Chapter 32
Noah
The elevator crawled. Like it knew exactly how desperate I was to get upstairs and decided to drag its cables out of spite.
My reflection in the mirrored wall looked wrong. Pale. Tight-jawed with a five o’clock shadow shading my chin despite having shaven merely a few hours earlier. My tie half-askew. I didn’t even remember loosening it.
All I knew was that Rosa had disappeared from our rehearsal dinner… and I had to find her.
After the blind item dropped, after I kicked Morgan out, after I tried to salvage what was left of our rehearsal dinner with damage control and polite lies—she was just... gone.
Callie and Ronnie hadn’t seen her since dessert. Even Hazel had no idea where she had gone. Kristen merely brushed me off with a tight smile, saying simply, "She’s probably taking a breather. Let her cool off."
Cool off? Rosa wasn’t a walking PR concern. She was my wife . And she looked like the ground had dropped out beneath her when she read that blind item.
I had searched everywhere. The ballroom. The restaurant bar. The rooftop garden. The fucking coat closet. I’d called her phone so many times my thumb had gone numb.
I ran a hand through my hair as the elevator creaked past floor five.
What if she wasn’t just cooling off? What if she thought this whole thing—our marriage— was a mistake again? What if Morgan’s poison had done more than ruin our evening—what if it had convinced Rosa I was the poison too?
The idea made my chest tighten until it was almost impossible to breathe.
I kept replaying the way she looked at me when I told Morgan to leave. That flicker of... something. Surprise? Hope? It was like she saw me clearly for the first time.
Like she finally realized how much I loved her. How much I had always loved her. I would always choose her. Over fame. Over fortune. Over any stupid movie or show or part I was offered. Rosa was it for me.
But then she vanished.
The elevator dinged and the doors crawled open. I stepped into the hallway, nearly jogging now. Our suite was halfway down the corridor and I had the key card out in my hand before I even reached the door.
Rosa had to be in here. She had to be.
I wasn’t ready for a fight. Or a breakup. Or tears. I just wanted to find her. To hold her. To tell her that no matter what Morgan threw at us, we were going to be okay.
Because we were okay. Weren’t we?
I loved her. Even if she didn’t quite believe me yet, I would spend every minute of every day proving to her how much. And I knew she loved me, too. The feeling was there, rooted in my chest like it had always belonged.
I swiped the card.
As soon as the green light clicked, I ran inside, skidding to a stop at the sight of her. Standing in the middle of the hotel room suite. Packing .
It shouldn’t have surprised me. After the blind item detonated in the middle of our rehearsal dinner, after she disappeared without a word while the room buzzed with whispers and sideways glances, I should have expected this. But I didn’t.
Rosa wouldn’t run, would she? Not when we’d come so far. Not when she looked at me the way she had just a few nights ago, wrapped in the bedsheets, her fingers brushing through my hair like she never wanted to leave.
But I couldn’t deny what I saw. Her, standing in the middle of our room with her back to me, folding clothes like she was preparing for a long trip away from us. From me .
"Rosa."
She didn’t turn around.
I stepped inside. The soft click of the door felt louder than it should have. She paused, her hand hovering over a pair of heels, then she picked up linen pants and continued folding.
"I’ve been looking everywhere for you," I said. My voice came out rougher than I intended. "You just left."
"I needed to clear my head."
My eyes fell once more to her suitcase, mostly packed. "By packing your life into a roller bag?"
That got her. She flinched, just a little. Enough for me to see she wasn’t made of ice, even if she was pretending to be.
"It’s better this way," she said, her voice low.
“What’s better this way?” If she was going to leave me, then I needed her to say it. Blunt. Rip the Band-Aid off.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she crossed the room, picked up a folder from the desk, and handed it to me without meeting my eyes.
My heart thudded as I opened it. Annulment papers. A different set than the others she had tried to hand me a week ago. And these were already signed by her. Dated. Official.
Where the hell did she get these?
My face burned at the thought. At the realization that while I was all in, she had her exit strategy ready to go.
My eyes fell to the notary’s signature at the bottom… Kristen . I stared at the pages like they were in another language. "You’re serious."
Rosa crossed her arms. "It’s the cleanest solution."
"To what? To one shitty article by a power hungry, egomaniac actress?"
"To a marriage that was never supposed to be real."
Even though her tone was gentle, the words slammed into me like a punch.
"You don’t mean that," I said quietly.
She looked at me then. Her eyes were glassy, rimmed with red, but her jaw was tight. Determined. "I do."
"No, you don’t," I said, stepping closer. "You’re hurt. You’re angry. And yeah, tonight sucked. But this? What we have? It's not fake. You know it isn't."
"It wasn't supposed to be real," she snapped. "That was the deal. You get your clean image, I get a leg up for my practice. We help each other and walk away with our careers intact."
"Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be real, but it was. It is .” I tossed the annulment papers onto the counter and took a step toward her. “This is real for me. And I think it is for you, too.”
She hesitated.
"Rosa." I bent to meet her eyes when she wouldn’t look at me. “Rosa, look at me. We’re still married. We’re still in this together. Nothing has to change if we don’t let it.”
She exhaled shakily and lifted those whiskey brown eyes to meet mine.
"Except everything’s changed, Noah. I’ve lost everything I worked for.
That blind item torched my name. My practice.
My reputation. The calls have already started coming in; the clients that were your friends are already starting to cancel their appointments with me.
Future referrals? Gone. That was the entire reason for doing this. "
"And what about us?" I asked. My voice cracked, but I didn’t care. I ignored the burning sensation in my sinuses and the tears filling my eyes. "We can get through this. I believe in us. I believe in the nights we spent talking until 2 a.m., the way you curl into me when you’re half-asleep, the way you smile when I call you Mrs. Tripp…” I gave a small, half-humored chuckle, then corrected myself.
“Excuse me, Dr. Tripp.” I squeezed her hand and my heart did a little jump when I saw the smile twitch briefly at the corner of her mouth.
“We can weather this storm. You and I. Together.”
But then, her smile faded, quickly disappearing as she looked away.
I took another step. "You can lie to the press. Hell, lie to Hazel, lie to Kristen, lie to whomever you want. But don’t lie to me ."
"I’m not lying." She wouldn’t look me in the eye. She stared down at my chin, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.
"Yes, you are. I see it all over your face."
She wiped at her cheek with the back of her hand. "Noah, please. Don’t make this harder than it already is."
"It should be hard. Divorcing someone you love should be hard. If I meant anything to you at all, then walking away should hurt like hell."
Silence stretched between us.
I glanced at Birdie, who had been curled up quietly on the bed. He lifted his head, sensing the tension, his eyes flicking between us. Rosa walked over to him, kneeling beside the mattress.
"Hey, sweet boy," she whispered, running her fingers through his fur. "You're gonna be okay. You stick with Noah, okay? He needs you."
"Rosa, don’t do this..."
She pressed her face to Birdie’s neck, shoulders shaking. "I’ll miss him. But he’s yours. He was always yours."
"He’s ours ," I said.
She stood, slowly. "Not anymore."
I reached for her arm. She froze as my fingers gently brushed her elbow.
"Just tell me the truth," I said. "Even if it’s going to wreck me. Did you feel anything real for me? Ever?"
She blinked, and a single tear slid down her cheek.
Then she looked me dead in the eye and said, "No. It was never real. Not for me. I just got caught up in the fantasy of being married to Noah Blue."
And with those words, I knew she was lying. If there was ever anyone who didn’t give a shit about the fantasy of being married to an actor, it was Rosa Alvarez.
But I also knew it wasn’t going to stop her from walking out on me. For the first time in my life, I realized the lie my mother had told me all those years ago. Love wasn’t enough. Not in every case. Certainly, not in this case.
It wasn’t enough to keep my dad from dying.
And it wasn’t enough to keep Rosa from leaving me.
Rosa grabbed her bag, her movements robotic now. She paused at the door, her back to me, and said in a voice barely louder than a breath, "Take care of yourself, Noah."
And then she left.
I stood there, surrounded by silence and shattered pieces of something I hadn't realized I was still building.
Birdie whined softly from the edge of the bed. I picked him up and gently dropped to the floor with him in my arms, clutching him like he was the last real thing I had left.
She didn’t just take her clothes when she walked out.
She took the future I hadn’t realized I’d already started loving.