LOGINRosalie's POV"So you two aren't actually twins. Which one of you is the real Whitmore?"I stirred my iced coffee with the straw and said nothing. From the moment Nora caught my birthdate, all the way through walking to the café, ordering, and sitting down, I hadn't given her a straight answer on any of it.She pushed again. "I thought it was weird at the gala — this whole person I'd never heard of just appearing out of nowhere. And when I asked Mrs. Whitmore if you and Vanessa were twins, she just smiled. Didn't say yes, didn't say no."Nora looked at me. "You've got that face right now. The uncomfortable one.""It's not what you're thinking—""It's fine, you don't have to tell me." She narrowed her eyes. "I'll figure it out anyway."She went full detective mode. "Okay so… ruling out distant relative… you showed up out of nowhere and got folded into the family…"She stared at me. "You're the real one. Has to be. Otherwise why would the Whitmores bring you back at all—""My mom made i
Mr. Brown came rushing over from the elevator, got to the old man, and helped him up. "How'd you get out again?""He's your uncle?" Vanessa asked again, like she still couldn't make it compute. "Your actual uncle? But he's—"Like this? Wandering around, not talking, dressed like that?"He lost his son in an accident," I said. "It affected him."Mr. Brown turned to me sharply. "How do you know that?""I ran into him a few days ago. He was walking between cars in traffic — I didn't feel right leaving him, so I drove him to the police station.""That was you?" He grabbed my hand with both of his. "You're a good person. Thank god it was you who found him that day. Thank you.""I had no idea he was your uncle. And I'm not sure how he ended up here today."Mr. Brown pulled his assistant aside, listened to the quick rundown, then came back to me. "He must've followed me in. But he remembered you — gave you most of his clovers. He makes every single one of those himself."He glanced at my arm
Rosalie's POVWhen I woke up I wasn't in my own room. Then it came back — I'd gone up to Lucian's last night and just never left. First time we'd actually slept through the night together.I stretched out slowly in the bed, and right then he walked out of the closet buttoning his shirt. He glanced at me. "Do you normally sleep holding onto something? Last night you were like a koala."My face went warm. When I was little, Diane was always working, barely home — so I'd gotten used to sleeping with something to hold. A stuffed animal, a pillow. Last night it was him."I'm — sorry.""You say 'it's nothing' and 'sorry' more than anyone I've ever met." Lucian adjusted his cufflinks, tone easy, offhand. "You're really not what I expected."I didn't know what to say to that. I just looked down. "As long as you're not upset.""I don't need apologies. And I don't need you walking on eggshells around me all the time. You're my wife."I looked up. Lucian was right in front of me. He pressed a ki
Rosalie's POVI told myself not to get involved. I got out of the car anyway.Vanessa watched us like we were both insane as I walked the old man to my car. The light had already turned green. I pulled right and headed to the police station. He sat in the back without saying a word, face still blank — until he noticed the four-leaf clover charm hanging inside the car. That's when something came back into his eyes.I'd taken it off the mirror and rehung it inside before I got back in.He just sat there watching it sway.At the station, the officer at the desk looked up and didn't even need me to explain. "Hey — haven't seen you in a while. You sneak out again?"Apparently this wasn't his first time.The officer got him settled and came back to me. "His youngest son died in an accident on that stretch of road. Hit him hard. He's not really all there anymore — keeps going back and tying those lucky charms on cars passing through."That explained it."We'll call his family to come get hi
Rosalie's POVI smiled, said a few words to my father, and headed out.On the way back to the grading room, I caught Vanessa and Celia talking around a corner.Celia, clearly heated: "No, seriously — what the hell? He's just giving Rosalie her own design position, outside the department entirely? Who does that?"She kept going. "Who even is she? The boss is bending over backwards for her, and even you — his own daughter — are getting pushed aside for her?""I don't know." Vanessa sounded like she'd bitten into something sour.They went quiet when they noticed someone was nearby.I kept walking, went back to my desk, and spent a few days wrapping up everything in grading before packing up my things and moving to the space the secretary had set up for me.It was a small room, not far from design.Jenny handed me the laptop. "Come find me if you need anything.""Thank you." I smiled.She paused, like she was debating something, then said it anyway. "You look like the boss's wife when you
Rosalie's POVLucian didn't say anything. Just let go and kept walking.My fingers curled. His warmth was still on them. We went inside, went to our separate floors, and everything went back to exactly how it was before.The following week, Christopher came back from a business trip to Australia — he and Helen had tagged on a little vacation at the end. The moment he heard what had happened at the company while he was gone, he wasn't happy.He called both me and Vanessa to his room."Why didn't anyone tell me?" His face was tight, expression serious.Vanessa stepped forward first. "You were traveling, and it got resolved, so we figured we'd just fill you in when you got back. It wasn't a big deal.""Not a big deal? Mr. Brown came down in person. You call that nothing?""Daddy—" She dropped onto the couch next to him, voice going soft and sweet. "I told my team not to blow it up the way they did. They didn't listen. I was honestly stressing out the whole time trying to figure out how t







