Chapter 21 - Rosalie
ROSALIE
Feature photoshoots are my prime opportunity to capture behind-the-scenes content.
In Jett Ashford’s case, they’re also my chance to make sure the photographer’s vision doesn’t derail our image campaign.
Everything was going swimmingly until Thorne Wolfe—yes, that’s his real name, or so he claims—declared every single shot he’d taken was worthless.
A crime against aesthetics, he called it.
The man easily had over a thousand photos to choose from.
Hundreds of them were perfect, in my opinion.
But Thorne refused to attach his name to any of them, insisting we had to reshoot immediately.
I’m cutting it way too close for comfort, so I text my cousin as soon as I get to my car, begging for help.
Sylvie: Is this about the thing I don’t know about ,but I do totally know about, but HE doesn’t know I know about?
Me: Sylvie! Now is not the time for sitcom references!
Logan’s jacket is hanging behind my front door, and I know there’s more stuff scattered around the apartment.
My client’s photoshoot ran over 2 hours late, so I’m freaking out.
I’m leaving now, but I won’t be home until 6:45 or so.
Can you please head over and hide anything you think may be his?
Sylvie: I’ve got you covered, bitch. But I need to pump first, so I probably won’t get there until right before you.
I breathe out a sigh of relief.
Me: Thank you. I OWE you.
Sylvie: You can pay me in food.
The traffic lights were out to get me, so by the time I park my Bronco, I have less than ten minutes before Ryan’s due with dinner.
The boy is annoyingly punctual, but if I’m lucky, he’ll have trouble finding a parking spot, which will grant me a few extra minutes.
Normally I wouldn’t care what my apartment looked like when Ryan came over, but when Logan texted me with a warning about his jacket, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the little things I knew he had lying around.
Sylvie should be clearing my apartment now—because she’s the best cousin ever—but my anxiety won’t ease until I see for myself that all traces of Logan have been erased.
I ride the elevator—which stops at the lobby, collects a bunch of people, and literally stops at every level along the way to let them out—so I’m practically bolting out of it when it finally reaches my floor.
In my haste, I stumble through the front door of my apartment, barely catching myself on the counter before I faceplant.
Sylvie, casually perched on one of the barstools, chuckles. “Smooth.”
I give her a dirty look, shoving the door closed behind me. “Are we in the clear?”
She gestures toward the chair beside her where Logan’s leather jacket is hanging like a goddamn neon sign.
A bottle of cologne sits next to his black signet ring on the breakfast bar.
“This is all I could find that was super obvious. Well, plus a black electric toothbrush I’m assuming is his. I shoved that in your nightstand.”
I frown. “Why would you put a toothbrush in my nightstand?”
“I dunno,” she says. “In case you wanted to diddle yourself with it later. I’m sure Logan wouldn’t mind. It’s not like he hasn’t slurped up all your pussy juices before.”
I gag. “Please never say something like that again.”
She lowers her voice a few octaves. “Not even if I talk like a sexy manly man?”
“Not even then.” I glare.
I grab Logan’s ring and toss it into the junk drawer, slamming it shut like I’m sealing Pandora’s box. Before I can reach for the cologne, Logan’s signature scent—warm spice, cedar, and pure sex appeal—fills the air.
I whip around, finding my cousin pointing the bottle toward the sky. “Sylvie! What are you doing?!”
Her eyes go wide. “Oh, shit!” She waves a hand around, as if that’ll make the scent magically disappear. “I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking! I just wanted to know what it smelled like, and you can’t get the true effect while it’s in the bottle!”
“Well, now anyone walking into my apartment will get the true effect of walking into Logan’s chest!” I shriek.
“I can see why you want to bang him all the time if he smells like that up close,” she muses.
“Sylvie!” I throw my hands up. “Ryan’s going to know that’s Logan’s cologne!”
“Will he?” She cringes. “Maybe Ryan has a cold? We can hope his nose is plugged, right?”
I groan. “We have to light a candle! Now!”
“Ooh! Good idea!” Sylvie jumps off the stool and heads toward the coffee table where a three-wick candle is sitting. “Wait. Where’s the lighter?”
I frantically spin around in my kitchen. “I don’t know!”
“Well, we have to find it!” she insists.
“No shit, Sherlock! Look around!”
We both take off in opposite directions, rifling through drawers and cabinets. I yank open the junk drawer again—pens, receipts, a pack of gum, seventy bajillion packets of hot sauce—but no lighter.
“Where the hell is it?” I shout. “It’s a long candle lighter. Finding it should not be this difficult!”
Sylvie squats down on the floor, looking under the TV stand. “Damn, Rosa, when’s the last time you vacuumed down here?”
“Why would it be under the TV stand?!” I yell.
She gets back up, brushing off her knees. “I’m just trying to be thorough. No need to bite my head off.”
I spin in another circle, eyes narrowing on the refrigerator as a memory surfaces. “The fridge! It’s on top of the fridge!” I stretch my toes, blindly patting the top until my hand lands on the prize. “Yes! I got it!”
Why in the hell did I put it up there in the first place?
“Catch.” I launch the lighter across the room, where it bounces off Sylvie’s chest and clatters onto the floor.
“Ow!” She rubs her boob, bending over to pick it up. “You don’t need to be so violent!”
“I wasn’t trying to be! I said, catch!”
Sheesh. It’s like the universal sign for, ‘Heads up, I’m about to throw something at you.’
“Well, excuse me for not having catlike reflexes!” she huffs.
I point to the candle. “Light the damn candle, Sylvie!”
The butane must be low because it takes a few tries before the flame ignites.
“Hurry!” I shout.
“Bitch, I’m trying!” Sylvie leans over the candle after all three wicks are lit, waving a hand toward the front door. “There. Problem solved!”
“I’m pretty sure it needs to burn for more than two seconds before the scent actually spreads,” I deadpan, hands on my hips.
“How long could it possibly take?” she asks. “This loft is tiny.”
I narrow my eyes. “The rent on this tiny loft is three thousand dollars a month! LA is expensive. We can’t all be married to billionaires, you know.”
“Oh, bite me. You know I don’t give a crap about the money.” She rolls her eyes. “Also, never say never, Rosa. I’d say you have a damn good shot at marrying a billionaire one day in the near future.”
My jaw drops. “Wha—”
A sharp knock on the door makes us freeze.
“Fuck,” we mutter in unison.
My stomach knots as I check the peephole.
“It’s him,” I whisper-shout.
I open the door, stepping aside to let my brother in. “Hey.”
“Hey.” His eyes dart between us as he steps over the threshold and hands me a bag of delicious smelling food. “What’s with all the yelling in here?”
Did I say my stomach was in knots? Scratch that. It’s plummeted to the damn floor.
“Yelling?” Sylvie scoffs, like the accusation is highly offensive. “We weren’t yelling.”
He snorts, hanging his coat on the hook behind the door. “Uh, yeah, you were.”
Oh, fuck. The coat.
My head whips to the barstool, where Logan’s coat is still hanging.
Sylvie gets an ‘oh shit’ look on her face as she follows my gaze. Thinking fast, she casually crosses the room and parks her ass right over the black leather.
You’re stuck there for the rest of the night, my eyes tell her.
“Pfft.” Sylvie waves him off. “I was talking with purpose. Have you met me?”
Ryan’s eyes narrow, trying to figure out what the hell she meant by that.
Good luck, bruh. That’s a level of chaos even I can’t interpret.
“So, anyway, Rosa,” Sylvie says, throwing a pointed glare at Ryan, “as I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted…Antonio is seeing this new guy and can’t figure out if his bossy, domineering energy is sexy or just straight-up toxic.
Which…fair. If this were a romance novel, it’d be a no-brainer.
But in real life? It takes a very special kind of man—and a strong-ass partner—to make putting up with that shit worthwhile. Like with Quinn and my bosshole.”
Quinn is Antonio and Sylvie’s shared bestie.
Hudson calls their trio the Unholy Trinity, but I’m pretty sure Quinn is only guilty-by-association on that front.
The bosshole—a.k.a. Ronan Maxwell—is Quinn’s husband, but also Antonio and Sylvie’s boss.
From what I’ve heard, he’s a real hardass at the office, hence the absurd nickname.
Ryan rolls his eyes and swipes the food bag from me, long since resigned to ignoring our girl talk.
“And even with those two,” Sylvie continues. “It took me a while to be convinced Ronan actually deserved her. Honestly, I wasn’t so sure until I saw how pathetic he was after she left his ass…”
As Ryan plates our food, Sylvie keeps blabbing about anything and everything guaranteed to make him tune out. When she asks him a direct question and he doesn’t even blink, she winks, clearly pleased with herself.
Crisis averted.
Maybe.
“You good, Rosa?” Ryan asks.
Or…maybe not.
Shit.
I force a casual laugh. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He watches me closely. “You seem…jumpy.”
“When is she not jumpy?” Sylvie snorts. “Jesus, Ry, what is up with you tonight? It’s like you’re new here or something.”
Ryan’s nose twitches as his gaze sweeps the room. “Is someone else here?”
“Do you see anyone else?” I ask, hoping like hell my cheeks aren’t as flushed as they feel.
Stupid sexy cologne wafting through the air making me act like a Pavlovian dog.