Chapter 9 – Rowan
Chapter Nine
Rowan
There are exactly three things I hate more than being woken up before eight a.m.
One of them is dogs.
The second is surprises.
The third is Tessa Whitmore.
So, when my doorbell rings at 7:32 a.m.—a full twenty-eight minutes before the world should be legally required to exist—I already know who it is.
No one else rings that hesitant and erratic. It’s like she can’t even execute the simplest task without turning it into a crisis.
I don’t move.
I sit at the kitchen island in yesterday’s T-shirt, coffee cooling beside my tablet, and stare at the door. If I wait long enough, maybe she’ll give up. Maybe she’ll take her mess back where it belongs. But I know better. Tessa doesn’t quit.
The bell rings again. Then three sharp taps.
She’s unraveling out there. Good. She should know I don’t answer for free.
I count off ten more seconds in silence. Because whatever she’s about to drag into my morning is already a complication.
When I finally open the door, it’s exactly what I expected.
Oversized hoodie. Cheeks red. Eyes too wide.
And in her arms beneath the hoodie—
“I told you to get rid of that dog.”
Before she can answer, said dog sneezes.
She winces.
And just like that, my morning is officially over. “No.”
“You don’t even—”
“No.”
“But—”
“No.”
I start to close the door, but she wedges her foot in, and I look at it, then at her, and then back again, already done with the whole scene.
“Please,” she says, breathless. “Just hear me out.”
“No.”
“You haven’t even heard the ask.”
“You’re holding the ask. It’s small, underfed, and has fleas.”
“He doesn’t have fleas.”
“Don’t care. The answer is still no.”
Her jaw tightens, and the dog sneezes. I scrub a hand down my face because I know exactly where this is headed.
The silence stretches. Her foot is still wedged in, and the dog is squirming against her chest.
And because I’m an idiot—or maybe because I know she’ll stand here until the neighbors complain—I step back.
Not because I want to.
Because it’s easier to control the damage once it’s inside.
She exhales, shoulders sagging in relief as she slips past me.
Now they’re both in my kitchen.
I shut the door slowly, deliberately.
“This isn’t a shelter,” I say. “And I’m not your savior.”
“I’m not asking you to save me,” she shoots back, too fast. “Just, help me. Temporarily. Until I figure it out.”
I lean against the counter, arms folded. She won’t see interest in my face. She’ll see calculation. Because that’s all I ever let her see.
“Define ‘temporarily.’”
Her mouth opens. Closes. “A few days.”
“Wrong answer.”
Her eyes flash. “You didn’t even hear the details.”
“I don’t need to. You walked in with them. And they bark.”
The dog sneezes again, and I pinch the bridge of my nose.
I should throw them both out. Instead, I’m already thinking about the terms.
“Rowan, you have the space—”
“I also have standards. And a zero-tolerance policy for anything that sheds, slobbers, or pisses on imported rugs.”
“Rowan,” she hisses, voice going thin with panic. “Please.”
“No.”
I gesture at the dog. “You already owe me. This isn’t a three-for-one special.”
“I’m not asking for a fourth card.”
“Then what are you asking for?”
She hesitates. And I watch her internal debate. The pride, the desperation, the part of her that hates needing anything from me more than the actual problem.
“A… humane gesture?” she finally says.
“Try the ASPCA,” I deadpan. “This isn’t a charity.”
She throws up her arms in mock surrender. “Don’t I know it.”
“And yet you’re here.”
“He didn’t have anywhere else to go!”
“He’s a dog. He doesn’t need a penthouse. He needs a floor and a human connection. I am not willing to provide either.”
Ignoring my comments, she sets the dog down on my hardwood floors.
He does a little circle-sniff.
I point at him.
“Tell him if he pees on anything, I’ll shave him and mail the fur to your roommate.”
Tessa doesn’t laugh.
Instead, she turns, surveys the space, and lets out a long, slow exhale.
“Wow,” she says, turning in a slow half-circle. “Okay. This place is… really nice.”
“I know.”
“No, like... absurdly nice. Minimalist meets evil mastermind. Do you hire someone to make it smell like a luxury yacht?”
“No. That’s just success.”
She toes off her Converse at the edge of the living room rug, then pads across the floor in mismatched socks.
And then she does it.
She stretches out across my white sofa.
Shoes off. Legs folded under her. One arm draped over the back.
I stare at her.
She blinks up at the ceiling. “You have molding. Like, actual crown molding. And real art. Not a single college dorm room poster in sight.”
“You thought I would have band posters and ’70s film memorabilia?”
She nods, still looking around. “Yeah. I mean, I expected something like before, when you lived in the dorms and kept antique gavels on a shelf.”
Fuck her for remembering anything from back then. “Off the couch, now.”
She ignores me.
The dog, sensing his opportunity to be even more annoying than his savior, trots over and launches up beside her.
Tessa half reaches to stop him, but it’s too late. Waffles is already there. Sprawled sideways across the cushions.
I narrow my eyes. “Get. Him. Off.”
“I will,” she says quickly, “but he just found a spot. And he’s basically a therapy beanbag, so if you think about it, this is healing.”
I say nothing.
Because everything I want to say is prosecutable.
Instead, I cross my arms and wait.
Tessa finally looks at me again, all nerves and guilt and something frantic underneath.
“Okay,” she says. “I get it. This is wildly inconvenient. I promise to make it up to you.”
“Will you?”
“I’ll walk him every morning. I’ll bring lint rollers. I’ll vacuum. I’ll Swiffer. I’ll dry-clean the air if you want me to.”
“No.”
I should show her back to the door. That’s the clean move. Just send her back into the hall with her hoodie and her contraband mutt and reclaim the thirty minutes of silence she already stole.
That’s what a sensible man would do.
Yet I don’t move.
“I’ll stay out of your way. I won’t talk. I’ll whisper.”
“Still no.”
“I’ll write your torts outline and throw in passive-aggressive footnotes just the way you like them.”
“No again.”
“I’ll organize your ties by threat level.”
“Tessa.”
She sits up now, finally, pressing her palms into the couch cushions. “I’ll do anything,” she says seriously. “Just please… Please don’t make me take him back.”
Fuck me.
I run the math and look for the angle because that’s what I do when I’m two seconds away from doing something stupid.
Letting the dog stay? Annoying, but containable. Four walls, one leash, and a finite lifespan. Noise, fur, and piss are variables I can monitor.
Letting her stay with it is the bigger risk. She doesn’t sit quietly in a corner. She fills space. She talks, she argues, she remembers things I’ve tried to forget. Which makes every minute she’s here a liability.
But if I force her out, she takes the dog, and the problem migrates to the shelter, her neighbors, and likely, her arrest warrant. It could escalate outside my reach and ruin my plans.
Here, I control it.
Containment always beats cleanup.
“Fine,” I say, because if she’s going to invade my apartment with a mutt and mismatched socks, then she’s going to do it on my conditions. “I’ll allow the dog under several conditions.”
“Anything. I swear—” Relief floods her face.
“You clean up after it. You feed it. You walk it. You manage whatever neurotic trauma responses it performs on my property.”
“Done.”
“If it barks during my study hours, it goes in the elevator.”
“Understood.”
“If it pees on anything I can’t replace with expedited delivery, it’s dead.”
“The couch or the dog?”
“Pick one.”
She nods, too quickly. “Yes. Totally. Thank you.”
I don’t respond.
Because I’m not finished.
Instead, I walk to the counter, open the drawer where I keep things that matter—spare keys, blackmail material, and the envelopes I only ever hand out when someone’s about to lose control of their life.
I hold out the envelope.
She takes it slowly.
“What’s this?”
“Cash. Instructions.”
Her brow furrows. “Instructions for what?”
She unfolds the contained list and starts reading aloud. “Silk blouse. Cocktail dress. One pair of heels. Neutral tones only. No hoodies. No sneakers unless I’m jogging or on fire.”
“Correct.”
She looks up. “Is this for the retreat?” she asks, voice already climbing an octave.
“Unless you plan to wear that hoodie in a room full of federal judges.”
Of course, she balks. She thinks this is about control, about me micromanaging her wardrobe for sport.
It isn’t. It’s about liability. I can’t walk into Hale’s retreat with a woman who looks like she got lost on her way to a dorm pizza run.
She’s already a complication. If she shows up underdressed, she becomes an indictment. On me.
She has no idea how high the stakes are. The partners won’t see her sarcasm or her brilliance. They’ll see fabric, fit, and whether she makes me look credible.
I don’t care if she hates me for it. She can hate me in silk.
“You’re serious.” She blinks.
“Fatally.”
“I didn’t agree to be styled.”
“You agreed to the IOU.”
She folds the list with a little too much aggression. “You should’ve let me bleed out in my apartment.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But then you’d still be desperate for help.”
She looks down at the envelope in her lap. Then at the list.
Then at me.
“So, I’m just supposed to show up, smile, nod, wear beige, and act like I’m honored to be at your side?”
I lift a shoulder. “You forgot look like someone I’d choose.”
That shuts her up.
For a second.
She folds her arms tighter. “You are unbelievable.”
“You already knew that.” I stand, heading toward the kitchen. “Now, go shower your dog.”
“What?”
“If he’s coming, he’s not arriving looking like he was fished out of a gutter.”
“Excuse me?”
“Dress him up. Sweater. Bowtie. Something ridiculous. Trust me. The partners love an ugly dog in costume. It makes them feel relatable.”
“You’re unwell.”
“And you’re in,” I say over my shoulder. “Try not to embarrass me.”
I don’t turn around to watch her leave. Don’t let myself see if she looks back.
Because if she does, I might remember why I used to think she was worth keeping.