Thorneless (Rose of Thorne Series) Read Free

it is that I came back here.”
    WHOA! Did he just read my mind or something?
    “ Why did you, Lucas? Why now?” I ask him. I just want him to explain why I never heard back from him after he left for Paris. I mean, it’s true I was confused about my feelings when we were together, but he never even explained his silence.  I had cared so much about him and he had hurt me.  
    “I came because . . . ” he hesitates looking away from me quickly.
    “Because?” I reply.
    “I came because of you, Skylar. I came back because of you.”
    The shock of his words hit me hard in the stomach.  
    What does he mean that he came back because of me? Why now? Why after all these months?
    “I couldn’t let you marry him without knowing something first. I had to explain  some things to you and I couldn’t do that over a phone. It had to be face to face,” he says but I’m still too shocked to respond with more than a nod back to him.
    “I came back to Austin at Christmas to surprise you, Skylar.  I went to Thorne’s Christmas party that night. When I arrived, they told me you were upstairs, so I went up there to find you. That’s when I saw the two of you together kissing in his office, so I left. I went straight to the airport and flew back to Paris that night. I was so hurt that you, of all people, would do that to me. You had to know how much I cared about you. All I wanted was for you to care about me the way I cared about you.
    “It was easier for me to just stay away from Austin because then I didn’t have to worry about bumping into the two of you together.  I’ve spent the last seven months trying to get you out of my mind every way possible, but I can’t.  Skylar, when I got your wedding invitation, it almost sent me over the edge.  I had to come back home because I couldn’t let you marry him without me telling you all of this first.”
    “I . . . ” I cut him off. “Lucas, you don’t have to explain yourself any further, I get it okay? I know seeing us like that must have really hurt you.  I’m so sorry that I couldn’t return what you felt for me,” I explain sadly, “but you act like I cheated on you with him.  You’re the one who stopped calling and texting me. What was I supposed to think, Lucas?  You know, you don’t even have to answer that because I got the message loud and clear when I called your hotel room in Paris that night.  I should have known that you hadn’t changed. I was nothing but another girl to you.”
    “Wait. What are you talking about?  You called my hotel room? When?” He asks me, sounding genuinely confused.
    “I had been worried because I hadn’t talked to you for so long. I thought something bad might have happened, so I called your room.  I heard the two of you, Lucas.”
    “What?” he says with a confused look on his devastatingly handsome face.
    “When you answered the phone, there was a girl speaking in French and she was laughing.  It was 2 am, so what else would you be doing with a girl in your room at that hour?” I shot back at him.
    “No, Skylar.  You were all I thought about when I was in Paris.  I remember getting a phone call in my hotel room one night and I couldn’t get anyone to answer me back on the line. The woman you heard laughing had to have been CeCe, my best friend Tomas’ wife.  She and Tomas had flown in to visit me and had stopped by my room.   I would never have cheated on you Skylar, I loved you.”
    Wait! He had loved me?
    I feel like someone has punched me in the stomach. All this time, I thought he had cheated on me when he hadn’t.  He had flown across the world to surprise me for Christmas and found me in the Sebastian’s arms.  Of course. Now it all makes sense.
    “I don’t expect you to love me back, Skylar. I just needed to make things right between us. This is for me, not for you. I need for us to at least be friends.  Do you think we can at least be that? Even after everything I’ve just told you? I