Could she bust into his Boyd Kellagher–adjacent celebrity lifestyle and ask him to help pick out new siding for the inn?Reseal a few windows? Air out the drapes? She was sure he hadn’t thought about it at all, just like he’d never thought about what it would really mean to be married to her.
That was Tomasz Wilczewski—completely sincere when he made promises, totally incapable when it came time to live up to any of them.
Rose wiped her face with her palms.
I wish I had the chance to make it up to you.
She’d always let it go before. Every time he was late, every time he forgot, all the promises he made to her, even their damn wedding vows. She’d never held him to any of it.
It would serve him right if she decided this time she was going to make him live up to every single word.
It would serve him right.
2
New York
The blaring of the front door buzzer woke Tom up just before midnight. He’d passed out on the couch with the lights and TV on, which wasn’t uncommon, nor was the blaring of the buzzer, but he wasn’t expecting anyone.
Tom picked up his phone from the coffee table and squinted at the date and time. No missed calls.
The buzzing didn’t stop.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he mumbled. He stood up, winced at the pain in his back, and lurched in the general direction of the door. Today he’d worked a double shift at a fancy steak house downtown, which would provide a nice financial cushion before rehearsals started, but at thirty-four, he couldn’t shrug off twelve straight hours on his feet with his waiter’s apron.
He hobbled barefoot down the length of his hallway and two flights of stairs without bothering to put on more clothes. Anyone unexpectedly at his door at midnight didn’t deserve to complain if they saw him in his skimpy boxers.
Tom threw open the front door of the building to admit a wintry mist of freezing rain, but that wasn’t what had him rocking back on his heels. He made a wordless grunt of surprise, a soft, gutturalhuh, like he’d been slogged in the stomach. Shock sent him reeling to the side.
It wasRosie, shivering and wet on his doorstep, one hand frozen on the buzzer and the other clutching the handle of a roller suitcase nearly as large as she was.
He’d forgotten how small she was, even if he thought he’d forgotten nothing else. Tom was a couple inches short of six feet tall, so Rose Kelly was one of the only people on earth he towered over. His first sight of her in a decade was the top of her head, but that was a familiar view.
Tom put a hand on the doorframe to hold himself up. He could have used a little warning. Alotof warning. Rosie’s reentry into his life ought to have been accompanied by an act’s worth of foreshadowing and some kind of orchestral theme—maybe a mashup of the “Imperial March” and the bridal one.
He licked his lips, half wondering if he was hallucinating even though he couldn’t recall imbibing anything stronger than half a strawberry White Claw after work today.
“Rosie?”he finally managed, sounding strangled. He cleared his throat. It helped a little that she seemed to be having just as much trouble speaking as he was. Two bright spots of color had appeared on her full cheeks, matching the tip of her nose and the rims of her eyes, which were still fixed on his bare chest. Her sweet and dainty cupid’s-bow lips were parted as she took in the new topography of his chest muscles, then his entire bare body. He’d done nothing more than strip when he got homefrom work; his apartment was on the top floor and always boiling hot, even in January.
He wished he were wearing more clothes. Better underwear, at least.
His voice jarred her out of her reverie, and her gaze jerked up from his chest to meet his eyes.
“What’s on yourface?” she blurted, sounding horrified.
Tom rubbed his mustache automatically.
“I—it’s for a role?” he said, feeling delirious. She’d never seen him other than clean-shaven, but then again, he hadn’t even needed to shave every day when they first met.
This was like a dream. A pizza dream. His ex-wife showed up at his door at midnight, looking adorably disheveled, only to severely judge his grooming.
Rosie swallowed hard, visibly attempting to gather herself. She stuck a hand in the pocket of her sodden camel overcoat, fumbling for something, then opened her handbag. Her hands were shaking.
“I mean, um. I came to ask you if you meant it—”
“What?” Tom said, shaking the last vestiges of sleep out of his head. He was still holding the door open with his body, and his favorite bits—the ones protected from the wind by just one thin layer of threadbare cotton—were about to freeze right off. Rosie’s black curls were nearly soaked to her head. This was all insane.
He carefully grabbed her by the upper arm and pulled her stumbling and half-heartedly protesting into the vestibule. He opened the door again to grab her suitcase and, without waiting for her agreement, began hauling it up behind him.
