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“Are you pregnant?” Luke demanded.
Rose stared at him, words out of her reach. She felt like she was falling, like the floor had dropped out from beneath her and the few bites of pancake she’d managed to eat were about to revolt. She felt Lenore’s gaze boring into her, but she couldn’t look away from Luke. She stared into his beautiful green eyes, which had been so warm with desire for her the night before. Now, they were cold. She had been shut out again.
A hundred explanations flooded Rose’s mind, and she cycled through them, desperate to find something to say that didn’t sound absurd. But she could only force out one word.
“Yes.”
Chapter Five
Luke stared at her. Her cheeks were scarlet, her expression was flustered, and her eyes were red, as though she’d recently been crying. Part of him hated to push her, right now. She was clearly upset, and he’d always hated seeing her in pain. But her admission had twisted something within him, and he hadn’t yet managed to unclench his fists. Rage pulsed through him with each heartbeat. How could she have kept this from him? How could she be having Alex’s child and hiding it? Luke wanted to scream, to storm out and refuse to hear any explanation she might attempt to offer. His feet, however, refused to move.
And another part of him was focused on a separate problem—how much he wanted her. Rose had shifted when he’d entered, evidently trying to make her shirt stretch enough to cover her ass, but she hadn’t been entirely successful. He could still see its curve and her long, smooth legs, and he could tell that she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath her shirt. He wanted to have those legs wrapped around him, to rip away the shirt and feel her skin against his, like he had the night before. He knew he’d made a mistake by letting her into his bedroom. Now, he couldn’t get enough of her. She was like a drug he’d thought he’d kicked only to realize he was still just as addicted as ever.
He couldn’t give in to these desires. Not right now. He was furious with her, and besides, his sister was in the room.
“Lenore, I don’t think now is the best time to be here,” Luke said as calmly as he could.
“You really think I’m leaving after that bombshell?”
Luke rolled his eyes. Of course his sister wasn’t going to make it easy. She was still frowning, glancing between the two of them, and Rose wouldn’t meet his eyes. Her own were unfocused, her pancakes abandoned on the breakfast bar.
“I need to speak with Rose,” Luke pressed. His voice was low, and he hadn’t completely managed to keep the edge from it.
“I think she’d feel better with me here.”
Rose gave a stiff half-nod at Lenore’s words, and Luke sighed. He didn’t know how long his sister had been here or what had been said between the two women, but he couldn’t imagine it had been enough to make up for how distressed Lenore had been by Rose’s lack of communication with her over the past four years. Yet here they were, ganging up on him again already, just like no time had passed.
“Fine,” he snapped. He moved into the kitchen, pausing a few strides away from where the two of them sat. “Explain.” He folded his arms and stared at Rose, willing her to stop refusing to look at him.
“Everything I told you was true,” she began. She kept her focus on the floor. “I realized I don’t want to spend my life with Alex. He’s a good person, but he’s… he’s not right for me. The only one I want to be with is you.” She looked at Luke at last. Her blue eyes were earnest, and at the sight of the regret and sadness in them, the urge to take her in his arms swept over him. “I never stopped loving you. I ran because I was scared.”
“Were you scared of me?”
The words were out before Luke could think better of them, and he regretted them immediately. He didn’t want the answer.
“That night,” Rose said after a pause the length of a heartbeat, “yes.”
Luke’s fists clenched tighter, and he gritted his teeth. Since she’d left, he’d been certain that was why he had lost her. The night he’d fought Calvin and Lorenzo after they had attacked her, he’d seen a part of himself he’d since tried to bury. He’d wanted to pretend it had never happened. But despite what he had done to the two of them, one truth remained.
“I could never hurt you,” he said. His voice came out so quietly he wasn’t completely convinced he’d spoken. He’d counted on her to realize that the night he’d lost her, but she’d never given him a straight answer.
“I know that,” said Rose, and the smallest bit of relief passed through him. “But that was the only time in my life that I… couldn’t recognize you. I was so in love with you, Luke, but seeing you like that terrified me. I was afraid that you’d changed. That the you I loved was going to become someone else instead.”
“I didn’t change,” he said with a small shake of his head. “I snapped because of what they did to you. That doesn’t make me a different person.”
“I know that now. But in that moment, I was scared. And I was already a mess with everything going on with the baby, and—”
“Baby?”
Luke looked to Lenore, whose mouth had fallen open.
“I had just lost the baby,” Rose pressed on, “and—”
“Wait, his?” Lenore pointed to Luke.
“Yes, Lenny,” said Rose, her frustration clear in her tone, “and it was all too much. I made the wrong decision. I’m trying to make the right one now. Luke, you and I didn’t get the chance to raise our son. I want us to have—”
“Son?” Luke’s throat had gone dry.
