Rome: A Marked Men Novel (35 page)

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 fucked 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.”

Nash swore a little bit and turned so that we could go into the shop.

“When two people feel that way about each other, they figure it out. Just like Rule and Shaw did and

just like Jet and Ayden. It’ll be fine, Tink. I promise. By the way that was a nice gut shot. You shoulda

aimed for the nose, though.”

Normally that would have made me laugh, but I felt like everything I had was swirling around in that

cloud of wrath Rome had ridden away on. It had to work out, there was no other option. He was it for me,

I just needed to pull my head out of my ass and tell him. He was right: I asked him for everything and he

gave it without question. He wanted one thing from me, to hear that I loved him like he loved me, and I had

been unable to do it for him. I sucked. Plus I was sick and tired of the big jerk always somehow managing

to get the last word in every time we had a fight. That was really annoying.

“I wish that was a promise I could be sure you could keep, Nash. Don’t say anything to the guys. You

can tell them about Jimmy because you all gossip like teenage girls, but leave Rome out of it. I need to fix

this mess on my own.”

And fix it I would, because there was no other option for me or for our baby.

When we walked in the door, the guys all wanted to know what was going on. I let Nash fill them in

while I asked Rule if I could talk to him in the back room.

He followed me, his face screwed up in a total look of confusion, but he was kind enough not to grill

me.

“That was Jimmy.”

“I figured. Looks like Rome made it pretty clear he better leave you alone.”

“Yeah, he also made it pretty clear I better figure my shit out or I’m going forward alone.”

I thought Rule would get riotously indignant on my behalf, but he didn’t. He narrowed those pale eyes

at me, which made me twist my plugs around nervously. I felt like a bug under a microscope.

“What? Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what, Cora?”

“All judgy. I was your biggest cheerleader when you were acting like a dipshit over Shaw, so knock it

off.”

“He loves you, Cora. That isn’t a joke. He’s never laid himself on the line for anyone like that before

that wasn’t family.”

“I know, I know. I’m working my way there, all right. I don’t want to be without him.”

“Do you love my brother, Tink? Because if you don’t, even if it kills him, you need to walk away now.

You can’t do that to him.”

“Rule.” I sighed and started to pace back and forth in front of him. “I wanted someone perfect, thought

it would keep me safe, save me from another broken heart, and all it did was insulate me and make me too

scared to tell a wonderful man that I love him back. I thought I could show him, that he would just know,

just feel it pouring out of me the way I felt it from him. I screwed this up royally and I don’t know if he’s

going to let me fix it.”

I started crying and he swore and pulled me into a hug that crushed my ribs.

“Everything is fixable. He had the same reaction when Shaw let us know about Remy, only then he had

all my idiotic outrage on top of his own to keep it going. He works his way out of it and I know how much

he needs you, Cora. It’ll be fine. Love is a goddamn scary thing. Facing it takes brass balls, and we all

know you have a pair.”

I didn’t want to laugh, but I had to. I pulled away and wiped a hand over my face. “I used to think I

was pretty tough, but your brother has turned me into a big pile of goo.”

“He makes all of us look like marshmallows.”

I straightened my top and tried to make sure I looked presentable before going back on the floor.

“I want you to design a new tattoo for me. That is the real reason I asked you to come back here, not to

sob all over you like a big girl.”

He lifted the eyebrow that had the rings in it and looked me over. “More flowers?”

I told him no and explained what I wanted. I was gratified to see his eyes grow big and to see some of

the frost that was always in there melt a little in appreciation.

“I’d be honored to do it. Just let me know when you’re ready.”

I tilted my head to the side and winked at him. “Gotta get big brother to forgive me first.”

“He will.”

“You guys keep saying that. I just hope you’re right.”

CHAPTER 16

Rome

Everyone at the bar was giving me a pretty wide berth. I came in breathing fire and lit up. I knew my

anger was disproportionate to the situation, kind of like it had been when Shaw broke the news to us about

Remy, but I couldn’t seem to stop it. I felt like I was losing my grip on things, like whatever I had been

building with Cora was crumbling to dust right in front of my eyes. I was so wound up in my own bruised

ego, and my own sense of loss, that I knew I was on the brink of spiraling out of control with no way to

stop it.

I told myself over and over that we couldn’t agree on a house because we were just two very different

people. When it crept up on me that she couldn’t tell me that she loved me, I convinced myself it was

because she was still working around the fear Jimmy had left with her. I tried to reason that she was scared

to see forever with me because I was still rocky at the whole family and stability thing, but I tried to show

her in everything I did, with every dark memory or tortured dream I let her touch, that I was getting there.

Watching her face her ex, dismiss him out of hand as insignificant, unimportant, and irrelevant, didn’t give

her a wall of excuses to hide behind anymore. I couldn’t get my head around a real reason she might have

for not feeling about me the way I did about her until she told him that he’d made her unable to love

anyone. I knew she was holding parts of herself back and I understood fear, but I felt hopeless and furious

at the idea that she had forced me to open all my hidden places, to bleed all the worst parts of me out in the

open for her to see, while she still got to play it safe. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t a way for us to move

forward together.

As tempting as it was to just grab a bottle of vodka and disappear into the back room and drown my

sorrows, I knew it wouldn’t get me anywhere, so I just made sure I kept busy and tried to avoid snapping

anyone’s head off needlessly. Asa was watching me closely and running pretty good interference for me. I

didn’t know why everyone else thought he was such a shady character; so far he had done nothing but have

my back. I would even consider him a friend at this point, so when I got a text from Cora at ten telling me

she was in the parking lot and wanted to talk, I just nodded to him even though the bar was packed. The

crowd on a Friday night was something to be proud of now, but I was so twisted up about a certain wild-

card blonde I didn’t even stop to acknowledge it.

I knew she didn’t want to come in the bar in case I was going to make a scene or because she was

worried that I would be unbending and unreasonable. I had given her good cause to believe that, which

made me feel like a major jerk. There was no need for her to be cowering in the parking lot like she did

something wrong. If she didn’t feel about me the way I felt about her, I was just going to have to accept it

and move on. The one thing she had been so instrumental in teaching me was that there was nothing wrong

with holding out for what you ultimately decided you deserved. I wanted her, wanted a life with her and the

baby, but she needed to want me on the same level or it wasn’t enough.

I saw the bright green car parked next to my truck. When she caught sight of me making my way

toward her, she climbed out of the driver’s side and started to make her way toward me. I was going to tell

her to just follow me inside, that I would have Darcy make her something to snack on while we talked. I