to face him. “She’s nice. I like her.”

“Yeah, she’s one of the good ones.” He took my hand in his. “Should I start downstairs or take you directly to my room?” His smirk faded as I took my hand from his and crossed my arms.

“I believe you said you’d tell me more about that.” I waved a hand, gesturing to his side before letting both arms fall to my side. “And then a tour would be kind of awesome. How do you find your way around this place?” I had no idea where to begin—between the scaffolded ceiling, the giant chandelier, and the hallways I could barely see beyond the sweeping staircase—it felt like being in a museum. It didn’t feel like a home, even though museums usually did for me.

He reached for my hand again and I let him have it. “To my room, it is, then.” I opened my mouth to protest but stopped as he said, “To explain. Promise.”

“No matter what I said, you were taking me there first, weren’t you?”

“If it had been up to me, we’d be at your house. Not mine. But since we’re here, my room is definitely where I prefer you.”

He led me down one hallway, then another, ending in a room that smelled just like him, prompting me to look for the hidden orange grove the second we stepped inside. Instead, I found a black chair in front of heavy curtains, a four-post bed with a thin, dark grey blanket on top, two pillows against the headboard, and a deep mahogany dresser across from it. His was the only room I’d seen so far that looked lived in. That felt like it could be home. He unlinked our fingers, watching me roam around his room as he leaned against the door frame.

Briggs cleared his throat after several minutes, drawing my gaze back to him. “Like the room?” he asked, that sinful, beautiful smirk back in place.

“It’s…huge,” I whispered.

He chuckled, his eyes like fire on my skin as he moved them slowly down my body. “It is.”

I tried to ignore that and turned my back to him, walking over to a built-in bookcase that filled the same wall the doors to his room were on. “You read?”

“Yes…when I have the time to.” He looked amused at my question.

I pulled one of the books from the shelf. The spine was broken, and the front cover was worn. “Reading is one thing…but, Ovid?”

“Coming from an art history major, I should be getting your approval.” The corner of his mouth quirked up to one side, changing his cocky smirk to a smile. Had I told him that was my major? Perhaps I had during one of the car rides or maybe at the diner while talking to Jasmine. I put the book back on the shelf full of ancient poetry—stories about the gods and war, but above all, love.

“Haven’t read much of his work, honestly.” Countless people transcribed Ovid’s work from Latin throughout the years, but Briggs’ edition looked centuries old. I was almost surprised he didn’t lunge forward and rip it from my hands—a book like that would be costly. I let my finger slide across the shelf. “It’s really clean in here.”

“I like cleanliness. ”

His eyes watched me as I moved into his bathroom, where he followed me and propped against the door frame of his en-suite. I should have asked before going in, but his closet was calling to me—where the citrus and a slight musky smell threatened to devour me whole.

To say I liked the way he smelled was putting it lightly. Maybe that was because my memory so frequently went to the scent of ash and smoke that clouded my lungs years ago and made me suffocate over and over again in my nightmares, and the scent he gave off was breathing new life into me. Being around him made me realize I wasn’t trapped in a fire. I was safe—which sounded ridiculous even in my head, but I couldn’t help it.

He winced again as he pushed off the doorframe, and I pointed to his ribs. “Alright, I’m done looking. Explain. Who did that to you? And why?” My voice cracked at the last word because I couldn’t imagine anyone hurting someone like him. It made me angry.

His head went over his shoulder before he turned to close the en-suite door. Reaching an arm over the back of his head, he removed his shirt and then tossed it to the floor. It would have made my stomach do the thing it had been doing a lot lately whenever I thought about the way his body felt pressed into mine the night of the bonfire, but instead, my attention fell to the bruise that spread across his side, and my body reacted as if I were the one in pain, not him.

My feet felt like hollow weights as I strode up to him. “Who hurt you like this?” I let my fingers trace the ridges of his muscles as gently as I could, careful not to make him twinge under my touch .

“You remember when I told you about my brother?”

“Yes, of course I do,” I whispered.

He smiled down at me, one that didn’t reach his eyes. It was the same distant look he gave me at the gas station. “My brother was the one who was supposed to take over the family business. It was never supposed to be me. But after he…” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he broke eye contact for a brief moment. When his eyes fell back to mine, he continued. “After Beck died, that title fell to me. That burden fell to me.” The realization of just who did that hit me in the chest.

It couldn’t be. He couldn’t mean…

He continued while my fingers stayed frozen against his warm skin. “You remember how I stopped going to school?” I nodded, remembering the few months when I sat behind a quiet boy with a clock tattoo until he just never showed again. “My father pulled me and made me complete my courses at home with a private tutor who saw to it that I’d graduate that same year. Ever since Beck died, my life has been the VanAndrews company.”

“Your…your father—he…he did this to you?” He didn’t respond immediately, but he didn’t have to, and my soul was crushed under the weight of it. I laid my head on his chest, tears rising to the surface that I couldn’t suppress.

“Shhh, Rose. It’s okay. Really.” His heartbeat told me otherwise. It was thundering out of control beneath my ear.

“How—I don’t understand…it’s just a business…”

“It’s a multi-billion dollar business,” he corrected like that justified beating your son. Your own child. “Sometimes a deal doesn’t always go to plan. Aside from learning the ins and outs of managing the business, my father has been preparing me to be…well, to be able to close the necessary deals to sustain it. With whatever persuasion or force is needed.”

His knuckles grazed my jaw, the rough texture making me weak as I nuzzled into them. I didn’t want to imagine just how far those deals made him go, what lengths he and his father went to in order to secure deals to make money.

I swear to god, if someone hurt you, I’ll murder them.

The threat suddenly jumped into overdrive in my mind. As if he could sense what I was thinking, his face softened. “I’ve hurt people, Rose. I won’t try to lie to you and tell you I haven’t.”

“Have you…” I couldn’t even get the thought out. But he seemed to know where I was going with it.

“I’ve never killed anyone if that’s what you’re about to ask.”

My first thought went to what he’d told me in the park—‘You’re a fighter . ’ I’d pushed through fire to survive, and in his own way, he did the same thing. He didn’t seem to want the life he had, but he still pushed through.

“I believe you.” I pressed my lips to his chest. “Thank you for telling me.” I wanted to ask a million more questions, but I could tell he had expended himself and probably hadn’t been prepared to. Between the injury and the secrets he just laid bare to me, it was a lot to take in for the both of us.

His hand cradled the base of my neck as his lips brushed over my forehead. “Do you still want me?” His voice cracked, and I felt my chest do the same thing. I wasn’t in love with him, but a big part of me ached for what he’d been through. What I could only imagine his life was like. Some people were born evil and only ended up getting worse as time marched on. Briggs, I knew without a shred of doubt, wasn’t whatever evil he thought he was.

“Yes,” I breathed out. “I still do.”

His head shook against mine. “I don’t deserve you, Rose.” His lips moved to my hair, his fingers wrapping delicately around the strands at the base of my skull. “Stay with me tonight. Even if I sleep on the floor, I want you here, with me.”

My finger drew lazy, idle circles on his chest. “I don’t know, Briggs. Are you telling me you’ll give me your bed?” I looked over at the king-sized bed behind him. “You’re right—there’s not a lot of room in it for both of us,” I teased.

“Cute.” His laugh vibrated through my cheek. “The whole thing is yours if you want it to be, babe.”

My heart melted at the nickname, believing it was the first one I’d heard that didn’t make me cringe—one I never wanted to live without again.