by Jody Kaye
Rose inhaled sharply, trying to find an emotion in her repertoire to replace the sadness on her face. She couldn’t, but she took both of Lily Anne’s hands in her own, holding them tight and wishing her the best. If anyone deserved that kind of life it was LilyAnne.
A tear fell from Rose’s eye, splashing on her own gown. She paddled her hands in front of her face and grimaced.
“What’s wrong, Rose?”
“Sentiment.”
“Nuh-uh, I’ve known you too long. There’s more.” Lily dragged her into a hall.
“Eric and I, we argued earlier. The usual.” She wiped her drippy nose like a toddler.
Lil pushed up her boobs and wrangled her hand down her top, handing Rose two tissues from the bust of her dress. “Was he upset that Ross was escorting you? I’d thought of it Rose and—”
“Lil, it’s your wedding day. You’re supposed to be happy. Don’t worry about me.”
Oh, Rose, I’m always going to worry about you. Someone has to! Ross’s still coming?”
“Yeah, he’ll be there for Rodger. Ross keeps his promises.” Except the one to cherish me, she thought, wiping her cheek. They were parting long before death and it was killing her inside.
Rodger came into the ballroom triumphant, carrying Lily Anne amidst a round of applause. She clutched her bouquet and kissed him.
Rose clapped along with the guests and then reached for the glass of wine that the waiter refilled.
She downed the first glass of wine with Grandy sitting her shoulder saying, “You knew!” At first, it made her giggle inwardly and then it made her all the more sad since she’d likely never see the old woman again.
“You might slow down.”
Rose rolled her eyes, ignoring Ross’s suggestion. She’d avoided him before, during, and after the ceremony and ignored his presence while the photographer positioned them all for large group pictures. It wasn’t until she sat down at her spot from the previous night, seeing Ross’s place card sitting next to hers, that her attempts to get through the evening came to a screeching halt.
They ate in silence, a cacophony of voices surrounding them. Ross offered platitudes toward the bridesmaid to his right and Rose wondered whose cutesy idea it was to make them all sit boy-girl.
She huffed.
He scowled.
They danced. Not with one another. With Ross’s back to her, Rose glowered at the other bridesmaid in his arms. The girls brow furrowed, but Ross chose that exact moment to spin the woman. She let out a whimsical laugh that everyone in the bridal party echoed upon seeing her delight. The only exception was Rose.
Rose finished her stiff twirl on the parquet with the best man. Returning to her once more filled glass, she felt the heat of eyes on her. Eric stood to the side discussing something with George Andrew. George placed his flat hand on Eric’s lapel and whatever words George had for her father seemed to calm him. He looked almost crestfallen. It reminded Rose of the day he told her that her mother died.
She turned tail for the ladies lounge with Eric on her heels.
Outside the banquet hall she saw Ross. He was too close to the other bridesmaid who was eating up his attention. She fixed his boutonniere. Her fingers strayed too long on Ross’s jacket.
“Get your hands off my husband,” Rose thundered.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said!”
“Rose,” Ross began, imploring her to act appropriately.
“Don’t you ‘Rose’ me. Don’t tell me what to do or how to act. My father will keep at it as long as he’s living. We’re still married so unless you want this divorce to be on the grounds of adultery then you’d best remember our deal.”
Ross bared his teeth, his lip curling up in disgust. The distance between himself and his wife was a wide channel that consumed both of their focus, but neither breached.
He had the same feral look that Eric Kingsbrier had the day in his office when Rose put one over on her father. Ross wanted to throttle Rose the same way. He’d grab her and shake some sense into his wife. She didn’t want to be a part the relationship, but accused him of stepping out on her. While she misbehaved. And ignored him. Made them both uncomfortable. Refused to love him back, but held Ross to an invisible standard.
“I believe it’s better for everyone if the two of you leave. Now.” Eric’s stoic voice came from behind her. For once he was cutting off Rose before she elevated her poor behavior to the next level. “I’ll have a car brought around for you.”
“We’re already gone.” Ross dragged Rose away by the arm while she loudly protested. He’d made a deal with Rodger and would keep his word. Rose wasn’t going to ruin Lily Anne’s day.
Thank God there were only four people in the hallway at the time Rose popped her cork. From the driver’s side, Ross shoved her across the seat in the truck while she, of all people, yelled at him about appearances.
On the ride back to Kingsbrier they made horrible snide quips at one another. Mutters turned to shouts. Each one ratcheting each other’s ire to the breaking point.
Ross slammed the truck in to park when they got back to the barnyard. She caught her hand on the dash to stop from flying into it and then jumped out of the truck, slamming the door behind her. Stomping up the steps into his apartment, her heel caught between the porch boards causing her to stumble. Rose let out a ferocious growl. The expensive shoe was ruined.
“Serves you right,” he said, vindictively. He needed a drink to ease his nerves. She’d had several while he babysat her ass. Now that Ross had finished his favor to Rodger, he reserved the right to relax. Months of supporting her for naught. She couldn’t even act like a grown woman for the sake of her best friend.
“It’s a shoe!” she yelled back. In the grand scheme of troubles Rose faced it was insignificant. So why did the gash leave her on the verge of tears? She bit the inside of her cheek, preferring real pain to the intangible hollowness.
“Is it that hard for you not being the center of attention, Rose? Or is the real problem that you’re not able to ignore me and control me at the same time?” Ross threw the tie and tuxedo jacket he’d take off and began unbuttoning the top two pearly white buttons of his shirt. The jacket grazed the countertop, falling as a heap of bunched fabric onto the floor. He was too angry to pick it up. “You got your way. I’m here with you having a miserable time! I give it a decade and you’ll have steamrollered your father into turning Kingsbrier over to you too.”
“My real problem?” Rose slurred. “You’re the one who dragged me out of the reception like some wild neanderthal.” Her bottom hit the mattress of the brass bed. Rose lifted her right foot, pulling off her broken satin heel and chucking it. She repeated the process with the second shoe. It hit the wood wall before falling, thudding onto the floor with the same grace as the first. Then Rose stood, unsteady with one elbow angled up and the other down, trying to reach the zipper on her gown. The expensive fabric suffocated her skin and she wanted the gown off.
“You’re infuriating, do you know that? It’s always about what Rose wants. I’m sick of putting your needs first.” Ross slammed the refrigerator shut. He twisted the top off of his beer. The metal lid made a tinkling sound against the counter. “I have no clue why I signed on for this. What was the point? I didn’t need the money. You never told anyone we got married.” He pointed his pinky finger at her while taking another long draw. “No one, besides your father, even knew until you blew a gasket—at your best friend’s wedding no less—when I danced with someone else.”
Rose continued to pull at the dress.
“Christ! What gives you the right to suddenly act jealous?” Ross spat. He’d told himself over and over that he’d been trying to salvage a good time for himself while she brooded. That was it.
Any man in his right mind noticed how beautiful she looked last night at the rehearsal dinner. And today? In that full-length dress with her hair pulled up? All he wanted was to touch her one last time. But tonig
ht was different than all the nights before. They wouldn’t fall asleep reading to one another or chattering about his future.
“You told! You told your family and you weren’t supposed to!”
“And they acknowledged you, Rose! Without any pretense and not caring if you had a dime. I vouched for you and my word was good enough for them to recognize you had a place in my life. Not that unconditional acceptance makes a hill of beans difference to a Kingsbrier.” He cursed her last name.
From the start, they were bound to move on from one another. It was inevitable. Ross should’ve kept his boots moving in the same direction they’d been in before he knew she was Eric Kingsbrier’s daughter.
Except Ross’s flawed compass kept righting itself, circling back to the girl in the stands that captured his imagination. And when it was the two of them alone, Rose was a different person. She hadn’t changed for him. He hadn’t asked her. It was that Rose seemed comfortable showing Ross who she really was and she accepted him for that exact reason.
But had Ross turned a blind-eye?
Up until Rose used their marriage against Eric and then started up with the shenanigans again at the wedding, Ross would’ve forgiven a thousand of Rose’s transgressions. She’d stopped directing the sass and spoiled nature toward him long ago and became a friend that he relied on. He hadn’t agreed with Rodger to watch over Rose because he felt obligated. Ross did that because he wanted to be with Rose. Every waking minute of the day and now that he’d held her when the nights got cold.
The past few months were about their relationship. Their friendship. Her antics today were a brutal reminder of the face Rose showed to others was not the woman he knew when they were alone. When she caused the scene, Ross was overcome with dread. It was well and truly over between them. He wouldn’t come back to the stable apartments at the end of the day ready to see Rose. There was no more eating dinner together and talking about their day. She likely hadn’t cared less while listening to the stories recounting his past. And debating with him over how he should run Cavanaugh Construction? Amazing business sense or not, it flew out the window. She just wanted to be right.
He’d known this day was coming. They weren’t meant to be life-long friends. Rose planned on telling her father all along. Eric storming into the stables caught both of them off guard. The feelings he had for Rose were always surface-deep. He’d kept them there intentionally. The way he felt didn’t matter until Ross knew for certain how Rose planned to explain everything to Eric. She’d been cutting and callous toward her father.
Rose loved no one but herself. But Ross loved his wife nonetheless and he was angry with himself for not being able to control that emotion.
He hung his head.
“I have no reason to think I’m anything more than the stuffed bear that the carnie handed to you at the fair, tossed to the side and forgotten until you think that someone else is going to play with me instead.” Ross turned at the scratch of a zipper. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m taking this damn dress off. Always a bridesmaid never a bride, you know.” The yards of taffeta billowed at her bare feet.
“Never a BRIDE!” Ross stormed up to her. The flash of intensity, and anger in his jade eyes had little to do with the fact that Rose now wore about as much as she did sunbathing. Although, combined that amped up his desire. “You were the bride at our wedding,” he seethed.
“Our wedding was fake!” she yelled in his face, standing up on her tip toes. “Everything from the courthouse to the fake kiss and Twinkie banquet at the quickie-mart was a sham. A real husband would have smashed cake in his wife’s face, not up her back. And our wedding night? Oh, boy that was glorious!”
Or at least it might have been if Ross started to feel the smallest bit the way Rose had. Because the way he’d acted like a gentleman during their tiny judge’s chamber ceremony was perfect and so was his instant demand that respect be a two-way street. And he’d been considerate of her feelings. Never once had Ross forced her to go to bed with him. Never once had he asked what had happened with Lathan because he hadn’t wanted to cause her any more pain. But Ross also never understood that she would’ve willingly given herself to him every night since the first because she’d never felt like this about anyone.
No man before him ever gave her credit for her opinion. Told her she looked pretty without an ulterior motive. Talked with her like she wasn’t some dumb blonde. He’d even begun asking her what she wanted from life. She didn’t know. Not anymore. Rose Kingsbrier still imagined a foot in the door at Kingsbrier Holdings. But a clearer picture formed in her mind as they’d grown closer. Rose Cavanaugh wanted to be swept off her feet the way Rodger carried Lily Anne into the ballroom.
Until her dying breath, Rose never wanted to let Ross go. He was leaving. Not abandoning her, but moving on to protect himself from her. She was awful. Unloveable. Her father even thought so. Without Ross, Rose wasn’t sure she’d find the person he’d so easily brought out in her. That woman who’d be lost when he left. Hidden behind heartbreak. Walled up and unwilling to take the chance on love again.
She loved Ross. Not the storybook kind of love, where the characters are in a perpetual state of youth, enamored by one another, but the kind that endured the trials and tribulations of life. When you fight but know you can count on the other person to stay. When the down moments make you appreciate the ups in the roller coaster of days ahead. She wanted to see how curly Ross’s dark hair would become next winter when he let it grow out again to stay warmer, and be present when gray touched his temples. When his eyes crinkled at the edges where those crow’s feet should be from the moments their joy multiplied.
Rose didn’t know how to change his opinion, prove that she was the person he needed her to be. She’d tried. For their friendship to survive she’d willingly changed because he’d readily accepted that her wild side was also a huge chunk of who she’d been for so long. Those parts merged into the person she found hiding inside herself. She honestly liked that woman.
It scared Rose to be more than she was. To want to be more for herself and for Ross. It terrified her to lose him. And she understood that he’d packed his things by the door because he had to leave to save himself from the demon he believed her to be.
Right now, if all she had was one last night as Ross’s wife, she wanted to be that in every sense of the word. If she didn’t, Rose’s biggest regret in life was going to be that she hadn’t given her husband all of her.
She’d pretend it was just sex and she’d bite her tongue to stop herself from saying the words he didn’t want to hear.
Ross pushed Rose’s knees back against the cold brass bed frame. His left hand encircled her neck. He dropped the brown bottle from his other hand, letting it crash to the floor. The sizzle of carbonation foaming the lone sound in the room as his right hand pulled out the clip securing her hair up. Ross’s cheek brushed hers as the blonde tendrils fell to her bare shoulders. She smelled the beer on his breath, wanted to taste it on his tongue.
“It wasn’t glorious falling asleep in my arms, Rose?”
Yes, it was. “No.”
“I didn’t come through as your husband, is that it?”
“No.” Yes, you did. She didn’t know how to stop wanting this. Wanting him.
“Then the deal breaker was not making love to you?” he asked, with only the slightest inflection in his voice as Ross nibbled from her ear down her jawline.
Her chest began to rise rapidly making her breasts swell over the top of her strapless lace bra. Ross’s thumb traced the roundness of her naked skin. She sucked in her stomach unable to control the stampede of longing that rushed lower, increasing the ache between her hips, making every inch of her body tingle.
His lips found hers. He braced her neck holding Rose steady, demanding that she open for him as he licked the seam of her lips.
Rose responded, trailing her nails through his hair, down his back, holding onto the fabric of Ross’s
dress shirt. His right hand dropped cupping her behind as the pace became frenzied. The fever skyrocketing to its breaking point as the passion between the two of them finally ignited.
His shirt had tumbled to the floor. Then her bra and panties as they undressed one another. His belt buckle was the last thing Rose touched before she found herself on her back with Ross lingering over her.
Her hand cupped his cheek, brushing forward, capturing a kiss in her palm. She watched the movements as if that sweet surrender was an out of body experience. Then her gaze refocused on Ross. He stared at her intently and, for the briefest moment, Rose was inclined to believe that Ross saw the way they’d be if only…
Marrying Ross wasn’t a simple business deal. This was a lifelong commitment they were walking away from. She’d lied to him and worse led herself down a merry path. True love happened to those who deserved that. She’d used flawed logic to gain the system and those laurels were grinding her into the ground. Rose was guilty of crushing anything in their proverbial garden that would’ve bloomed.
She gave herself over as Ross caressed her with his calloused hands, closing her eyes to the pain, filtering past the longing she’d felt in the early mornings that made her leave Ross’s bed and focusing on how she’d ever get along with fading memories of the way he touched her right now. Rose wanted him to love her like this all night for the rest of the nights to come.
She opened her eyes watching him reverently grasp her breast. He rubbed his thumb against her nipple and took it in his mouth drawing it to a peak, creating a need for him to be inside of her that Rose never experienced before.
Ross explored the parts of her body that, on the nights she awoke snuggled up to him for warmth, she’d longed to once again feel secure with being uncovered. And then, he set her skin afire with every touch.
This connection was more than sex for her. Rose was weak to defend herself against it. It wasn’t as trivial as giving Ross his rights as a husband. Her most naive self was the one that held onto the belief this would make it hurt less.