Chapter 5 – The surprise

“Dad, I don’t want to. Another woman is pregnant with his child.” 

Rose’s voice came out thin and strained, the words hanging heavy in the quiet living room like they weighed more than the air around them.

Frederick’s expression hardened instantly, the lines around his mouth deepening, but he refused to back down even a little. 

“Answer it, or I’ll find him wherever he is.” 

Rose stared at her father helplessly, the phone still vibrating in her hand. She tried to bargain, voice soft but urgent. “You have to promise to remain quiet.” 

Frederick’s jaw tightened until a muscle jumped near his ear. After a long, tense moment he gave her his word with a single tight nod. 

Rose answered the call and immediately heard Cruz’s worried voice, the familiar low tone sliding into her ear and making her stomach twist. 

“Rose, where are you? I thought we agreed we needed to talk after I got back.” 

Her teeth clenched together hard enough that her jaw ached. “And I told you I had to see my dad.” 

“Okay, I’m coming over. I miss you.” 

Her fingers tightened around the phone until her knuckles went white and the edges bit into her skin. “No. I want to go to bed early because I have a lot waiting for me at the office.”

She kept her voice polite and even, even though the last thing she wanted was to see him.

Cruz, however, refused to let it go. His voice dropped into that coaxing tone she used to find comforting. “You know I won’t touch you until after our wedding. The house feels empty without you.” 

Something twisted painfully inside her chest, sharp and hot. “Cruz, I was in the middle of talking to Dad. Let me call you later.” 

Before he could argue or soft-talk her any further, Rose quickly ended the call. The sudden silence in the room felt louder than the conversation had. She lowered the phone slowly and turned toward her father, shoulders tight. 

“I have to go back.” 

“No.” 

Tristan answered before Frederick could even open his mouth, his voice low and firm. 

Rose turned toward him and tugged lightly at his sleeve, her expression pleading, eyes wide and shiny. “Come on, Tris. He’ll be suspicious if I don’t go back, and trust me, he never gets intimate with me because he isn’t attracted to me.” 

The words sounded much worse when she said them out loud. They hung in the air between them, raw and embarrassing. Her eyes began to glisten again, the heat of tears pressing hard behind her lids.

Like any other woman her age, Rose wanted to feel desired. She wanted to be held by the man she loved, to know that he found her beautiful enough to lose control over her, to feel his hands and mouth and body needing hers.

She was twenty-one, after all, young and full of longing. Yet Cruz had never gone beyond light kisses that always ended too soon, as if he were checking a box instead of wanting her. 

Now that she knew another woman was pregnant with his child, jealousy crawled beneath her skin like a living thing, hot and restless, before another colder thought quickly followed.

What if Cruz had been intimate with her too, and she ended up pregnant as part of whatever scam he was planning? Or worse, what if she caught an STD from him and never even knew until it was too late? 

Rose swallowed hard against the sudden dryness in her throat. Maybe she should be grateful that there had never been real intimacy in their relationship. The thought settled over her like a bitter kind of relief. 

Tristan looked ready to say something, his brows drawn tight, but his phone suddenly rang and cut the moment short. Rose glanced at the screen out of habit, and the moment she saw the name displayed there, something tightened hard in her chest, a sharp little squeeze she couldn’t name. 

“It’s Hailey.” A small smile stretched Tristan’s lips as he looked at the screen, the kind of soft, unguarded expression he rarely showed anyone else except Rose.

Hailey was the adopted daughter of Scarlet and Sebastian, her mother’s closest friends.

She was a year older than Rose, and Tristan had always had a soft spot for her. On Hailey’s twentieth birthday he’d proposed, but she turned him down, insisting she only saw him as a brother.

Rose had later heard from Jason that Hailey started working as Tristan’s assistant right after college.

“Dad, I don’t want Cruz coming inside, so I’ll just meet him outside.”

Rose moved to Giselle and hugged her one last time. Giselle held on tight, hand rubbing slow circles over Rose’s back like she was trying to keep her from leaving. Rose finally pulled away, managed a small smile, and headed for the door.

Tristan finished his call a moment later. When he turned and didn’t see Rose, his expression went dark. “Uncle Fred, where is she?”

Frederick let out a frustrated sigh. “Going to meet the scumbag.”

Tristan’s jaw clenched. He rushed out the door, but by the time he reached the driveway all he caught was a sports car disappearing down the street. His teeth ground together.

Inside the car, Cruz kept one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around Rose’s. She immediately pulled her hand free.

“It’s getting late. Both hands on the wheel.”

Cruz glanced over, clearly thrown. Rose had always liked when he held her hand while driving. She’d never pulled away before. Still, a smile curved his mouth. “I have a surprise for you.”

Rose stared straight ahead. She had no idea what it could be, and honestly wasn’t interested enough to guess but she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud.

The rest of the drive passed with her trapped inside her own thoughts, mind circling the same brutal fact again and again. Another woman was pregnant with his child.

By the time Cruz pulled into the parking area of his penthouse, Rose felt bone-tired. Then she saw it, the surprise he’d claimed to prepare for her.

All the color drained from her face, and her entire body went rigid, teeth clenched tight as her eyes locked on the sight in front of her.