Rome (Marked Men #3)(77)

For five years I had needed this moment to let go. But now that the anger was starting to bleed out, I knew the harsh words I had thrown out in a blind rage had hit the wrong target.

Rome had offered me everything over and over again, and still I’d held back. I’d never been absolutely clear to him why I was so hesitant to just hand my heart over, and here I was laying it all out there to the last guy who deserved any consideration. Jimmy might have damaged my ability to freely offer my love, but I had to be accountable for my part in being scared to give everything over to Rome. I knew we were meant to be and holding back fell entirely on my cowardly shoulders.

“Cora …” Jimmy didn’t get the chance to add anything else because Rome’s tolerance ran out. He moved around me faster than a guy that big should be able to move and grabbed Jimmy by the collar of his trendy pearl-snap shirt. The toes of his hip boots dragged across the sidewalk and his eyes popped wide. I saw Jimmy gulp and heard Nash chuckle.

“Not helping, Nashville.”

“No plans to, Tink. Let him wrestle with the bear. He deserves it.”

“She said she doesn’t have anything else to say to you. That ends the conversation. You want to continue it, you continue it with me. A lot of time has passed for you, but I’m brand-new. I know what I got with her, and I’m not going to let you dirty it up or twist her up anymore.” He shook Jimmy like he was a rag doll and I had to bite back a grin. “She’s having my baby. I love her. There is no room in any of that for you to show up and try to make her responsible for your bruised ego and hurt feelings. Maybe if you weren’t a dick to begin with, you wouldn’t have ended up getting f**ked over in the long run. Are we clear?”

I had never seen this side of Rome. He was always kind of dangerous, always kind of coiled tight like he could take care of business at any minute. I had to admit it was fascinating to watch, and I wasn’t surprised that Jimmy couldn’t hold up under the threat of the kind of guy Rome was. I doubted many could. He nodded and Rome shoved him away. Jimmy stumbled off the curb and looked at me one more time.

“For what it’s worth, I do really understand now how bad what I did to you hurt. You always deserved better.”

I snorted. “I deserve the best and that’s what I found. Good-bye, Jimmy.”

The three of us watched him walk away, me with a new clarity, Nash with unbridled amusement, and when I looked up at Rome, everything I had been afraid my thoughtless words were doing to him was shining out of his hard gaze. He was angry, but more than that he was hurt, and I couldn’t fault him for it. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to try and soothe the unintentional burn I had caused, but those sapphire eyes flashed at me and I could feel the blaze of his anger burning in his tightly locked muscles and granite-hard expression. I took a step back and started when he did the same thing. There wasn’t supposed to be space like this between us anymore.

“What just happened, Cora?”

The words were gritted out between clenched teeth, and I blinked at him in surprise.

“I thought this entire time that you couldn’t tell me you loved me, that you were struggling to find a house with me because you were still working through all that stuff that idiot left you with when he cheated on you. I thought I was letting you find your own way to where I was waiting for you, and I just watched you annihilate the only excuse I thought you had for holding back on me. You just told that idiot you could never love someone else because of what he did to you, I heard it loud and clear.”

I reached out for him, my hand was shaking, and I could feel Nash recoil next to me when he backed away another step. This couldn’t be happening.

“Rome.” I tried to get him to calm down. To get a word in edgewise, to tell him he didn’t understand, but he wouldn’t let me. The thing I was best at, talking, seemed to be my worst enemy at the moment. If I had just been able to tell him I loved him back, he wouldn’t be reacting this way now. Of course I loved him. I was just terrified.

“Dude, chill. She just got ambushed by her ex. She’s pregnant. Take a breath and calm down.”

“I know she’s pregnant, Nash. I had something to do with that, but I can’t give you everything, let you see all the broken, ugly parts of me, if all I get in return is only what you deem as safe. I’m not Jimmy. I won’t let you down like that, and I thought I had proven that to you over and over again. If you can’t be in love with me because of what that loser did to you five years ago, which one of us isn’t all the way in, Cora?”

Beyond the rage in his voice I could hear the sounds of his heart tearing loose in his chest. My fear and hesitation had caused this. There was no one to blame but myself. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t pry the words he so obviously needed off of my tongue. I did love him, but this wasn’t a way I was ever going to tell him that. He would never believe me if I blurted it out to prevent this ugly scene.

The driver’s door slammed shut, and he took off in squeal of tires and roaring engine. I was glad he wasn’t on the bike. That would have been dangerous and scary.

Nash pulled me into a one-armed hug and I rested my head on his chest.

“He’ll calm down. I think seeing Jimmy was as much of a shock to him as it was to you.”

“He’s right. I should have told him how I felt forever ago. I just couldn’t. I was scared telling him I loved him would mean it would all fall apart and it would destroy me if it didn’t work out. He always tells me I color his entire world, but he did the same thing for me. If what I felt for Jimmy is beige, then what I feel for Rome is a damn box of Crayola crayons. I shouldn’t have been such a baby and just let him know. He is perfect for me, Nash.”