17. “WELL, THIS AINT OVER, NO, NOT HERE. NOT WHILE I STILL NEED YOU AROUND.”
“WELL, THIS AINT OVER, NO, NOT HERE. NOT WHILE I STILL NEED YOU AROUND.”
The house was too quiet.
Soren had been restless since being sent home six hours ago.
“Not now,” Soren bit out as King approached with his favorite toy. The dog halted mid-stride, for once, obeying a command.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and stared at it, scrolling back through the messages he’d received while he’d been trapped at the golf course. Trying to understand why she couldn’t talk to him, hear him out.
I need you.
Soren!!!
Fish emergency. Half the menu’s dead.
His head dropped in defeat. He hadn’t been able to focus earlier when he should have been reading between the lines. Maybe he’d been too preoccupied with the jet situation, or maybe it was Warren’s constant observation that made him not realize the damage he was doing.
Each text tightened like a fist around his heart.
He’d been playing golf. Playing fucking golf while she was drowning. She had every right to be mad at him.
Sliding past his last text, his lame apology, he opened her contact and called her again.
“This is Jocelyn. Leave a message. But if you want a response, text.”
Soren hurled the phone across the room. “Fuck!”
This couldn’t be the end of them. He refused to accept that she could walk away like this. He loved her, and he thought she loved him.
She didn’t have to say the words for it to be true. He felt it every time she touched him, every time he caught her staring. The way her gaze lingered, and when her lips parted every time he held her. Every time he gave her a safe space to be fragile.
He swore to protect her, and he’d done the exact opposite, letting her down and not showing up when she needed him. It took so long to finally build her trust, and now that trust was broken.
Somehow, he would get her to understand this was a once in a million mistake and he would never let anything like this happen again. If she wasn’t going to pick up the phone, maybe he should just go there. Fuck what Logan said.
His intensity was what drew her in, after all, but it also had a way of scaring her off. He knew her, which was why he’d done his best to handle obstacles without involving her. His approach had worked fine until it didn’t.
How the hell was he supposed to predict getting stranded in Newport?
Closing his eyes, he recalled how she looked, sitting alone in the restaurant. There had been no life left in her eyes, no real emotion on her face. She’d looked…empty.
He should have realized how much she’d been counting on him to be there. He should have prioritized better, not just for her, but for his brother and Wren.
Bending forward, he locked his fingers in his hair and pulled.
His mind flashed to the last time they made love and how perfect it had been. She’d been scared, but also courageous, despite the tremor in her voice when the fear crept in.
Where was his brave girl now?
Didn’t she want to fight for them? Or maybe she really thought he wasn’t worth the effort.
His father’s diminishing words came hurling back to him.
You live in a fantasy world…
Life isn’t fair…
You’re not as special as you think you are…
Men like you are a dime a dozen…
Flinching back from the sharp edge those memories still carried, he pictured Jocelyn. She thought he was special, didn’t she?
Or at least she had.
Something in his chest tightened. His heart felt like it was being pulled apart, muscle and tissue ripping to shreds as he sat here wondering how the fuck he was going to fix this.
He could still feel the surrender in her body when she let him touch her, when she lowered the walls and trusted him to see that softer side she hid from everyone else. No razor-sharp barbs. No hiding behind sarcasm. It was real, and he felt it.
Tugging his hair, he growled and rushed to his feet, once more pacing like a caged animal with nowhere to go.
It was real. That’s why she was so mad at him. She let him see her fragile side and he fucking hurt her.
“Goddamn it!” he snapped, earning a nervous look from King. “Sorry, boy.”
She hadn’t faked her feelings. What they shared was the realest thing he’d ever known. And she was lying if she said otherwise.
He knew her better than anyone. Not just because he had the exact curve of her collarbone memorized, or because he counted every scattered freckle on her body. He knew the quiet parts she hid inside. Knew how her breath deepened when parts of his soul touched hers.
The more he thought about her, the more a sense of urgency vibrated within him. He needed to talk to her. He could go there—
Logan’s words again echoed in his head. He made Soren out to be some kind of narcissistic prick who couldn’t put others’ feelings first.
That wasn’t true. Their father had been a malignant narcissist, and they all vowed to never be like him.
Glancing down at his golf clothes, the breath left his lungs. Is that who he’d become? His father? First, stepping in as CEO, then justifying letting down the people he cared about most to put business first.
The truth made him weak. A feather could have knocked him down. He was supposed to be better than this. Better than Magnus, better than her parents who abandoned her.
The world didn’t need more selfish men, men who could build empires but couldn’t keep a family.
He planned to marry her. He wanted children with her.
Not to meet some sort of status quo, but because the thought of having little babies with her wild sense of adventure and his well-engineered drive for success sounded challenging and wonderful in the most chaotically exceptional way.
He wanted to watch her belly grow and coach her through everything when she was in labor, nervous and scared. He wanted to rescue her again and again, no matter how much she pretended to never need a hero.
Motherhood scared her. That was the only reason she wasn’t sure about having kids. But he believed she’d be an amazing mom, fun and silly like his own.
She’d panic at times, he was sure, but in the end he had no doubt she’d approach the job like a Viking queen. She’d love their children fiercely and protect them at all costs.
His wild woman would teach them to read the classics, the most obscure ones. She’d build forts and teepees, let them run in the mud and play in rain puddles. He wanted to build her the biggest library and find the best dry cleaner.
At night, after she and the kids were exhausted from play, he’d carry them up to bed past their toys and paintbrushes that were never fully washed out. He’d step over old Halloween costumes that stayed out all year and tuck them into beds that never got fully made.
They’d be too wiped for bedtime stories, so he’d kiss their little heads and turn out the lights. They’d be asleep before he even left the room. Then, he’d return downstairs to collect his Viking queen—carrying her up to bed much the same—but there would be no sleeping for her.
Swallowing tightly, he pictured just how perfect all that chaos would feel. The maids would come every day, and the kids would undo the tidiness faster than a tornado.
Jocelyn wouldn’t bat an eye while he stressed over crooked frames and fingerprints on the walls. He’d be no match for them, outnumbered by their wild nature and charmed completely.
A sob cut through him, out of nowhere, and he clamped a hand over his mouth, hearing his father’s cruel voice.
Hawthorne men don’t cry.
The sound was so catastrophic, so horribly raw, he tried to swallow it back.
A spiderweb of agony spread through his chest like glass under pressure as the pain burst inside of him.
King whimpered, getting up from the floor in a tangle of legs and coming to rest his head on his knee. The silent comfort nearly shattered Soren.
“You love me, don’t you, boy?” He dropped his head on the dog’s, and hugged him tight.
The pressure in his chest expanded, pushing against the walls of his lungs, stretching his throat, burning his eyes, and crushing his heart as it pounded rapidly in his chest.
He rubbed his chest, afraid he was having some kind of attack. He should get his phone. But as King nestled harder into his side, a high-pitched wheeze seeped from Soren’s chest, and another sob belted out of him, broken like the chop of an inlet.
Scrubbing his hands over his face, he drew back at the damp trace of tears. Breathing hard, he shivered as a cool sweat broke out under his clothes.
Hawthorne men don’t cry…
He curled his hands into fists so tight his knuckles popped. His vision blurred and his breath jumped in jagged gusts. He couldn’t get in enough oxygen. Couldn’t breathe out the pain.
His whole world seemed to hinge on his need to reach her. He had to get past her walls and make her see that they were not over.
Wiping his nose on the back of his hand, he told himself he’d give her tonight, but tomorrow he would make her see they weren’t finished.
They couldn’t be.
“I’ll get her back.”
King lifted his head and licked his cheek. When Soren gave a watery laugh, the dog took it as an invitation to climb onto his lap.
“No—” His objection cut off with a grunt as one hundred and sixty-two pounds of fur-covered love decided no meant yes.
King flattened Soren onto the couch and panted happily, his giant tongue rolling out in unfaultable triumph.
“You miss her too, don’t you boy?”
The dog barked, piercing his ears and knocking the wind out of his chest, affirming he not only missed Jocelyn, but her little rat too.
And damn it, he also missed that rabid little dust bunny because Cordelia was a part of her and he wanted every chaotic bit.
“I’ll get them back. I promise.”
Twenty-four long-stem roses landed face down in the trash. Jocelyn blocked Soren’s number first thing Monday morning when he refused to stop calling and texting. That was when he tried flowers.
Now, she was just pissed.
Knowing Soren, he’d eventually show up at her door, and she couldn’t handle that. Nor should she have to. In hopes of avoiding confrontation altogether, she called Wren.