My Dark Romeo: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance(88)

Nothing would make me happier than being pregnant. I was sure of it.

Even if my blessing would be Romeo’s curse.

Romeo strode to me and attempted to pry my fingers off the hardcover.

“Wait.” I pouted, tugging it back. “Madison is about to—”

He stood deathly still. “Madison?”

“The character. Henry’s sister.”

Madison the Scumbag, on the other hand? I hadn’t heard from him since the showdown at Le Bleu.

I’d be lying if I said I felt good about the way we’d left things. Not from guilt. Madison used me as a tool against my husband, who then used me as a tool against Madison.

If I were a judge, they’d both be convicted of crimes. It just sucked to know the three of us were stuck in this power, ego, and money limbo.

I released the book, allowing Romeo to set it on the nightstand. Then he proceeded to show me heaven in a place that should have been my personal hell.

We did everything but sex. Spent hours exploring each other’s bodies. Each muscle. Each curve. All licked, kissed, scraped, and sucked.

He knew my body inside out. The beauty mark below my right hip bone. Each individual freckle on my shoulder.

And I’d studied him acutely, learning exactly where he was ticklish (between his six-pack and hip bone), what made him suck in a breath (when I covered the crown of his cock with my mouth, then blew air on the tip), and what he merely tolerated because he knew I enjoyed it (when I licked the shell of his ear. It gave him goose bumps).

At two past midnight, he slid his pants over his legs. I lay in bed, lips puffed, hair a mess, body deliciously aching.

Romeo glanced at the poor flower and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “…incapacity to care for a houseplant, let alone an entire child.”

Vernon’s rose had prevailed the impossible—me.

My sun-deprived room, the dirty water it marinated in, and my general inattentiveness.

From time to time, Romeo would tend to it, swapping out fresh water. Once, he’d even taken the tiny scissors I used to trim my eyebrows, clipping the tip of the rose.

Maybe that was why only one petal had fallen from it since we’d started regularly hooking up.

I didn’t know what impressed me more—Vernon’s ability to create a sub-species of rose or my husband’s hidden trait of caring for things with the gentleness of a doting father.

The next morning, I danced around the kitchen island with Hettie, immersed in a chocolate challenge.

Every single brand under the sun sprawled before us. Godiva, Cadbury, Dove, Ghirardelli, Lindt, and La Maison du Chocolat.

Vernon, our judge, sat on a barstool, atop four thick finance textbooks I’d stolen from Romeo’s office for added height. Not that Hettie or I could see him through our blindfolds.

I munched on a raspberry ganache pearl. “Godiva.”

Vernon cleared his throat, interrupting my 4-3 lead. “Mrs. Costa, you have a guest.”

As always, he insisted on calling me Mrs. Costa.

And as always, I visibly shuddered.

I ripped the blindfold off my eyes, gasping. “Frankie!”

But it wasn’t her.

Not Momma, either.

My lungs emptied, a gust of air whooshing past my lips.

Shepherd Townsend stood before me.

He hovered by the doorway, hat in hand, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

He wore that suit I liked the most. Black with yellow stripes. A hilarious combo that earned him the nickname Bubba Bee.

Those days seemed eons ago.

I wasn’t laughing now.

“Dallas. You haven’t been taking my calls.”

I pushed the chocolate aside. “Yes, I am aware.”

“I was hoping we could talk.” He lifted a shoulder, unsure of himself for once.

It tugged at my heartstrings, if not completely knotted them together in a tangled heap. Despite his actions, I couldn’t hate him all the way.

I gestured to the dessert-laden table in front of me. “Clearly, I’m busy.”

Thorny anger climbed up my throat. It went beyond the act of promising me to Romeo without my consent. Daddy had done that before with Madison, too.

What charred me inside-out was the eye-opening moment my now-husband hauled me from my childhood home, barefoot and in my sleeping gown.

In that instant, with the clarity of a newly polished mirror, I knew my father would not save me.

Fathers were supposed to protect their children. Not their family’s reputation.

Shepherd Townsend operated in a man’s world. Where women were a novelty. Simple, ditzy creatures to be quieted by the drop of a credit card.

He believed I’d find happiness with Madison, just as he’d wagered I’d grow accustomed to Romeo. After all, they were both easy on the eyes and filthy rich.

What more could a woman want?

What, indeed?

Perhaps a voice. Agency. Respect.

My father was a chauvinist. Just like the rest of Chapel Falls. Now that I no longer lived under his roof, I could show him exactly what I thought about his worldview.

A wave of surprise drenched Daddy’s face. “Surely, you could spare me a few minutes.”

While Hettie and Vernon scurried away, giving us undesired privacy, I gallivanted around the island, gathering the ingredients for homemade whipped cream.