His Christmas Rose by C.M. Steele Read Free Book Online

of the sudden Spencer had no appetite. He had technically stolen his brother’s girl or at least someone he liked. He knew that Matt was not her boyfriend, it was some guy named Rick, so at least he didn’t steal her away from him, he just moved too slow.
    Rose had woken up to her phone ringing. She picked up the phone with sleepy eyes and automatically answered, just as she naturally would before she met Spencer. “Hello,” she said groggily. “Rose baby, are you ok? I got your text message, but I know that it couldn’t have been you to be so cruel.” Oops she really should have looked at the caller ID, it was Rick. She looked around the room but didn’t see Spencer anywhere, and she could smell something good cooking. Thank goodness he was nowhere near because he said he didn’t want her to talk to her ex-boyfriend and that he would end their relationship for her. Obviously he did via text, and she should be mad, but she never contradicted his demand. “What text message?”
    “That is what I thought. Who are you with that would play games like that?” Rick sounded truly relieved and that hurt her heart that she would have to hurt him.
    “Rick, I may have not sent a text message to you, but I am sorry, it is over between us.” There was a long pause before he replied, “So is there really someone else?”
    “I am sorry. I never meant this to happen, but yes, there is someone else.”
    “You are a fucking bitch. You deserve the bastard. I hope you realize what you have lost.” There was a click and her screen showed he had hung up on her. She wanted to confront Spencer and was about to when she smelled something burning.
    He sat there until he smelled something burning and saw Rose running out of the bedroom and to the stove to put out the steaks that were now burnt.
    “Spencer, are you ok?” She was looking at the man she had accidentally fallen in love with, and he had an angry visage as he stared out in space.
    She touched his shoulder, startling him out of his jealous haze. “Tell me, who did your father really send you out to see.” He had grabbed her wrists tightly and pulled her close so her face was mere inches away from his. “Reed of course, what has gotten in to you?”
    She was a little bit frightened of him right now, but not that he would physically hurt her but emotionally he would wound her. She saw his phone in his hand and knew that he had to have received a message or text from someone, making him doubt her assertions.
    “Reed texted my phone earlier and it said your father believes that you were going to meet up with Matthew. Were you going to meet up with him?”
    “Have you lost your mind? You are taking my father’s word on this? A man you said you couldn’t trust and yet, the first time he says something makes everything I said to you no longer true.”
    “I am confused, Rose. I planned on having a quiet vacation to cope with the stress and changes in my life, but I am blown off kilter by the most beautiful, tantalizingly, adorable woman and the feelings she created in me. I want to believe you, it is just my jealousy that if Matt had been here, you would have been his.”
    “Wow! I am trying to not get mad right now because you have a tendency, in this short span of time, to say shit to piss me off and not mean it that way. I am not a whore, so I wouldn’t have bedded your brother because he was the only man available. I was dating the same guy for the last three months and we didn’t go all the way. Are you upset that I met Matt first?”
    “I am upset because Reed tells me that you two were attracted to each other when you two met before and that had you been older he would have made his move. So since you are older, well, that’s where I am going with this. I…”
    “Spencer, yes it was nice to have an older handsome man flirt with me, but I was never interested in your brother. I thought he was cute, yes, but I didn’t want him like that. Your whole family is