Chapter 1 - The Betrayal

ROSELINE’S POV

Twelve minutes. That was all that stood between me and the best night of my life.

I gripped the steering wheel at red lights and practiced my surprised face in the rearview mirror. Too eager. I tried again. Softer. Like I hadn't been thinking about that little velvet box for three weeks.

I'd only seen it once. Tucked inside his gym bag, under a rolled towel, while I hunted for his charger. My heart had done something stupid and wonderful in my chest, and I'd zipped the bag shut like I'd seen nothing.

Two years. Two years of patience, of Eric sighing into my hair and saying he could wait, and me believing him. I hadn't slept with him. Not because I was scared or old fashioned, but because I wanted my first time to mean something.

And tomorrow it would. Tonight I'd just show up with his favorite takeout and a bottle of the cheap red we'd shared on our first date. He'd laugh. He'd pretend he wasn't nervous.

I parked crooked and didn't care.

The elevator smelled like someone's cologne and wet umbrellas. My palms were damp. I wiped them on my dress twice before I reached his door.

The key he'd given me last spring slid in easy. I remember thinking that. Easy.

"Eric?" I called, bag of food swinging from my wrist. "Don't freak out, I brought dinner."

Nothing. Then a laugh, low and breathy, from the bedroom.

Not his laugh.

My feet stopped. The bag slipped down to my fingertips and I caught it without knowing I had. There was a heel by the couch. Red. Not mine, I don't own red heels.

"Come on," a woman whispered. "Just five more minutes."

"Relax. She's not coming until tomorrow."

Eric's voice. Warm and lazy and completely, sickeningly comfortable.

I don't know how I crossed the living room. I only know my hand was on the bedroom door, and it was shaking, and I pushed it open anyway.

The woman screamed first. She grabbed the sheet up to her chin like modesty could still save her. Eric just... froze. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and dragged a hand down his face.

"Roseline." He sounded tired. Annoyed, even. "What are you doing here?"

I laughed. It came out cracked. "What am I doing here?"

"You're supposed to call first."

"Call first." The takeout bag hit the floor. Somewhere inside, a container split open and the smell of garlic filled the room. "I have a key, Eric. You gave me a key."

The woman was already scrambling for her clothes. Eric didn't even look at her. He swung his legs off the bed, tugged on his pants, and stood there like I was the one who'd broken something.

"Okay. Okay, let's not do this."

"Do what?" My voice climbed. I hated it. "Catch you? Ruin your evening?"

"You're being dramatic."

"There's a naked woman in your bed!"

"And that's my fault?" He threw his hands up. "Come on, Rose. Be honest for once. We've been dead for months. Dinner, movie, goodnight. You barely let me touch you."

Heat crawled up my throat. The woman stopped mid button and glanced at me, and I saw pity in her face. Pity.

"That's what this is about?" I said. "Because I wouldn't sleep with you?"

"I'm saying it was stale. Everything was." He shrugged, actually shrugged. "So stop acting like we're married."

Something in me went very quiet.

I looked at him. Really looked. The tan line from his watch. The little scar on his chin I used to kiss. Two years of my life standing there in half zipped pants.

"How long?" I asked.

"Rose."

"How long were you planning to keep me waiting while you slept with her?"

His jaw shifted. He glanced at the woman, then at the floor. "It's not that simple."

"It's a yes or a no question."

"A few months."

The word landed in my stomach like a stone. A few months. Every anniversary planning call. Every time he'd kissed my forehead and said he was tired.

I didn't cry. I refused to. My eyes burned and I held them wide open, the way you do when you're about to go under water.

That's when I saw it.

On the dresser, next to his cufflinks. A small velvet box, lid popped open, a diamond catching the lamplight like it was laughing at me.

My breath stopped. For one wild second my heart actually leapt, because I am an idiot, because hope is stubborn.

Then the woman reached past me and picked it up.

She slid it onto her finger. Checked it against the light. Not sweetly, not like a girl in love. Like someone confirming a delivery.

"It fits," she murmured to Eric.

Oh.

The floor tilted. I gripped the doorframe so hard the wood bit into my palm.

"That was never for me," I said. It wasn't a question.

Eric had the decency to look away. That was the worst part. Not the lies. The way he didn't even bother to deny it.

"Rose, don't make this ugly."

"Ugly?" I let out a breath that shook on the way out. "I drove across the city with your dinner."

"Nobody asked you to."

There it was. Clean. Final.

I dug into my purse. My fingers were clumsy, the keys jangling like a joke, and for a second I thought I might drop them and have to bend down in front of both of them. I didn't. I found the one with the blue tag and pulled it free.

I set it on the little table by the door. Gently. So gently.

"Don't call me," I said.

"You'll come around." He said it almost kindly. "You always do."

I looked at him one last time. My spine felt like steel wire. My knees felt like water.

"No," I said. "I won't."

I walked out. Down the hall, past the neighbor's door, into the elevator. I pressed the lobby button and stared at my reflection in the brushed metal. My mascara was perfect. Not one tear.

The moment the doors slid shut, my hand flew to my mouth and I bit down on my knuckle to keep the sound in.

I don't remember the drive. Just streetlights smearing into gold lines and a stranger's horn blaring somewhere behind me. I didn't go home. Home had our photos on the fridge. Home had his hoodie hanging on my chair.

The bar was a dark little place with a flickering neon sign and no reason to be on my route. I pushed inside and the smell of whiskey and old wood wrapped around me.

"Vodka," I told the bartender. "Whatever's strongest."

He raised an eyebrow but poured it.

The first sip burned all the way down. The second one let me breathe. By the third, the tears I'd swallowed in that elevator broke loose, hot and ugly, and I pressed the heel of my hand against my eyes and didn't care who saw.

Two years. I gave him two years.

And he'd bought her a ring.

"Stupid," I whispered. "So stupid."

I wiped my face with a napkin, sniffed, and stared at my reflection in the bottle rack. Swollen eyes. Smudged lipstick. A woman I barely recognized.

Roseline Carter. Eric Kingsley's girlfriend. The good girl who waited.

I was so tired of being her.

"Tonight," I said to no one, voice cracking, "I don't want to be that girl."

I lifted the glass and turned on the stool, needing anything, anyone, to look at besides my own wreck of a face.

That's when I saw him.

A man sat alone at the far end of the bar, one hand around a glass he wasn't drinking from. Dark hair, sharp jaw, a suit that looked expensive even under bad lighting. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't looking at his phone either.

He was looking at me.

Not with pity. Not with curiosity.

Like he'd been waiting for me to notice.