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“I’m sorry,” Alex said quietly. He reached out to lay his hand on hers, and she understood the gesture as a comforting one from someone who still loved her. “Why—?” He cut himself off, apparently thinking better of asking, but she answered anyway.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know how to. For the same reason I didn’t tell Luke until two weeks ago, when I left home. I felt like I’d missed my chance to tell the people I loved and bringing it up was only going to hurt you, too. I guess I thought that I was doing the right thing by shielding you both from that pain.”
He nodded again. “I understand. That’s… a noble way to think about it.”
She laughed softly, feeling anything but noble. She took another drink of her coffee. “So when I found out about this baby, all of that came flooding back to me. Everything I’d been trying so hard to put in the past. And there’s always going to be a place in my heart for you, Alex. I just…”
“You wondered whether you ever should’ve left Luke.” His tone was even, and his words didn’t sound like an accusation. Much to her relief, it sounded like he understood.
“Yes. I’m so, so sorry that I hurt you. I never wanted that.”
“I know. And I appreciate it.” He gave her a slight smile, and the knot in her chest loosened somewhat.
“So where do we go from here?” she asked.
“Tell me when it’s a good time, and I can help you get your things moved over to Luke’s. No rush—just whenever works for you.”
Rose pushed back her chair and stood, rounding the desk. She paused beside Alex’s chair, and he watched her for a moment, looking confused, before he stood. The height difference between them was still as huge as it had always been—a foot and three inches, at her last count—and when she hugged him, she felt the strain that had been so palpable between them melting away.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “You’re going to be a great dad, you know.”
“Yeah, well, I’m just going to try to be better at it than Luke is. Shouldn’t be hard.” His tone was teasing, and Rose told herself that perhaps things between Alex and Luke could begin returning to normal sooner than she’d anticipated.
“No comment,” she said. She stepped back and smiled, and he started for the door.
“See you around, Princess,” he said.
“Wait—that reminds me. What do you think of Elsa for the name, if the baby’s a girl?”
Alex paused and looked toward her again, arching a brow. “I don’t know about that. We’ve… got time to think about it, I’d say.”
“So that’s a no?”
“Right.”
Chapter Eighteen
Halfway through the stack of case files he’d been poring over, Luke found himself facing the criminal record of a man he was supposed to be in charge of prosecuting.
Calvin.
As he stared at the man’s dark hair, his cold brown eyes, and the lopsided smirk he wore even in his mugshot, a wave of nausea rolled through Luke. He felt the wood of the chair Calvin had hit him with against his back again, and he leaned forward, bracing himself against his desk.
Four years had not diminished the rage Luke harbored for this man. When he closed his eyes, he saw Calvin pinning Rose to the wall, and he stared at the bookcase across the room, trying to distract himself. The small wooden globe his mother had bought him on a trip to London sat between Tolkien and Dostoyevsky on the third shelf. A framed five-by-seven photo he’d taken with Rose in St. Croix sat just beneath it, and she smiled at him brightly, her face beside his, the sun lighting up her hair and her blue eyes. Luke willed his pulse to slow, willed his lungs to take in more than just the shallow breaths that had begun with his recognition of Calvin.
Get it together, he told himself. He’s not here.
According to the file, Calvin was awaiting bail downtown for another assault. This time, he was being charged with domestic abuse. There were photos of a woman’s bruised face, and Luke had to set them down before he could accidentally crumple them as his hands balled into fists.
The arrest record confirmed what he already knew. Calvin had only been held for six months after his attack on Rose, and Luke had never been able to escape the idea that he was partially to blame for that. He hadn’t gone to Calvin’s trial or to Lorenzo’s, and his family’s lawyers had made deals he didn’t want to know about to keep the two of them from pressing charges against him for the damage he’d caused while defending his then-fiancée. But from what he’d heard, the jury had taken note of how badly the two of them had been injured and had barely voted to convict them, and the judge seemed to have taken that into account when sentencing them.
In the most recent photo, Calvin’s nose was crooked, and a ripple of savage pride spread through Luke. Maybe breaking Calvin’s nose had made the jury take pity on him, but Luke would never regret doing it as long as he lived.
According to the file, Calvin had been arrested twice more in the intervening years. Petty theft and D.U.I. The fact that he apparently hadn’t learned anything from his arrests wasn’t surprising. Luke felt a swell of pity for the woman who’d gotten too close to him.
There was no way in Hell he would be impartial, if he handled this case. With a sigh, he gathered the photos and documents back into the file and stood, making his way for the door.
He would have to recuse himself.
