Third Time's a Charm (Holland Springs #3)(78)

Sasha lifted a curl from her shoulder and rubbed it between his fingers. “Sleep, eat, shop…make love.”

“You want me to leave, to run away from my problems and responsibilities?”

“Rosebud, you deserve more than this kind of life.” He dropped the curl between his fingers and grabbed the cross at his neck.

“Is that all?” she asked, her voice monotone. Emotionless.

Was that all? He looked around the room, struggling to keep his temper in check. “I want to spend every day…every minute with you, Rosebud.”

Pretty blue eyes met his. In their depths was so much pain that it made him want to reach for her. To kiss and hold her until the world fell away and no one could hurt her again. “Until your uncle has other plans for you.”

He sucked in a breath, “I’ve no choice, Rose.”

“So you say.” Her gaze was unwavering.

Blood rushed to his head. “What kind of sick fuck makes something like that up?”

“The kind that preys on an innocent woman and her family. The kind that makes her think that she matters, that makes her think you care about her when all you really wanted to do was have a little fun while you bided your time,” Rose said, shoving away the covers and reaching for the clothes he’d brought to her. “The kind who suggests a vacation after her home is destroyed, after her family leaves her all alone. After her baby is taken away.”

“Ivy went home with her mother,” he pointed out and she flinched.

Rose tugged a pale orange sweater over her head. “Am I supposed to wait around while you screw up someone else’s life?” She yanked on a pair of panties, then jeans. “And when you’re done, I should welcome you back into my bed, never knowing if you’ve been with someone else.”

He stood up, then began pacing the room. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Not even to save your mother?”

Her parting shot almost made him march out of the room right then and there. But she’d been through so much in the past twenty-four hours that he couldn’t bring himself to leave her. “What do you want from me, Rose?” he asked as their eyes met. “I want you with me. I’m begging you to go. Please, you have to go.”





Rose’s heart pounded in her chest. There were lots of things she wanted to from him, but he couldn’t give her any of it. She was tempted to take him up on his offer. How easy it would be to leave this place. To start over like her sisters had chosen to do, but she couldn’t. She belonged here.

“Why?”

“I bloody fucking owe you, that’s why,” he shouted and her heart quit pounding. It sank in her chest, heavy with despair. He thought he owed her. It was his only reason for even suggesting she leave Holland Springs.

“I can’t go with you,” she whispered and grabbed the coat from the bed.

His jaw worked. “Can’t or won’t?”

This wasn’t easy for her. Who would choose to live a life like this, confined to a role she had no desire to play. “I’m Poppy, my mother was Poppy, her mother before her. It’s just the way things are.”

“No one gives a damn about Poppy Holland.” He shook his head and rapped his knuckles on the mantle above the fireplace. “No one knows who that is anymore. Your family’s the ones clinging to the past.”

“It’s all I have left.”

He gave her an incredulous look. One that was underlined with vulnerability, but she refused to let it sway her. “You have me,” he said.

“Because you owe me.”

“Yes. No…fuck it all.” He strode to her, gripping her shoulders. His heated gaze pierced her heart. “Don’t you want something different?”

Yes, she wanted something different, but she did not want to be with a man who thought he owed her. Who’d mentioned nothing of love. She loved Sasha—God, she loved him. But she refused to stand by him why he worked for his uncle. It wasn’t about him choosing his mother over her. She’d never ask him to. And the thing she knew Sasha wanted the most was the thing that being with her would never give him—his freedom. “I want you to leave me alone.”

Sasha’s green eyes shuttered and his hands fell to his sides. His face was devoid of emotion, of warmth. “Fine. Stay here and rot for all I care.”

“Good-bye, Sasha.”

She slipped her feet into the flats and moved to the door, closing it softly behind her. Forcing the tears back, she closed her eyes to pain, not wanting to think of how tenderly he’d taken care of her last night. How he’d touched her so reverently and like she was made of glass. As if he knew that all the cracks in her soul were threatening to break her body into pieces. Then this morning, the most intimate time of her life.

She told herself that she didn’t need Sasha in her life. That she’d made the right decision. That sometimes a person had to set free the person they loved the most.

She’d always hated old sayings like that, because it was obvious that whoever thought it up had never gone through it themselves.

Lifting her chin, she descended the stairs and went to find Haven.





Chapter Twenty-Three





Sasha boarded the jet, flinging the painting of Poppy Holland in the nearest chair and hoping like hell he’d damaged the thing.