Chapter 15: Something Is Definitely Wrong With Him

Only the bedside lamp is on, filling the bedroom with a dim amber glow.

The sheets soon twist beneath them.

At first, Adrian remembers to be careful.

Whenever Rosalie’s breathing turns too uneven, he slows down and kisses her until she relaxes.

She refuses to let him retreat for long, winding her arms around his shoulders and pulling him back.

Five years of longing finally has somewhere to go.

Neither of them stays patient for long.

By the time Rosalie can barely keep her eyes open, her fingers are tangled in the sheets.

Adrian kisses the damp hair at her temple, lifts her by the waist, and shifts her beneath him.

In the brief moment they separate, he suddenly stops.

The hunger in his eyes vanishes.

Adrian looks down, checks the condom, and finds a tear along one side.

He catches it early, but his face still changes.

Rosalie waits for him to continue.

When he doesn’t, she opens her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“It tore.”

His voice is tight.

She blinks, then reaches for him. “Then don’t use one.”

The suggestion comes too easily. Adrian jerks away from her hand as though it burns.

“No.”

He gets off the bed and pulls on a robe, moving with almost desperate speed.

Rosalie pushes herself up on one elbow, her eyes still hazy. “Then get another one.”

With his back to her, Adrian ties the robe.

After a moment, he says, “What if the next one tears too?”

“Adrian?”

“I’m taking a shower.”

He disappears into the bathroom and turns the water on full blast.

Rosalie slowly sits up.

The heat in her body fades, leaving confusion behind. She stares at the closed bathroom door, trying to make sense of what just happened.

Again.

At his office, Adrian stopped halfway through and hid in the shower rather than finish what he started.

Tonight, he came prepared. One condom failed, but there were others in the box. He could simply replace it.

Instead, he ran.

Rosalie has wondered before. Now she is almost certain.

Adrian has some condition he is too embarrassed to admit.

The shower runs for a long time.

Once or twice, she hears a strained breath beneath the water, followed by the faucet turning even louder.

He is clearly suffering, yet he still refuses to let her know.

It must be a matter of male pride.

Rosalie searches for highly rated men’s sexual-health specialists in Manhattan.

The major hospitals are booked for weeks, but a private medical service offers a consultation with a well-known urologist next week.

She pays the deposit. The clinic will need the patient’s legal information by tomorrow.

Fine. She will get it somehow.

Being sick isn’t shameful. Refusing treatment is.

With the bathroom occupied, Rosalie gets dressed and carries her laptop and sketchbook to the desk.

It is already late, but inspiration arrives before sleep does.

A web-shaped necklace begins to take form beneath her pencil.

Black-rhodium-plated white gold spreads across the collarbones, forming an imperfect web. Colorless diamonds sit at scattered intersections. A pear-shaped black spinel hangs at the center like a drop of night caught in the threads.

Beside it, she sketches moth-wing earrings and a serpent arm cuff. Fragments of shed skin, folded wings, and the spiked jaws of a Venus flytrap soon fill the edges of the page.

Only a few ideas will become finished pieces, but she has to catch all of them while she can.

When Adrian finally emerges, Rosalie is bent over the desk, revising the design.

Her blonde hair is twisted into a loose knot, leaving several strands along the back of her neck.

Fashion books, fabric swatches, and fresh sketches cover the desk.

He stops behind her and studies the web spreading across the page.

“A necklace?”

“Mm-hmm.”

She erases one of the lines without looking up.

“What’s the black stone?”

“Spinel. The Paris atelier already has one in the right size, so they can finish it in time.”

“Where’s the spider?”

“There isn’t one.” Rosalie finally looks at him. “A spider would make it too obvious. I want the feeling of seeing the danger and moving closer anyway.”

Adrian’s attention shifts from the sketch to her face.

He wants to ask if she will still come closer to him the way she did when they were young.

He wants to tell her that she has never needed to fear him.

In the end, he keeps both thoughts to himself.

Instead, he sits against the headboard and opens his foldable phone.

Several final documents for JS-01 are waiting. He only needs to approve the launch budget, initial manufacturing schedule, and contingency plan.

The room settles into a familiar quiet.

Rosalie sketches at the desk while Adrian works from the bed. Now and then, paper turns or a stylus taps the screen.

They spent countless nights like this before. Rosalie worked on assignments while Adrian handled business. They could go an hour without speaking and never feel alone.

For a while, the missing five years seem to disappear.

More than an hour later, Adrian approves the final document and closes his inbox.

Rosalie’s period should be coming soon.

He used to buy everything for her. She would only announce that she was running low and leave him to remember the brands and sizes.

Adrian opens a shopping app, finds her usual products, and orders several packages to the hotel.

As he prepares to close the app, a row of recommendations appears beneath the order.

One is a black lace nightgown held together by little more than a few narrow straps. On the model, the scraps of fabric seem decorative at best.

Adrian frowns.

Anyone who buys something like that is probably a pervert.

He starts to swipe away.

His finger opens the product page instead.

Adrian goes still for two seconds.

Then, with a perfectly blank expression, he scrolls to the second photo.