I shake my head, running a hand over my jaw as I try to find the right words. “I want us to be a team. If you’d told me…” I pause, exhaling. “I would’ve helped you out. I would’ve been in your corner. I think we’ve become… you know, friends over the past month, don’t you?”
More than that now.
She bites down on her bottom lip, her gaze flicking to the plate of food in her lap. That small, nervous habit of hers always gets me. It’s like she doesn’t quite know how to process the idea of someone being there for her. Of being her friend.
I wonder if she knows the meaning of true friendship. I wonder if she understands the implications of being in a relationship,a marriage,with a man who has her back, who supports her dreams and goals, who doesn’t want her to change, and isn’t in competition with her.
But I can’t call her out on that without sounding like an asshole.
She knows it as much as I do. I just wish she’d let me help her in any way I can—return the favor for everything she’s doing for me. Marrying a guy you hardly know can’t be easy. Giving up her apartment, her home in Brookhaven…
“Are you… upset?” she asks softly, her voice unsure.
My brows draw together. “Upset? Why would I be?”
“I don’t know,” she says with a small shrug, still not meeting my gaze. “If you feel like I withheld information from you that you should have known, and we’re really friends… that seems like something a friend would be upset about. Are you mad at me?”
Does she even know how friendships work? Or relationships, for that matter?
People are never going to act the way you want them to. That doesn’t mean that you punish them for behaving differently.
“Rosie.” I set down my plate, turning toward her even though I’m only halfway through and already thinking about seconds.
“It’s not about being angry anytime someone does something that you disagree with. It’s about communication. I’m bringingthis up because I think that it’s fuckingawesomethat you’re about to make senior partner once we pull this off. But also…” I take a breath, the words sticking in my throat because this next part I hate but I know I have to say “…I want you to know that I’m not going to do anything to mess this up for you. Not anymore. Not now that I have this information.”
Her eyes flick to mine cautiously.
“What does that mean?”
“Your dad doesn’t want us living together,” I continue, “and as much as it pains me to pay for a hotel for two months because I'm a cheap-ass, I’ll move out, foot the bill and keep my distance. If that’s what it takes for you to make partner.”
Her reaction isn’t what I expect. She waves her hand dismissively, all business, like the Rosie in the law offices.
“No, don’t be ridiculous. We’ve already done this for a month. It’s just two more. Cain won’t say anything to my dad.”
I nod slowly, but the weight of what I have to say next sinks deep because it’s not what I want but sometimes sacrifices are necessary for the people you care about most.
“Okay, well…” I rub the back of my neck, the words catching before I force them out. “I won’t touch you again either. I don’t want to risk screwing this up for you.”
It feels like stepping off a ledge I don’t want to leave.
She takes a slow sip of her wine, her gaze drifting past me, like she’s turning the weight of that over in her mind.
Of course I want to touch her again. I want to be touching her constantly. I want to forget the rest of the season, forget the rules, forget the careful distance I’m putting between us and give in to everything my body keeps demanding. I want to spend mydays holding her hand and my nights holding her body in my bed.
But now I know what’s at stake for her. And knowing that changes everything from here forward.
I don’t want to be the reason she second-guesses herself, or her future. I don’t want her to think I’m not taking her career, her promotion, her hard work seriously. Because I am.
I can live with my reputation taking a hit. I’ve done it before. What I won’t do is be careless and selfish when it comes to hers.
“I see…” she says softly.
And maybe she does see. I hope that she knows how much I want her. How badly I want to keep exploring whatever the hell this thing is between us.
But I don’t trust myself to say that out loud. Not when I know how much she wants to make this promotion happen. I heard it straight from her brother. I saw it in her father’s eyes when he cooked up this devious plan and I see it in the hours that she puts in every day at the office.
Before I knew about senior partner, I had a whole plan mapped out on the train ride home from Brookhaven—how I’d convince her that we could date, that this could be real. But the second Cain told me what was at stake, I scrapped it.
