AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We were talking about Adira’s new show. Adira was showing us parts of the act while he tried on the costume I’d made for him. It was just a normal afternoon.”
And they’d been joking around. Adira had done an impression of my mother and my dad had laughed and laughed. He had this… big belly rumble of a laugh. It never failed to make me laugh too.
I smile as my vision blurs. I guess it will always be painful, but pain is not my entire existence now.
No, the man currently trying not to look at our surrounds while he supports me in my need to find out more has become far more important to me than I would have expected was possible in such a short period of time.
But then we are married so I suppose it makes sense that I would find myself totally into him again. I can’t deny our chemistry. Whether that’s enough, only time will tell. “I think he was going to leave her.”
He grows still. “Your dad was going to leave Nicole?”
“It was just something he said when he drove us home.” I push away from Rogue’s chest and tip my head back so that I can see his face. “How he was sorry that he had let me down for so long and that he was going to rectify it. It didn’t make sense to me at the time. My dad was everything to me, and I’d never once thought he let me down. He was always the one to make peace between me and my mother.”
He went out of his way to make sure that I knew that I was loved. He protected me with his presence, even if he wasn’t aware that the time he spent with me was time Alec couldn’t use to torture me. He helped me find friendship in places that could not be sullied by my mother. He had to know that he was my hero and the rock that I needed.
“I told him that.” I put some space between myself and the man who sees himself as my protector now. Who has literally faced off and fended off my mother despite her attempts to make that impossible. He makes me feel safer than I have in a long time, but there is still so much between us I don’t know.
“What did he say?” Rogue asks.
“Uh…” I replay the conversation over in my head. Smell the warmth of the leather interior mixed with the citrus air freshener that Dad preferred. Relive my confusion while he’d given all his attention to the road. He’d muttered something so low under his breath that I wasn’t certain I heard what I thought I did. “He said something like if he’d known or if he could go back. We didn’t really talk anymore after that.”
I find myself leaning on that same edge of the cabinet where I recalled last seeing him in this room. While sadness wells in my chest like it always does, it doesn’t overwhelm me. It feels good in a way to have these treasured memories and someone to talk through them with me. “Less than a month later he was gone. He was in Phoenix for a business meeting and his rental car was struck by someone who ran a red light.”
“Ivy…” Rogue rubs my back.
“I guess we’ve probably had this conversation before,” I say.
“A little.” He minimizes the fact that I’ve probably talked about it a lot.
I stare at the engagement and wedding rings on my finger. The crushed diamonds that surround the entire wedding band alone would probably sparkle on the moon. It still feels like way too much, even if they are beautiful. And all they bought was my love, right? My heart? All of me?
I caught weird looks from Summer all night. Almost as though she wasn’t particularly pleased to see my finger adorned again. But she didn’t say anything. At least not to me. And Rogue said he didn’t even notice any oddness at all. So it has to be me, right? Just because I’m not the version of me that accepted his proposal and the rings that came with it. I wouldn’t have said yes if I hadn’t believed in our love with all my heart.
“There’s something I want to tell you,” Rogue says.
“Your family doesn’t really like me, do they?” I ask. “That’s what you want to tell me? They don’t like that you married Alec Hawthorne’s sister.”
I can’t believe how bitter I sound.
“No, that’s not it.” He holds me with my back to his chest. “They don’t care about that.”
“They must.” How can they not? My brother is a monster. He hurt Ro. He went after Rogue to hurt me. “They hate him and I don’t blame them. And my mother—”
“You’re nothing like them,” he says heatedly. “And my family knows that. They want us to be happy. They’re concern is with how fast we’re moving when you don’t remember what we were. It’s been two weeks and you’re wearing my ring, baby.”
“We’re married,” I say.
“We’re starting all over again,” he says. “We’re both aware of that.”
I want to believe that’s all it is. But my doubts are like a fire breathing dragon. I spin away from Rogue and my sadness and my dark thoughts about whether his family likes me. I don’t want to think about how these rings are beyond flashy and money never actually buys happiness. Only regret and pain and heartbreak. Especially when you’re a Hawthorne by blood. “Do you think my wedding dress is in here?”
“I’m not sure.” Rogue scratches his whiskers.
“I’m going to look.” I unzip the first garment bag, hanging at the end of the row, to reveal something in a dazzling purple. Then I move on to the next.
“I’ll help.” Rogue marches over to the other end of the row and starts opening bags.
“There are so many costumes here I don’t recognize.” Each bag is like a Kinder Surprise. With each zipper cracking the plastic covering I glimpse feathers or diamonds or crocodile or leather in all colors. “Did I… make all these?”
