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I’m trying to avoid everyone. That includes my big brother—who is totally team Dom. The thing is, I don’t even think Dom is in the wrong. I just don’t think I’m strong enough to live my life with Gabby trying to cause trouble every single day.
“You look like a woman in deep thought,” Nicole murmurs. I look up and realize I never closed my damn door. I always do that. I’m kicking my own ass for forgetting now. In my defense, my room is part of the attic. It has been converted to a giant bedroom and I love it. Skylar threw fits all the time because she wanted it. Too bad for her I claimed it before she was born, and I never relinquished control—even after I moved out.
My gaze follows Nicole as she enters the room carrying this enormous bouquet of sunflowers and lilies. She takes them over to my large windowsill, putting them down before making her way back to me.
“It’s a side-effect of being involved with a Savage Brothers member, I guess,” I half-joke.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Nicole agrees, sitting lightly on the side of my bed. When she looks down at me, the sadness in her eyes makes me hurt even more, if that’s possible. If anyone could understand my misery at the moment, I know it’s her. I imagine that should bring me comfort, but it just makes me hurt for her. I don’t want anyone to endure the pain I’m feeling and in a lot of ways, it’s worse for Nicole. She’s dealing with a grown man—a man who is proof that her husband had another woman in his life before her. That’s not earth shattering, I guess. It would, however, be a huge stab in the heart to learn after building a life together. I sigh. Oh hell, it sucks no matter what the circumstances are.
“I guess I don’t need to ask who the flowers are from,” I mutter. I look around the room and there are five beautiful vases full of flowers. There’s more than that downstairs. Dom has been sending flowers every day for two weeks. They’re beautiful. At first, I refused them, but I got to where I couldn’t do that. I love Dom. In my heart, I’m not sure I can let him go.
“You don’t. I know everything is a mess right now, but Dom loves you, Thea. He’s not going to just let you go without a fight.”
I nod. I can’t argue and I don’t really want him to give up on me, so I say nothing. I push my thoughts away and try to concentrate on the here and now. “Did you need something?” I ask.
“I was just checking on you. Your mother said you were nauseous this morning and went back to bed.”
“Yeah. I’ve been that way for the last week. I think it’s a combination of nerves and stress. I don’t know. I could even be coming down with something,” I mutter, not able to drum up the nerve to care. Life has kind of lost its color for me at the moment. I’m not sure it will ever come back. I’ve been going around half dead since the day I left mine and Dom’s house.
“Have you thought about the possibility that you could be pregnant, honey?” Nicole asks and my heart flip-flops in my chest. I immediately shake my head in denial. “That would be the worst thing that could happen.”
“I don’t think it would be at all. You’d make a great mother and believe it or not, Dom will be a great father. He’s always tried to shield me and his brother from everything. It comes naturally to him.”
“Dom is going to be a father. I’m sure he’ll step up to the plate wonderfully with Gabby. The last thing he needs is me confusing things and adding pressure to him.”
“Bull hockey,” she scoffs.
“Bull hockey?”
“I’m trying to clean up my language around Little D and Tamsin,” she responds with a grin. “I’m pretty sure I can clean up mine. I’m not so sure about Dragon’s.”
“Are you going back to him?” I ask.
“Yes, I just need to get up my nerve to call the idiot. I know the asshole loves me. I love him too. I’m not even hurt about King. I’m more hurt that he’s known for a while about King and didn’t think he should tell me or even invite King to our home so the three of us could discuss everything. I even asked him if he thought it was a possibility King was related to him. He denied it and made me feel foolish for asking. Dragon has always had a really bad habit of trying to hide situations he’s afraid will hurt me or make me mad enough to leave. It’s a trait that I thought Dom had inherited. That’s what led to the mess with Gabby and T, I’m sure of it. Still, he seems to have finally got his head out of his ass with all this mess and you leaving. That makes me glad.”
“Do you know King’s mother?” I ask, wondering how she’s going to deal with that. I think that’s the one thing holding me back the most. I’m not sure I can deal with Gabby being a fixture in our lives every day. I’m adult enough to see their child as an innocent party, but watching Dom interacting with Gabby and the child as a family unit may destroy me in time.
“I think I do. There was a woman who kept trying to get Dragon alone at the club years ago. Dragon met with her a couple of times at a club. I walked in on them kissing and it nearly caused us to get divorced. I think Dom was six or seven at the time. Sadly, he was the only one old enough to know something was wrong. He heard us fighting, too. That’s something I will always regret. I should have shielded him better. At the time, I was too lost in my own pain.”
“Wow,” I whisper. “Dragon loves you so much. I couldn’t imagine him ever kissing another woman.”
“To this day, he swears he was caught off guard by her and didn’t have time to push her away before I walked in on them. Maybe he’s telling the truth. Part of me believes it is. Still, the woman approached him that first night of the party and Carrie let me know, I made him promise to make sure it didn’t happen again. The fact that it did, and he let it—despite his promise—was betrayal enough.”
“I understand. It would be for me, too.”
“Men are different creatures than women, Thea.”
“Is this one of those Mars and Venus kind of talks?” I laugh.
Nicole grins. “Sort of. When you’re dealing with alpha males, they see things in black or white. They see betraying the woman they love as having sex with someone else. In Dragon’s eyes nothing he did crossed the line. It wasn’t my place to tell him what he could and couldn’t do as long as he didn’t cheat. The kissing thing—which is what he referred to it as—he said that was all her, and he was going to put a stop to it. To him it was clear cut and nothing I should end our relationship over.”
“Did you hit him over the head with a baseball bat?”
“Oh, believe me, honey, I wanted to. I packed the kids up and we moved to Tennessee. I came very close to staying there.”
“What changed your mind?”
“He cried.”
