THESE THORN KISSES, page 1
Table of Contents
Cover
These Thorn Kisses
Copyright
Other Books by Saffron A. Kent
Blurb
Dedication
Reader's Extras
St. Mary's Crest
St. Mary's Lipstick Guide
Dream
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Part II
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part III
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Part IV
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four
Chapter Thirty Five
Chapter Thirty Six
Chapter Thirty Seven
Chapter Thirty Eight
Epilogue
Poe
Deleted Scenes
Bad Boys of Bardstown
Soccer Nation
Acknowledgments
About the Author
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely
coincidental.
These Thorn Kisses © 2021 by Saffron A. Kent
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Cover Art by Najla Qamber Designs
Cover Model: Jeff Kasser
Editing by Olivia Kalb & Leanne Rabesa
Proofreading by Virginia Tesi Carey
December 2021 Edition
Published in the United States of America
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The Unrequited
Eighteen-year-old, Bronwyn Littleton is in love with a stranger she met on a summer night a year ago.
A stranger who was tall and broad in a way that made her feel safe. He had dark blue eyes that she can’t stop drawing in her sketch book. And he had a deep, soothing voice that she can’t stop hearing in her dreams.
That’s all she knows about him though.
Until she runs into him again. At St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers – an all girls reform school – where she’s trapped because of a little crime she committed in the name of her art.
Now she knows that her dream man has a name: Conrad Thorne.
She knows that his eyes are way bluer and way more beautiful than she thought. And that his face is an artist’s wonderland.
But she also knows that Conrad is her best friend’s older brother. Which means he’s completely off-limits. Not to mention, he’s the new soccer coach, which makes him off-limits times two.
What makes him off-limits times three however, and this whole scenario an epic tragedy, is that, Conrad, Wyn’s dream man, has a dream girl of his own.
And he’s as much in love with his dream girl as Wyn is in love with him…
NOTE: This is a STANDALONE set in the world of St. Mary’s.
To all the dreamers and artists who stay awake at night and create, so we can see the beauty in this world.
And my husband, who encouraged me to pursue my dream and aim to live an extraordinary life. I love you with all my dreamer heart.
Official Spotify playlist
Pinterest Boards
Conrad & Bronwyn
St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers
Dream (n.):
A mosaic of thoughts, ideas and images that run through your mind while asleep.
Also, a goal or an ambition
Broken Dream (n.):
No such thing. Because dreams don’t break. They evolve and morph and grow as you grow. Dreams are what you make them.
There’s a man I’m staring at.
Let’s call him Mystery Man.
He’s tall. And broad.
In fact, he’s so tall and so broad that he’s bursting out of his clothes. He is.
The black suit that he’s wearing can barely contain him. It looks like his shoulders, muscular and so totally sculpted, will bust out of his suit jacket. And that chest which appears rock hard and cut will tear out of his white dress shirt.
That’s the first indication that he’s not from here.
Not the fact that he’s quite possibly the most built and athletic man I’ve ever seen in my short sixteen and a half years of life. But the fact that his suit is clearly ill-fitted and outdated.
Making me think that he doesn’t wear it often, or even if he does wear it, he doesn’t care about keeping up with the latest styles and fashions or the fact that his body is too large for it.
How fascinating.
To not care about such silly, superficial things.
Actually no. That’s not the most fascinating thing about him.
The most fascinating thing about this Mystery Man is his hair.
It’s long.
Well, long-ish.
It not only curls at the ends, brushing and grazing the collar of that outdated suit jacket, but it also falls over his forehead. Some strands are even hanging down to his brows. And then there are strands that flutter over the side of his face.
By this town’s standards, he totally needs a haircut and hair gel. A comb too, maybe.
And I so very much don’t want him to get any of those things because God, I’ve never seen hair like that. I might have seen a physique like his — although I doubt that; no one’s as tall or large as him where I come from — but not the hair.
I wish I could tell the exact color of his hair but he’s standing in such a dark, lonely corner of this spacious yet crowded ballroom that I can’t. I can’t even see his face very clearly. All I can see are lines that ride high in his cheekbones and angles that slant so beautifully in his jaw.
But whatever I can see has me utterly convinced that he is definitely, definitely not from Wuthering Garden, the town I live in. The town that I don’t really venture out of.
Because the towns surrounding our town are “beneath us.”
At least that’s what my mom says.
She says that those towns are full of poor, desperate, middle-class people who know nothing about our rich and fabulous ways. In fact, those people would do anything to learn our ways and be like us.
So we need to protect ourselves from them.
We need to stick to our town, to our people and to our posh society where people get regular haircuts and never ever wear anything last season.
So maybe I should just stand here, in my own dark and lonely corner which is very graciously doubling as a hiding spot, and not walk up to him.
I should probably not think about asking him his name or where he came from. Or what he’s doing here at this party.
Not to mention, why does it look like he’s not breathing?
I could be wrong about that though. About the not breathing part.
Because as I said I’m all the way over here, hidden between two potted plants, and he’s all the way over there, at almost the opposite end of the ballroom. But I swear to God, I haven’t seen him move once in the past ten minutes that I’ve been watching him.
I haven’t seen him reach for a drink when the waiter passed by or nod at any of the people who have walked by him and actually paused to throw him a second look. I have a feeling that it wasn’t because he looks like he doesn’t belong here but because of how rugged and interesting he is.
Because mostly who did pause and give him a second look were women. Mothers of some of my classmates even.
But anyway, it’s none of my business why he appears so deathly still or what exactly is the color of his hair. I should just stick to my hiding spot and stop watching him.
I should worry about my own self.
I should; tonight is a big night for me. Sort of.
It looks like I’m not going to though, worry about myself that i
s. It looks like I’m going to come out of my hiding spot and walk up to him. I even take a few steps in his direction, and of course that’s my first mistake.
Because of course I get caught.
By my mother.
“Bronwyn.” Her angry voice behind me halts me in my tracks. “What are you doing?”
I clench my eyes shut and hang my head.
Shit.
And I was doing so well.
For someone who doesn’t get to hide much at these parties, I was doing phenomenally well. I’d managed to find this lovely spot on my second try. And I’d even managed to calm myself halfway down about the whole big night thing until I got distracted by my Mystery Man.
And now I’ve lost my chance.
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
“Bronwyn!”
When my mother’s voice reaches screeching level, I open my eyes, sigh and turn around, pasting a casual, cheery smile on my face. “Hey, Mom.”
While my mother’s face is serene and so beautiful, her eyes — brown and pretty — are furious. “What are you doing? Where have you been?”
“I was just, uh, trying to find water,” I fib, keeping the smile in place. “Remember?”
That’s what I said to my mother as soon as we arrived at the party. That I was going to find water. She told me to come right back and I told her that I would.
Only instead of water, I wanted to simply… breathe. So I took cover and hid.
But I was going to go back. I was.
I wouldn’t ever do that to my mom or my dad.
“For the last half hour?” she asks, raising a suspicious brow.
Yikes.
“I also went to the bathroom,” I say, lying again, trying to keep her anger at bay. “There was a long line. And then I ran into Christine from school and we got to talking. She was telling me about her trip to Europe this summer with her parents. She said that it was amazing. Rome was magical. She wants to go there again next year and…”
I trail off because Mom has stopped listening. Which is just as well because I’m not sure if Christine did find Rome magical or if she’s really planning on going back.
I asked her about it a few days ago, when I ran into her at yet another party like this, but she didn’t respond. I’m sure she heard me; we were the only two people in the bathroom at the time and she was standing two sinks down, retouching her lipstick.
But the thing is that Christine doesn’t talk to me very much; she thinks I’m weird. And strange.
She told me so. A couple of years ago.
I’ve tried to dispel that notion, hence the casual chit chat I was trying to start the other day, but so far I haven’t been very successful.
But that’s not the point here.
The point is that my mother has stopped listening and has started watching me.
In the same way that Christine and all the girls in my class do.
In the way that tells me that they’re checking to see if I’ve improved since the last time they saw me. If my ghostly pale skin has bloomed with color. Or if my brown hair, as dull as dirt, has developed an overnight sheen. Oh, and if my eyes, gray and, again, as pale as a ghost, so that they appear silver, look… less ghostly.
Which is fine.
I’m used to it.
I’m more worried about what and if my mother has found something on me. She shouldn’t. I mean, I’m impeccable right now. As impeccable as I can be with my strange looks, but still.
“Have you been chewing on your lips?”
Oh shit.
I completely forgot about that. That I’ve been doing it because I’ve been so nervous and that I wasn’t supposed to do it. Because it would ruin my lipstick.
“I’m sorry. I…”
I trail off because I realize that I’ve made the second mistake tonight: putting my hand on my lips and in turn, exposing my hands to my mother.
If I thought she was mad before, I was wrong. She is mad now. So freaking mad that she reaches out and snatches my hand in a tight grip. She stares down at them, at my fingers, dirty and smudged with ink. And before she can say anything, I burst out, “Mom, I just —”
“Why don’t you ever listen to me?” she hisses. “Why is everything so difficult with you? I told you, didn’t I? That tonight is important. You need to behave. You need to look perfect. But no, of course you didn’t listen, and now you have dirty hands because you can’t keep away from your useless habits. Martha has better hands than you.”
Martha is our housekeeper — and my friend — and she does have better hands than me. They’re always clean and her nails are somehow never broken even though she scrubs every inch of our house from top to bottom every week. And she’s always giving me tips to keep my fingers and my nails clean. But I always forget.
I struggle in her tight grip. “Mom, I’m sorry. I’m going to wash my hands now. I —”
“What’s going on here?”
This time it’s my dad who cuts me off.
He arrives with a glass of red wine and a huge frown between his brows, which I know is only going to get more huge when Mom answers his question.
Which she is going to. My mother never disobeys my father. Ever.
“She’s been doing it again,” Mom says with an annoyed sigh, letting my hands go.
I was right; Dad’s frown does get huge. His lips purse as well as he looks down at me. “Is what your mom’s saying true?”
Bringing my hands back and hiding them from my father, I swallow.
“Is it true, Bronwyn?”
I jerk out a nod. “Yes. But I —”
He grinds his teeth. “How many times have I let you get away with it?”
“Dad, I —”
“How many times, Bronwyn?”
“For years.” I give him the expected answer.
“Yes. For years. And why?”
“B-because you’re my father and you love me. But I need to grow out of it now.”
“And why is that?”
My heart squeezes in my chest and I swallow to keep my emotions at bay. “Because I’m not a child anymore. I’m a grown-up and I need to… I need to be a good daughter.”
“And whose daughter are you?”
I swallow again. “Jack Littleton’s. The DA.”
He is.
An extremely well known DA and well liked; mostly because he comes from a wealthy family but has chosen to serve the public. He’s always on the news, always giving interviews, being invited to events and parties. He’s also very popular in DC, is friends with congressmen and senators.
So basically everyone knows my dad.
Which means everyone knows my mom, Jack Littleton’s wife, and me, Jack Littleton’s daughter.
“Exactly,” he says, his eyes pinning me in my place. “Which means you have responsibilities. You have duties you need to fulfill. An image you need to portray. Which means you can’t waste your time on things that are useless and inconsequential. Is that understood?”
I know the answer that’s expected of me.
I’ve given it to him multiple times before when I’ve gotten caught wasting my time.
But for some reason tonight, I want to argue with him. I want to say that it’s not useless, what I did — what I want to do. It’s not inconsequential.
It’s my… passion.
It’s something I love.
And I know that it makes me strange because of who I am and what’s expected of me. Not to mention, no one in our circle or town, which is made up of rich, influential, political people, has this passion. But can’t they try to accept it or at least see it, just once, through my eyes?
I won’t say it though.
I can’t.
Because it’s not their fault that I’m strange. That I like the things I like. They didn’t ask for a daughter like me. And he is right. I do have responsibilities.
So I jerk out a nod like I always do. “Yes.”
My father watches me for a beat before sighing and stepping back. “Good. Now your mom has already told you how important tonight is. The Rutherfords are waiting. They’re eager to see you. Robbie is eager as well. So I expect you to meet us out on the balcony in ten minutes.”
