Chapter 13 ROSE
ROSE
Carrying my groceries through the hall, I follow the dirt on my polished wooden floor. My son’s picture is askew on the console table.
My heart thumps in my throat. An icy shiver runs the length of my spine, making hairs prickle on my skin.
I drop the shopping bags to the floor, lift the wine bottle poking out of the bag and grip it like a baseball bat. I’ll swing if I have to, even if it is an expensive bottle of red, the kind that’s a shame to smash against my ex’s skull. This wine is too good for him.
I step into the kitchen, pulse hammering. “If someone’s in here, you better hope I miss.”
A clatter on the table makes my toes lift off the floor, my heart jolting.
Sir-Pounce-A-Lot jumps into my arms with a meow and I lean back against the wall with a sigh of relief, juggling the cat and the bottle.
A laugh bursts from my lips. “You silly cat. You scared the life out of me.” I place the bottle on the worktop before I drop it, then rub his black fur and massage his pointy ears, the action calming my nerves.
“You’re going to be the death of me one day.” I giggle to myself, but as I glance over at the toppled vase on the dining table, my throat tightens. Water pools around pink roses on the glass, dripping onto my tiled floor.
I haven’t filled it with flowers in a long time. My stomach twists. I put Sir-Pounce-A-Lot down and grab the wine bottle again as I check the living room, then run to the back and then upstairs.
I catch my breath in the bedroom as I scan for any sign that someone’s been here. My money would be on Magnus, but only D’Angelo has ever bought me pink roses.
Bastard.
Of course it’s him. He let himself into my family home all those years ago. I don’t know what he did in the army. For all I know, that could have been another one of his lies. He probably wasn’t even in the army. But he makes breaking and entering look like an art form.
Storming down the stairs, I set the wine on the console table and rifle through my flight attendant jacket pocket and find the card he gave me. My nail chips as I tap the numbers into my phone with force, but my nails are the least of my worries.
His smarmy voice answers on the second ring. “Missing me already?”
“Go to hell.”
“I’ve been there before. I’d rather not go back.”
“Well, you can get your arse round here and clean up the mess you’ve made.”
“Mess?”
“The flowers you left are all over my kitchen table. And take your flippin’ shoes off the next time you break into my house. I have dirt all over my floor.”
He laughs down the handset. “You said you liked it when I left you flowers.”
“That was before I knew you were a lying piece of shit who was using me for intel. I don’t know what you’re after now. But I don’t have any information for you. I left all that behind when I changed my name.”
“You might not have any intel on your family, but you do have something I want.”
My throat closes up as if I can’t breathe. My fingers curl around my neck, remembering his hand there, and I stare at the photograph of my son on the console in the hall. “What do you want, D’Angelo?”
“You.” He growls down the phone. “I want to make you pay for what you did. I want you to remember who you belong to. Who owns your orgasm. I want you on your knees begging for my cock like you were that first time.”
“You’re more delusional than I thought if you think that’s ever going to happen.
” With a trembling finger, I cancel the call, march into the dining room, and gather the bunch of roses in my hand.
Thorns prick my skin, but I welcome the pain and clench my fist tighter around the stems. The sharp edges sting my palm, but it’s nothing compared to the dull ache that lives in my chest after what he did to me.
It’s easier to stay angry when I don’t have to drown in those silvery, grey-blue eyes that reflect memories I’ve fought to forget.
Our painful past keeps rising to the surface, no matter how many times I try to bury it.
I crank my front door handle down, yank it open and step back as Dan’s tall frame blocks out the sun. My knees weaken, threatening to buckle underneath me as his heated eyes stare down at the roses gripped in my hand.
“Get the hell off of my property.” I throw the flowers at him, but they just hit his chest and fall to the ground.
He doesn’t flinch, as if they’re invisible. His eyes glued to mine. “You’re hurt.”
“No Dan. I’m just pissed that you have the audacity to think you can show up in my life, break into my house, and leave me fucking flowers as if the last thirteen years never happened.”
He enters my hallway, stepping over the roses and flattening a stray one on the welcome mat underneath his polished shoe.
I stand frozen, my jaw lax at the nerve of him. I was that pink rose under his shoe. He thought he could just walk all over me. Well, not anymore. “Get out.” With the fury burning up inside me, I expect smoke to come out my nostrils, I’m breathing so hard.
He steps closer, trespassing into my home just like he trespassed his way into my heart another lifetime ago. “I’m not leaving you like this.”
I clench my fists, another heavy breath leaves my lungs. “It’s you who’s making me like this.” My fist flies at his chest but his arm swoops in to block me and he grabs my wrist. He’s close. Too close. His scent overpowering, making me dizzy.
“Rose. You’re hurt.” He holds my wrist in his hand as he shuts the door behind him.
Having him close like this messes with my head and weakens my resolve.
It’s as if my body remembers his touch, the way he made my body sing, but my head knows he played me like a fiddle and I fell for every single one of his tricks.
My heart splutters in my chest as if it’s weeping.
Red pools around my wrist where Dan holds me.
It’s like my body’s weeping for him still, but I won’t allow him to take advantage of me for a second time.
More blood trickles from my clenched fist. My head is light and I realise I haven’t eaten today.
“Rose?” His voice sounds far away, his face fades.
I’m weightless, floating on a cloud, the familiar scent of his cologne, woody like the Italian stone pines, transporting me back to the night he made love to me.
It’s as if I can still feel those strong arms wrapped around me, his breath on my neck.
No matter how many times I tried to erase the memory of him, he wouldn’t go, like a stubborn stain left on my mind that I’ve had to live with.
His hands are warm and yet so strong, but gentle.
My eyelids flutter open, his face coming into view as he hovers above me. If it wasn’t for the lines around his eyes, I’d swear I was eighteen again.
He wipes a warm flannel across my forehead and down my cheek. “Hi,” he says with a wrinkle on his brow.
“Hi.” It takes me a minute to pull my gaze from his and realise I’m in my living room, lying on my couch.
The fog in my head clears as he swipes the warm cloth over my chest and then down my arm.
I follow his hand as he washes away the bloody streaks from my skin with the softest caress.
His tattooed fingers working their magic like before.
“Do you always faint? Is there a medical condition I should know about?” He opens my hand, places the warm cloth there.
“I thought you knew everything there was to know about me?” I roll my eyes and look away, then flinch as he swipes the flannel over my hand.
“Sorry. You had a thorn stuck in there.” He brings my hand to his lips and presses a kiss there, his eyes not leaving mine as I glare at him.
My pulse quickens as he kisses another part of my hand, then returns to wiping the blood away. “Your shirt.”
He glances down at the small bloodstains on his chest. “I can replace it.” He examines my hand. “I think the bleeding’s stopped. Do you have a bandage?”
I lift myself onto my elbow, but Dan gently coaxes me back down.
“You stay there. Tell me where it is.”
“The kitchen cupboard. There’s a box on the top shelf full of first aid stuff.”
He rises to his feet, then disappears into the kitchen.
I lean my head back on the arm of the sofa and rest my forearm over my eyes. What am I doing? I need help. Should’ve had therapy. I need therapy. Maybe I just need an orgasm. If my vagina was satisfied more often, I might not keep getting distracted by Dan.
Ugh, I hate him so much. I flex my hand, opening and closing my fingers.
Blood creeps into the creases on my palm like a river carving out a path in the landscape.
Only the blood on my hand fills my heart line and seeps into my fate line.
Our relationship was doomed from the start.
Even now, as I stare at my hand, our fate is covered in blood. This won’t end well for me.
“Is it bleeding again?” He kneels and opens my hand, cleaning the minor cuts, then places a large padded plaster over my palm. His thumb massages the edges, making sure it’s stuck down to my hand, his calloused fingers rough against my skin, but it feels good.
“I’m hypoglycaemic.” I swallow the lump in my throat.
Dan places a hand on my forehead as if checking for a temperature. “What does that mean?”
“It means I have low blood pressure and when I don’t eat, it causes dizzy spells.” I silently curse myself for skipping breakfast, but with everything going on with Mamma and seeing Dan again, food is the last thing on my mind.
“And when was the last time you ate?”
I shake my head. “In Rome, before the flight home.”
Dan’s lips press together as he rises to his feet. “Wait here.”
“What are you doing?”
“Getting you something to eat.” He storms out of the room and I’m left wondering how I’ve ended up in this situation with Dan in my home and now getting me food.
I daren’t tell him I haven’t actually had it checked out.
He’d probably drive me to the hospital right now.
But I can’t afford to get diagnosed with any illness that’s going to ground me.
And I definitely can’t afford to fall for him again.