Chapter 15: Didn't Catch Up

Behind him, Victoria Hartwell had been holding up a tiny yellow checked blazer against Rosie's small frame, debating the fit, when the space beside her suddenly went empty.

She spun around.

The door of the boutique was still swinging.

"Rosie!" She shoved the blazer into the nearest sales assistant's arms and swept out after him, heels clicking rapid fire against the marble floor. "Where are you going, wait for Grandma!"

She turned to the cluster of frozen staff behind her. "Don't just stand there, go after him!"

The resulting procession was something to behold, three sales assistants, two bodyguards in black suits, one personal attendant, and Victoria Hartwell herself, all streaming out of the boutique at considerable speed, dignity entirely abandoned in favor of urgency.

They made it to the plaza entrance.

And stopped.

Rosie had stopped too.

He stood perfectly still at the edge of the courtyard, his small chest heaving from the sprint, his eyes fixed on a single point across the street with an intensity that had no business being on a four-year old's face.

A taxi.

Pulling away from the curb.

Accelerating into traffic.

Gone.

The ecstasy that had launched him out of the boutique drained from his expression in real time, slowly, visibly, the way light fades when the sun goes behind a cloud. His grape dark eyes, which had been blazing with recognition and joy, went dim inch by inch until they were just quietly sad.

Victoria caught up to him, one hand pressed to her sternum, genuinely out of breath. She had half a reprimand ready,

She looked at his face and swallowed it whole.

She crouched down without a word and gathered him into her arms.

"Oh, my darling." Her voice came out soft. "What happened? You nearly gave Grandma a heart attack."

Rosie's arms came up slowly and wrapped around her neck. He pressed his face into her shoulder.

He had made a promise with Mom. He couldn't say he'd recognized her. Couldn't tell anyone she was here. That was the deal, Mom's rules, and Rosie kept his promises.

But he missed her.

He missed her so much it sat in his chest like something heavy.

"Grandma," he said, in his small, serious voice. "Rosie was naughty. Rosie made Grandma worry. Sorry."

The plaintive little sound of it, like a puppy who knew it had done wrong, made Victoria's heart clench so hard she forgot she'd ever intended to scold him. She stroked the back of his head gently.

"Naughty? You? Never." She pulled back just enough to look at his face. "Grandma was only scared that you would have fallen. Next time you want to go somewhere, tell Grandma first, alright?"

"Alright."

He nodded solemnly against her shoulder.

"Grandma." His voice was smaller now. "Rosie doesn't want to shop anymore. Rosie is unhappy."

"Unhappy? But you were just fine a moment ago, sweetheart. What happened?"

He shook his head, a slow, stubborn little shake and tightened his arms around her neck. "Just suddenly unhappy. Rosie wants to go home."

Victoria hesitated. She glanced back toward the boutiques, then at the small dejected face tucked against her.

No contest.

"Then we go home." She stood, taking him with her, settling him against her side. "Nanny Chen made double-layer milk pudding this morning. We'll go home, have pudding, and Grandma will watch cartoons with you. How does that sound?"

One small beat of silence.

"Grandma will eat pudding too?"

"Grandma will eat as much pudding as you like."

"Mm." He nodded, just slightly. "Okay."

He was so small and so earnest about it that Victoria had to press her lips together to keep from completely falling apart on the spot. She passed him gently to one of the attendants to have his face freshened, watching his little retreating back with eyes that had gone thoughtful and sharp.

The moment he was out of earshot, her expression shifted.

She straightened up.

Looked around the plaza with careful, unhurried attention, the dispersing crowd, the commotion still visible near the Stellar Entertainment entrance down the block, the taxi that had long since disappeared into traffic.

"Go find out what happened over there," she said quietly to the butler at her shoulder.

He bowed and moved off without a word.

Victoria stood a moment longer.

Rosie's mother had been absent since the beginning. Ethan acted as though he knew nothing or pretended to. And just now, that child had bolted like his little heart was on fire, chased something across the plaza, and stopped dead the moment a taxi pulled away.

As if he'd recognized someone.

She needed to know more.

---

In the back of a cab heading uptown, Vivian was scrolling idly through her phone when the headline caught her eye.

A photo of Rebecca, caught mid-fall, dress crumpled, expression stripped of every carefully managed layer, already circulating across three different entertainment news platforms.

Paparazzi are fast, she thought, without particular surprise.

She kept scrolling.

Another headline, smaller but considerably more interesting, "Late Night Rendezvous: Sebastian Stonewell Spotted With Supermodel, Intimate Embrace Caught on Camera, Has Golden Star Winner Already Become the Ex?"

Vivian looked at the blurred photo.

The arm around the tall woman's waist. The unmistakable posture.

Sebastian, without a doubt.

She leaned back against the seat.

She had told Rebecca, hadn't she, the forehead, the love line, all of it.

She wondered, distantly, whether Rebecca's composure would hold when she saw this. Whether the cracks would finally show somewhere the cameras could catch them.

She was still considering this when her phone rang.

She picked up. "Hello."

"Little demon." Nathan's voice came through with the particular energy of a man who had been watching the internet for the past two hours. "You've been back in New York for what, forty-eight hours? And you've already pushed your sister onto the road in front of a full press pack. Truly, I am in awe."

"Thank you," Vivian said pleasantly. "I've been working on it."