So, Rosie let it go.
Let all of it go when it came to them—the text she sent, the decision to put a wall up. There was obviously something there between them, staggeringly red-hot chemistry and maybe . . . maybe even something more. There was no denying that, and they could find out if he’d just let down the walls he built.
She took a deep, cleansing breath and made up her mind. “I am lying when I say I don’t like you. I do. I’m starting to . . . really like you. Not even sure why.” She let out a shaky laugh. “But I do. That’s why I stepped back from the whole Lucian investigation. It just . . . I don’t know. I’m rambling.” She let out a nervous breath. “You can trust me, Devlin.”
Silence greeted her.
Rosie squared her shoulders and tried again. “We could just start over. Hi.” Leaning forward, she extended her hand. “I’m Rosie Herpin. Ghost hunter extraordinaire.”
He didn’t say a word. Not for several moments, and in that time, there was a change in him. Almost like she could see him patching whatever holes or cracks that had formed in those walls. They were immediately paved over.
“People can’t start over, Rosie.” Devlin pushed to his feet. “I should leave.”
It was like a blast of arctic air entered the room. “I should leave.” Those words cycled over and over. Stung, she recoiled and for a moment she was frozen. Wow. That was all she could think. Wow. She just sat there, skin chilled and the back of her throat suddenly burning as she watched him walk toward the beaded curtains.
“I’ll see myself out.” Devlin parted the curtains, and the soft rattle echoed. “Goodbye, Rosie.”
She didn’t open her mouth. She didn’t say anything. And Devlin didn’t look back. Not once as he walked out of her apartment.
Chapter 26
He was an asshole.
He was also an ineffective asshole.
Smirking at that, Dev downed the rest of his bourbon as he walked through the living room of his home, toward the kitchen. Not the living room of the de Vincent manor. He didn’t want to go back there tonight. He just couldn’t. So, he went to his place at the Port.
The spacious apartment with floor-to-ceiling views overlooking the Mississippi from the living room and the city from the bedroom was furnished with all the necessities, but it currently looked like a home staged for sale. He didn’t come here a lot. Sometimes weeks went by before he returned. Sometimes he told his brothers he was going out of town, but in reality he came here and just vegged out.
But this was his place that not even Gabe and Lucian knew about.
He guessed at this moment he was more like Lawrence than he cared to admit. Didn’t he keep just as many secrets? Big ones. Life-shattering secrets.
Putting the glass on the island, he grabbed the bottle of bourbon. Tonight had not gone as planned. Shit. He hadn’t even checked out her apartment fully, but was that why he really went there? Did he expect to find some secret stash of information?
Who was he kidding?
Dev had seen the opportunity to search Rosie out and he’d seized it, no matter how illogical his reasoning was after the fact.
Truth was, he’d wanted to see her. He’d wanted the quiet that came with her. He’d wanted to get lost for a little while.
And that was so incredibly reckless, wasn’t it? To go after what he truly wanted. To be selfish, if only for a little while? He hadn’t that luxury since he was a child.
“You can trust me, Devlin.”
He took a drink straight from the bottle as he walked into the bedroom. Standing at the windows, he stared out over the twinkling lights of the city. His grip tightened on the bottle as he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the cool pane of glass.
He felt the presence before he heard the click of a door opening. It wasn’t the main door. No. It came from one of the other bedrooms. He probably should’ve checked the rooms before he cracked open a bottle of bourbon. Turning from the window, Dev waited and he didn’t have to wait long.
A shadow in the hallway grew closer to the dim lights of the bedroom. The form stopped at the door.
Dev took a drink from the bottle. “Thought I told you it wasn’t safe here.”
Silence greeted him and then, “I don’t think you used the word ‘safe.’ More like not ‘easy’ for me to be here.”
“Same thing.” Lifting a shoulder, Dev turned back to the window. “When you come here, you need to be careful. You’ve already been seen once and no one can see you.”
“I know.” There was a pause. “Obviously.”
Dev took another drink. “Why are you here?”
“This is going to sound strange.”
A wry grin twisted Dev’s lips as he thought of Rosie. “I’m getting used to strange.”
“Good.” There was a heavy sigh. “Because I had a weird feeling. You know, like there was something going to happen, but I couldn’t remember what. Like I missed an appointment. Had those feelings on and off my whole life. At least now I know why.”
The grin faded from his face as he took another drink. This one had a bite to it, scorching the back of his throat.
“Are you okay, Devlin?”
Dev closed his eyes as he lowered the bottle and told a lie that was getting harder and harder to live up to—a lie that would not be believed right now. “I’m fine.”
Falling asleep wasn’t the problem. Rosie had locked up after Devlin and curled onto her side, squeezing her eyes shut against the burn. She didn’t remember falling asleep. She just knew she woke up and the sun hadn’t even crested the sky yet and the stars glowed a luminous white from her ceiling.
Her chest ached as she stared up at the ceiling. Her chest hurt and she was wide-awake and she knew why. Devlin. She’d let her guard down just a fraction, and he’d slammed the door shut right in her face.
She knew better than admitting to him that she did like him. Worst part, she’d admitted that to herself, which was way more damaging than being embarrassed. And yeah, she was embarrassed. Who wouldn’t be after admitting that you liked someone and told them they could trust you, and then they literally walked right out the door after you said those words?
But it wasn’t even the embarrassment that was the part that caused her to be wide-awake in the early morning hours.
What in the hell was wrong with her?
Groaning, she scrubbed her palms into her eyes until she swore she could see dazzling white lights.
There was nothing wrong with her. She was just interested in a guy who really didn’t deserve her interest—a guy she couldn’t, for the life of her, even begin to figure out.
But there was a part of her that wanted to. A huge part, and it was more than him just being a puzzle she wanted to piece together.
Dropping her arms to her sides, she flopped onto her side. All the relationships she’d had since her husband passed and not a single one of them had woken her up in the middle of the night for good or for bad. Now, there had been many nights with Ian where she woke up like this, and there had been good and bad reasons for that.
There’d only been two men in her life who had that kind of impact on her. One of them she thought she knew like the back of her hand and didn’t. And the other? She couldn’t even begin to know or understand.
For what felt like the hundredth time, she told herself this was for the best. The last thing she needed was someone like Devlin randomly bursting into her apartment, looking for God knew—
Wait.
Rosie sat up. What was he looking for? She didn’t know, because he didn’t know, but he believed something was here—something hidden, which sounded bizarre. However, once again, there was a lot of bizarre stuff that existed in the world.
She tossed the covers off and swung her legs off the bed. He’d gone to her closet like he thought something would be hidden in there.
Her breath caught as she remembered seeing the piece of the wall in the back of the closet. It had looked like it was just coming apart
, probably the result of a bad remodel, but . . .
Maybe there was something here.
Sounded legit ridiculous, but she popped up from the bed and hurried over to the light switch. She flipped it on, wincing when she was pitched out of the darkness into the bright light. Opening the closet door, she hesitated and really thought about what she was about to do.
“Am I really looking in my closet at four in the morning?” she asked the silent room. “Yep. Yes, I am.”
Pushing her hair out of her face, she knelt down and carefully picked up the stack of jeans she would never wear and placed them outside the closet. Squinting, she leaned in, pushing hanging clothing out of the way. It was too dark. Rising, she snatched her phone off the bed and turned the flashlight on. She returned to the closet. With the bright light, she saw the separation between the walls.
“Okay,” she said. “Either there is nothing back there and I’ll cause the whole closet to collapse on me or . . . worse yet, I expose a nest of spiders or . . . I find something. Like a . . . skeleton.” Her nose wrinkled. “That’s dark.”
Propping her phone against the wall, she slipped her fingers through the crack and pulled. The wall gave an inch or so. Praying that she didn’t unearth bones, spiders, or bring the whole building down on herself, she pressed her lips together and then pulled again. Half of the section of the wall gave as if it weren’t even connected to anything, but it caught on another section.
The piece of drywall cracked and then gave way, too. Plaster spewed into the air. Planting her face into her arm, she leaned back, her fingers gripping a section of the wall.
Rosie opened one eye and groaned. “Ugh.”
White dust covered several of the hanging shirts. Probably should’ve taken the clothes down. Too late for that. Sighing as she pictured the massive amount of laundry she was going to have to do, she turned over the piece of wall. There were hinges, rusted over, but this section wasn’t just a piece of a wall. It was a kind of door.
That she’d ripped off.
“What the hell?” Rosie picked up her phone and leaned in, shining the light into the hole she’d created.
At first all she saw was wood beams—stable wood beams—and then she tilted the phone down. Something . . . something was definitely inside there. Square and thick. There were several things in there, actually.
Her heart began thrumming as a cold chill snaked down her spine. Part of her couldn’t believe she’d actually found something.
Thinking this was way too surreal, she reached inside, picked the first item, and pulled it out.
A dust-covered photo album.
Rosie twisted away from her closet and dragged her fingers over the album, brushing the dirt off before setting it aside. Leaning back into her closet, she reached inside and picked up something cool and smooth.
“An . . . iPad?” Turning it over, she saw that it was most definitely a dusty iPad. “Okay, this is . . . this is wow.”
Having no idea if anything else was left in there, she picked up the phone and leaned in, shining the light down into what appeared to be a cubbyhole. Something else was in there. A slim, rectangular box. She picked it up and recognized the velvet under her fingers.
A jewelry case.
Heart still thrumming heavily in her chest, she sat back on her knees and opened the box. “Wow,” she whispered, eyes widening as she stared down at a diamond tennis bracelet. A beautiful, well-kept bracelet.
Unbelievable.
Her gaze lifted to the closet as she held the jewelry case. Devlin came here thinking he’d find something hidden and there was—holy crapola, there was a diamond bracelet, an iPad of all things, and a . . . photo album.
Rosie looked over at the album as she placed the case on the floor. Her stomach pitched as she picked up the album. Curling her fingers around the dusty edges, she hesitated before she opened it up. She didn’t know why she took a moment, but that chill came back, skipping over her shoulders, and there seemed to be some small voice in the back of her head that told her not to.
To put the bracelet, the iPad, and the album back in the wall, because even though God didn’t put these items there, someone did for some reason.
Rosie opened the album.
There were two photos on the first page—one was of palm trees and the second was of a glistening beach and sparkling ocean water. She turned the page and saw a photo of a man lying in a patio lounge chair, shirtless and in red-and-blue swim trunks. A pair of sunglasses and a baseball hat shielded his face. The picture below that was of a younger woman with blondish-brown hair, probably a few years older than Nikki. She was wearing sunglasses, too, smiling widely at the camera as she held two large tropical-looking drinks.
Rosie turned the page and gasped as she stared down at the next photo—the picture of a couple at night, standing in front of lit tiki torches. No sunglasses. No hats. Both wore pastel blue-and-pink leis. The girl was really pretty and vaguely familiar to Rosie, like she’d seen her before, but it wasn’t the woman who caused her to gasp. It was the man standing next to her, with his arm thrown over her shoulders as he smiled at the woman.
She knew him. “Oh God.”
It was Ross Haid.
Chapter 27
“Here you go.”
Rosie was jarred out of her daze as the white-shirted waiter placed her root beer on the table in front of her. “Thank you.”
The young man smiled. “Do you need anything else?”
“No. I’m waiting for someone.” She picked up her glass as the waiter nodded and then backed off to take care of his other tables.
Looking up from where she sat in her booth, tucked next to the eye-catching, stunning spiral staircase that led upstairs, she saw Ross Haid yanking open the door to the Palace Café.
There had been several moments in Rosie’s life where she wanted to throat punch herself.
This was one of them.
But after what she found in her apartment, she needed to talk to Ross and this wasn’t a conversation one could have over the phone, because seriously, what the hell? Why were there photos of Ross, a reporter who was after the de Vincents, hidden in her apartment—an apartment owned by the de Vincents. If Devlin had found this . . .
God.
She wouldn’t be able to blame Devlin for thinking she was somehow involved in whatever insanity that was going on, because this—this was certifiable.
Rosie toyed with the napkin as she watched Ross cut between the mostly empty tables. The restaurant wasn’t ridiculously cramped yet since it was still early in the day, but give it an hour, and all the tables outside and inside would be filled even though it appeared as if it were seconds away from pouring.
A tentative smile appeared on his handsome face as he slid into the booth across from her. “Got to say, Rosie, I’m still surprised that you called me this morning and wanted to meet.”
Not as surprised as she was, considering the last time she’d talked to him, she’d basically threatened physical harm if she saw him again.
“I don’t plan on having a long conversation with you, Ross. I still really don’t like you.” And there was a world of difference in her tone when it came to how she said that to Devlin and how she said it to Ross.
Ross knew it was true. The smile faded from his face as he sat back and shoved a hand through his blond hair. “I deserve your anger. I should’ve been up-front with you.”
“If you were up-front with me, I never would’ve set you up on a date with Nikki.” She tugged the paper off her straw. “That’s why you weren’t up-front.”
“I was interested in Nikki and not just—”
“Don’t want to hear it.” She lifted a hand, silencing him. “Because I am this close to kicking you in the balls under this table and it’s not why I’m here.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw as he looked away. “Then why are we here?”
“I have something I think you might find interesting.” Rosie took a sip of the drink, lo
ving the taste of the sassafras root. She reached into her purse and pulled out the photo. “Here.”
His brows knit as he stared at her for a moment and then he glanced down. The blood drained from his face so fast, he looked queasy. His hand shot out as he snatched up the photo. “Where . . . where did you find this?”
“In the closet of my apartment,” she explained. “There was a photo album full of vacation pictures. Looked like Hawaii.”
Ross didn’t respond as he stared at the photo of him and the mystery lady.
“So, I want to know why there’s a photo of you and some woman hidden in my closet.”
He gave a slow shake of his head as a tremble ran down his hand, shaking the photo. “You found this in your closet?”
“Yep.” She crossed one leg over the other. “That’s bizarre, right?”
“I . . .” His gaze flew to hers. “Did you find anything else?”
“No,” she lied smoothly. “Just the photo album.”
“Did you bring the album with you?”
Rosie shook her head. “Just this picture. I want to know why this was in my closet.”
Swallowing hard, he laid the photo facedown on the table and then placed his palm over it. “You don’t know who she is?”
“No. Should I?”
“God,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “How quickly people forget.”
Rosie had no idea what he meant by that.
“I saw you last Friday—at the Masquerade.”
Surprised, Rosie jolted. “Excuse me?”
His eyes opened and that brown-eyed gaze slid back to Rosie’s. “Recognized you immediately, even with the mask. Surprised as hell to see you there. You left and headed upstairs,” he continued. “And Devlin de Vincent followed shortly after.”
She bit down on the inside of her lip. Had it been that obvious? Did others notice? A better question formed. “Did you follow us?”
A moment passed. “Just enough to know you were in a room with him. That is all.”
Moonlight Scandals Page 27