I just never believed it would fail like this.
There’s not a forty-ton pendulum hitting me anymore. It’s two-hundred-tons of cement, burying me beside my wife.
“Where are you going?” Lo asks as I pass him, Lily, and Ryke to head upstairs, Rose in tow.
“We need a minute.” Or five. Or an hour.
Rose is rooted to the center of my being, and I ache to scream—to yell at anyone attempting to dig her out, to hollow me. To leave me soulless and meaningless.
My defenses waver in my mind.
We have sex tapes.
Staged, they will say.
We have a child.
Business arrangement, they will argue.
I am hopelessly in love with her.
Who else can see this but you?
35
ROSE COBALT
Connor shuts our bedroom door, my brain on fire. I am on fire, my arms shaking from something much greater and hotter than rage. My phone buzzes in my fist, and I ignore the calls and texts from my mother and father, setting the cell on the dresser.
Slowly, I rotate to face my husband, ten feet separating us—tension entrenched within my solid bones. His eyes are bloodshot from restraining emotion, but he stands tall, all six-foot-four of him. His gaze holds acceptance of our fate that I’ve only just hatefully consumed.
He studies my reaction, the way I rub my hands together and inhale short breaths.
“Lily has been in this situation before…” I remember how the media casted doubt about her relationship with Loren, and then three-way rumors surfaced with Loren, Lily, and Ryke in the center. They made it out of that unscathed. So can we.
“And?” His deadened voice drums against my heart.
My nose flares, and I raise my chin. My efforts to instill confidence in myself feel more like an ill-fitting mask. “What other people think doesn’t matter…because it’s a little rumor.” My voice betrays me, quaking each syllable. “It’s what I told her before…that people can say whatever they want, but you know the truth. You love him.”
As the words leave my lips, he closes the space between us, clasping my wrist and pulling me into his chest. Our rigid bodies weld together, and he clutches me in a firm, comforting embrace, but I catch sight of his jaw muscles, constricting. He submerges as many pained sentiments as me.
Very softly, he whispers, “I’m so sorry, Rose.”
I choke out a breath. Do not cry. “You shouldn’t apologize for this.” I fist his button-down, my gaze piercing him between the eyes. He stares unflinchingly at me. We need battle armor. We need guns and cannons. We need to hit them like they’ve hit us. Revenge—blood-curdling, soul-screaming revenge blares in my charred brain.
Connor is more logical.
He values no part of revenge the way I do. We’ll feel better once it happens, doesn’t he see? They’ll pay, whoever betrayed him, and we’ll rise again.
He cups my face, his large hand cloaking me, and his deep blue eyes pour roughly through me like an invisible riptide. “It matters,” he says, shoveling the coldest truth in my direction, and a chill snakes icily across my neck. He’s never been one for false hope, not towards me. “I’m sorry that it does. This isn’t a baseless rumor like the ones with Lily, Loren, and Ryke. The media has actual evidence that discredits us, our marriage and our love, and public perception will be overwhelmingly against us, unlike anything they faced.” His thumb strokes my cheek. “This isn’t close to the same caliber.”
I swallow hard, my nose flaring again. Do not cry. “Our companies can handle the blows.” Calloway Couture is now attached to Hale Co. It has an iron-structure that’ll support any crippling movement. Cobalt Inc. is usually sturdy, and previously led by Katarina Cobalt—I bet the board members are just as progressive as she was. Connor shouldn’t be shunned by them.
“It’s not our companies I’m worried about,” he tells me.
Translation: I care only about our future together.
Jane…and all the kids we’ve thought to have along the way.
The other kids may be gone now, but we have Jane. It will affect her. I can’t even begin to picture the type of ridicule and judgment she’ll face from her peers. Everyone will believe she was born from a cold, heartless arrangement by robotic, unfeeling parents. I’ll wrap her in my unbending arms, no matter how rigid I may be or how mechanic I may seem, and I’ll shield her from this unjust storm the best I can.
I say to him, “You’re worried about Jane.”
“And you.”
I press a hand to his chest, taking a single step back. “I can handle this, just as you can. We’re equals.”
“No.” He clasps my wrists, stopping me from rubbing my hands again.
“No? What do you mean, no?”
“I don’t want to be equals with you,” he announces, his voice terribly flat.
My lips part, pain clawing at my lungs. “You don’t mean that.”
His eyes redden. “I mean everything I say to you.”
Tears threaten to well. Do not fucking cry, Rose.
“I want you to be better than me,” he declares, tugging me back to his body by my wrists. We can handle this. We can handle this. We can handle this. I’ll repeat it until it becomes a truth and not a mocking sound in my head. He holds my cheek. “Look at me, Rose.”
I’ve been avoiding his clarity, and he tries to pull me towards it.
When I meet his gaze, he says, “This is the worst.”
The King Lear quote punctures my head: The worst is not. So long as we can say, “this is the worst.”
He can’t fix this.
We can’t fix this.
“No.” I try to push him off, but he holds me tighter, my wrist aching from one of his hands.
“Yes,” he forces. “There is nothing we can do but bear it.”
“I’ll defend my love for you,” I retort, fire scorching my heart.
“How?” he asks.
I think about Princesses of Philly, how the reality show helped justify Loren and Lily’s romance. They needed a way to showcase and validate their relationship. The plan worked perfectly. The public fawned over them after Princesses of Philly aired. People rooted for them and championed their affection. Their desire was painstakingly clear within each frame.
Loren would pin my little sister against the kitchen counter, kissing as though breathing life into each other. She’d cling desperately to him, like she’d fall if not for his existence, and when she cried, he’d cling desperately to her—bracing her soul together while she braced his.
Their love is emotional.
Their love is outward and apparent.
I think of our time during Princesses of Philly. Connor wasn’t well-received by fans. More people liked me with Scott Van Wright—a man I despised—than they did with the man I loved.
Our love is inward and intellectual.
It’s of the mind and spirit.
Who else can see this but me?
I’ve never had to defend my relationship on this grand, massive scale, and Connor is repeatedly telling me that it’s impossible. I recount the past four months. If we act like Lily and Loren, increasing our PDA again—we’re faking it.
If we act like ourselves—we’re stiff and detached.
So we just bear the criticism then. Let it roll off our backs, no matter how much it burns and scars us? “When a volcano erupts, we don’t stand beneath it, Connor.”