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She narrows her eyes as she glares at me, licking her teeth as she refuses to answer.
I slip my hand underneath the back of her romper and pinch her ass and ask again. “What was your first mistake?”
There’s a spark of true anger in her eyes before she finally relents. “Not letting myself heal. What does that have to do with tonight?” she finishes with snark.
I raise my brows at her. “Why couldn’t you heal?”
She bites the inside of her cheek, not wanting to give me an answer. I wait her out, keeping my eyes on her. I know it won’t take her long to crack. She releases her cheek and lets out a dramatic exhale. “Didn’t let myself feel,” she mutters petulantly.
“Let yourself feel, pretty girl. It’s okay to not be happy about the decision you made.”
“It was the right call. The only call,” she argues.
I brush her hair back from her face. “Doesn’t mean it feels good. Doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it.”
I stay silent as she soaks in my words, stroking my hand down her long hair. With each affectionate touch her body relaxes a little more, until she finally slumps forward against my chest, nuzzling her nose into my shirt.
“I’m confident in our decision,” she explains. “Happy my girls are safer with Steel Roses closed. Even excited about some of the renovation ideas Luca and I have come up with.”
“But,” I prod when she stops talking.
“But Steel Roses was my first home. The place I met Joe. The place I dyed my hair black for the first time. The first place Luca and I ever bought. We slept there so many nights after we bought it. We designed every inch of that space together. Poured over countless plans on sleepless nights as we dreamed about the empire we have now. It all started there. I even reconnected with Kade there. Everything goes back to Steel Roses.”
“It was your first home,” I whisper, dragging her to look up at me.
“Yeah,” she admits in a broken sigh. The tumultuous emotions shining in her eyes as she finally lets her walls down.
“Why wouldn’t you be sad about that, Scarlett? But it’s not goodbye forever. Enjoy your last night, keep in contact with your girls, get excited about the future you want to build, but don’t beat yourself up about loving everything it has represented up until now.”
Her eyes water but she doesn’t let a single tear fall. Instead, she closes her eyes, breathing through her emotions. At least this time I can tell she’s at least feeling them instead of burying them.
I let her have her moments of accepting her decision. When her breathing turns back to normal and I can see the green of her eyes shining brightly again, I know she’s ready for this.
“When we leave tonight and lock the doors behind us, I’ll hold you the whole time,” I promise her. “If you need a moment to break, we will hold you together. Don’t force yourself to hold it together when you don’t have to.”
She nods, leaning back against my chest. “Maybe.”
I huff a laugh. It’s the best I’ll get out of her.
You’d never knowshe had been on the verge of tears by the time we get to the club. Everyone in our group knew and gave a wide berth as she got her emotions back under control, but from the moment she stepped foot in the club, her entire demeanor shifted.
She wears a wide smile as she saunters into the crowd, moving through the wild crowd full of bodies as she makes her way to the stairs. As soon as people recognize the blue roses, the crowd parts for her and the girls, practically boxing us out as they close in around them.
That is until Luca growls and Kade flexes his arms as he crosses them over his chest. People are real quick to take the hint that they aren’t messing around. Makes it easy for the rest of us to sit back and watch.
I smirk as the two of them scare the life out of some young idiots who let their gazes linger a little too long on Scarlett’s ass.
We catch back up to the girls just before they reach the top steps and Scarlett notices Joe standing there, monitoring the VIP area. I can’t see her smile, but I know it’s there when I hear her stunned laughter.
She gets up on her tiptoes and presses a kiss to his cheek. I miss whatever she says to him, but I can only assume she asked what he was doing here when he responds, “You think I would miss tonight? Not for anything, Scarlett.”
She gives him another kiss as he squeezes her tightly before patting her on the head as she walks away. He looks just like her father as he puts his roses tattoo proudly on display. “The others are already at your table.” He gestures over to the spot we always sit at when we are all here. It’s less of a table and more like a whole section since there are so many of us.
I watch as the dancer in lilac leans on the bar and whispers in Jade’s ear. I nudge Scarlett so she can see the interaction too. She looks more than pleased. It seems our numbers just keep growing.
“How many dances tonight, pretty girl?”
“Just one set of three,” she answers, and I can hear the melancholy creeping back into her voice. “We’ll announce right before the last song.”
