Beautiful Thorns (Boys of Bellerose #4)(9)
Author: Jaymin Eve

 

He grinned back, then sobered up as he gave me a cautious look. “How are you coping with the whole… Bruce Bellerose back from the dead thing?”

 

I shifted in the water, raking my fingers through my wet hair as I considered his question. How was I coping? Not well. Or maybe better than expected? How was one supposed to react when their dad comes back from the dead as a gangster who aims a gun at their head and kidnaps their second-chance lover? Was there a rule book?

 

“I’m maturely choosing not to really think about it,” I finally said, “except when the most annoyingly intrusive thoughts force me to. But I have some questions for Bruce Wilson. Fucker doesn’t get the name Bellerose any longer. It’s mine.”

 

“Ours,” Jace murmured, and I turned fully to face him, keeping just the one hand on the pool wall.

 

“Ours? As in yours and mine?”

 

“You are mine,” he said with a shrug. “So, logically, it stands to reason that what is yours is mine.”

 

This fucker and his logic. Logic that was a painful thud in my heart, making my body feel heated and odd. Floaty.

 

“I’m scared to let myself fall fully for you, Jace,” I whispered. “You were my first love. The first boy to wander into my yard and heart—”

 

“And panties.”

 

A snort of laughter escaped me. “Shut up, I’m trying to be fucking serious here.”

 

His expression sobered as he moved closer so there was almost no space between us, and the heated water felt near jacuzzi temperature now. “I’m being serious too. I’m all in, Rose. All the fuck in. And I will wait as long as it takes for you to believe me. The love between us never went anywhere, but it was the trust that ended up damaged. And whatever the fuck it takes, I will rebuild the trust between us.”

 

“How?” A choked sob of a word, but every part of me was broken and bleeding. Once again. Still, it didn’t feel as fatal as usual. Maybe because I suddenly had so much hope as well.

 

“By never letting you down again.”

 

He was dead serious, his eyes blazing with sincerity and truth.

 

“I will be there to celebrate every high in your life, Rose, and when there are lows, I will lay in the ditch with you and protect your soul and heart with my own. No grief or loss will you face alone, and if there’s a chance for me to take the burden, I will do so with zero regrets. My heart is yours. My love is yours. I am yours.”

 

This might be the reason I always fell in love with musicians. Their words are poetry, and they are filled with so much passion. When it’s focused on you, you feel like you could do any fucking thing. It’s just when you lose it that the world turns drab and gray.

 

A gray that had almost destroyed me multiple times.

 

“I’m not sure it’s going to be as easy as that,” I said, choking up. “There are some words that can’t be unsaid. Some actions that remain between us, no matter how many times I try to push them aside.”

 

Jace was silent, and I wondered if he’d just run now. Now that I’d made it a touch more difficult for him in this journey he’d started toward healing. But just because he was ready to look to the future, didn’t make his recent hateful words hurt any less. Not the shit that went down nearly nine years ago, but the shit he’d said in recent months. That was what I was struggling to move past.

 

“You’re right,” he whispered. And fucking hell… I was surprised he’d so readily agreed. “I have said and done some unforgivable things to you, Rose. So along with rebuilding trust and never letting you down, I’m going to start today with something I should have said long ago. I’m sorry.”

 

Two words. Straight to the heart like an arrow from the devil’s bow.

 

He has a bow; it’s obvious.

 

“I’m sorry for not fighting harder for you when we were teenagers,” Jace continued, even though I hadn’t said a word. I was just staring at him like my mind was temporarily out of commission. It actually kind of was.

 

“I’m sorry that I spent the next eight years feeling sorry for myself, and instead of growing into a strong man who was worthy of you, I ended up a pathetic mess who thrived in his pain.”

 

As mad as I’d been at Jace over the years, and especially over the last many months together, it bothered me to hear him speak ill of himself. I barely managed to stop myself from defending the man back to himself.

 

“I’m sorry that when you told me about the baby, my first instinct was to fall into my own pain once more. For that, I will be eternally sorry. Blaming you, when in reality it was me I was mad at, is one of the most fucked up things I’ve ever done. I should have been there with you, Rose. I should have fucking protected you. And whether we would’ve lost our little girl anyway because that was her life path, who knows, but I should have been there. Either way, I’ll never forgive myself for that. It’s why I insisted on therapy because I needed to do anything I could to help you heal, to try and repair the damage I’d caused by not being there when you needed me the most.”

 

At this point I had to interject.

 

“No, Jace.” I shook my head roughly. “That’s not yours to carry. It was my choice to lie to you. Mine. And as a result, I took away your chance to be there. I understand why you were so angry with me in the forest. If someone took away my choices like I did to you, I’d be mad as well. Big fucking mad. So for that, I’m sorry.”

 

Fault lay on both sides in this fucked up set of circumstances. Both of us had a lot to make up for, and maybe… just fucking maybe, for the first time, we might finally be moving in the right direction.

 

Jace placed his hand against my face, the heat of his palm burning through me to join the inferno roaring in my chest. “You have always been selfless, Rose,” he whispered. “Your lie was for me, and my reaction was for me. There’s been too much me in this journey so far, and I’m ready for there to be so much more you.”

 

“What about an us?” I choked out.

 

His expression softened, and there was so much emotion in that gaze. So much love. My tears slipped free before I could stop them.

 

“There’s always been an us,” he told me, his thumb caressing my cheek as he wiped tears away. “And there always will be. We were a forever from the first moment we met.”

 

Deep, painful sobs ripped from my chest as I crumbled forward. Jace wrapped me up so tightly, holding me like I was the most precious person in the world.