Chapter 3 Rose
Rose
I’m on my phone, working on some edits for a client. Benito’s text a few days ago keeps looping through my head. Which is why it takes me a second to register that someone is shouting my name.
I turn—and my heart plummets straight through the frozen ground.
A man stands a few yards away, snow catching in his dark hair. It’s styled the same way I remember, swept back just enough to reveal sharp, hooded eyes that miss nothing. High cheekbones. That sun-warmed, copper-toned skin that glows even in the cold light.
“Kai.” I breathe his name so softly it fogs in the air, gone before it reaches him.
Then he smiles, wide and disbelieving, and before I can think, his arms are around me. The warmth of him slams into me like memory, like home. For a dizzy heartbeat, I almost fold into it. Almost let myself believe we could pick up where we left off. Like nothing broke. Like I didn’t break it.
He pulls back, eyes searching mine, full of that same concern that used to undo me. “Rosie, god, Rosie. I can’t believe—where have you—?”
I take a step back. Then another. My brain goes white with static. Every instinct screams run. My breath comes short and shallow. I start calculating—distance, crowd, exits. The safest route out.
When I left, I was seventy pounds lighter. My hair was short, flat-ironed straight. I wore heavy makeup like armor. It’s insane he recognized me at all. And terrifying.
“I’m sorry,” I manage, the words tight and strange in my mouth. “Do I know you?”
He stops dead. His head tilts slightly, eyes narrowing, confusion shadowing that warmth I once lived for. “Rosie, what are you—?”
“I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong person.” My voice wavers, but I keep going. “That’s not my name.”
Not a lie. Rosie isn’t my name. Hell, Rose isn’t either. But it’s close. God, I knew it would be reckless to keep a name so close to my original but I just couldn’t give up the name he’d called me our whole lives. Not completely.
The air burns in my lungs as I turn away. I keep walking, forcing each step to stay steady, even though my legs tremble. The world blurs at the edges.
Kai calls my name again—my old nickname—as I reach my car. I don’t look back. I can’t.
My hands shake so hard it takes two tries to fit the key in the ignition. The moment the engine turns over, I press the gas. Snow spits up behind me as I drive away, heart hammering, eyes stinging.
I don’t cry until I’m sure he can’t see me.