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“Rose…I…I can’t give you what you need.”
“What do you mean, Hunter?”
“I mean…I know you want love. No, you deserve it, but I’m not…I don’t…” Fuck. I’m so fucking terrible at this. I drop her hand so I can bury my stupid face between my palms, hiding my failure.
A small hand falls on the back of my neck. “Hunter,” she says softly. Her warm body folds against my side. “Hunter, tell me,” she urges.
I force myself to speak because she deserves to know how broken I am inside. “I don’t know how to love,” I confess. “I only know how to hate. Whatever thing inside of a person that makes them love, I don’t have that. Maybe I did once, but it was eaten away over the years. My mom…” I pause to take a deep breath. “My mom got cancer from working in your brother’s textile mill. She was only thirty. I was eight. She needed treatment but because she was gone so much from work, she got fired. I went to your brother’s office and begged him for help, but he laughed at me. She died a few months later and I got shoved into the system. I vowed that he’d pay. For two decades, that’s all I’ve thought about—making him pay.” I splay my hands out wide to show her how empty I am. “I want to love you, Rose, but I don’t have it inside of me. I can buy you whatever you want. I can protect you. I can shelter your family. I can put a child inside of you. Can that be enough? Because I don’t know what love is.”
Chapter 18
Rose
I push the blanket off me so that I can crawl into Hunter’s lap. The man who has spent every waking moment of this marriage loving me. It was there in everything he did and said to me. It was written between the lines. Actions always speak louder than words. He’s been showing me he loves me from the moment I walked into his office. He might have gone about it in a different way, but he’s been saying it in his own way. The Hunter way. Also known as the stubborn way.
If I’ve learned anything about my husband these last few weeks it’s that he’s one of a kind. He does things differently than most people I was used to. It’s what makes him who he is. I don’t want to change that. I do, however, want him to let go of all that anger he carries around inside of him. It saddens me to think that my brother was the cause of most of that. Garrick’s self-centered cruel ways have not only affected me but other people’s lives. I will never understand how anyone could be so heartless. I have a renewed hate for my brother and this time I find I’m the one wanting payback. He will never know what love is but I won’t let Hunter have the same fate. Our love will be the ultimate revenge.
“You know what love is, Hunter,” I tell him. He shakes his head no.
“I wish I could. For you-”
“You love hard.” I cut him off. “Look how much you love your mother.” His arms that he was holding out wide drop like anchors. He sits still. I think I might have shocked him. I’m going to have to show him. “Now that you control my brother and his companies what have you done with them?” I sit and listen while he spouts off all the changes he already has underway for the factories. They start with better health care, more paid time off, upgrading safety, child care and so on. These things seem well thought out, which means Hunter has been planning them long before he even got his hands on the companies. I feel a surge of pride fill my chest when I think about all of the good that Hunter is doing for others. His actions toward my brother were a necessary evil. They have no bearing on the man that he is. He only made me part of the plan because he wanted me. I’ll never believe he ever meant me harm in any way.
Hunter plays the evil part well but that’s not who he is in his core. God, I love him so much. Each day I fall more and more in love with my husband. Every word that comes from his beautiful mouth gives me hope that we will get our happily ever after.
“You did all of this not only because you love your mother and want to give her justice.” I wave my hand. “Or, as you call it, revenge.” Name it what you want but it’s still sweet. I don’t care how brooding and cold of a package Hunter tries to wrap it in. I’ll never see it as cruel on his part. My brother deserves the licks he has coming. I’m sure every other person who stood in Hunter’s way had them coming too. If he’s cut someone down I know he had reason. It’s why his staff is so loyal and treat him with such respect. They believe in him.
