Christ.
I could cover it easily, but I knew with absolute certainty that Rose would never let me.
I stood up, chair scraping back. “I need to talk to her.”
“Graham—”
“Now, Dex.”
I foundher in the office.
She was at the desk, laptop open, papers spread in the familiar pattern of someone trying to make impossible math work. Her hair was pulled back in a knot that looked like it hadn’t been redone in days. She’d lost weight. I could see it in her face. She wasn’t eating enough and she was working too much and nobody could tell her to stop because she’d stopped letting anyone close enough to try.
“Rose.”
She looked up. Her expression was neutral. A wall with eyes.
“The bank called your loan,” I said.
Surprise flickered across her face, then anger. “Who told you?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters because it’s my business. Literally. My business, my debt, my problem.” She turned back to the laptop. “I’m handling it.”
“Two hundred and forty thousand dollars in thirty days. How are you handling it?”
“I’m exploring my options.”
“Let me be one of them.” I stepped closer. “Rose, I have the money. Not as charity, as a loan if you want. A proper loan, with interest, with a repayment schedule, with whatever legal structure makes you comfortable. Or as an investment. A partnership. Whatever you’ll accept.”
“No.”
“Rose—”
“I said no.” Her voice was flat but her hands had stopped moving on the keyboard. “I’m not taking your money.”
“Why?”
“Because then this stops being mine.” She looked at me, and for a second I saw past the professional mask to an exhausted, terrified woman. “Because if I take your money, I become someone who got saved by some rich guy. And that’s not who I am.”
“It’s not saving. It’s?—”
“It’s exactly what Dr. Carlisle warned me about.”
I stopped. “What does that mean?”
Rose was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice sounded like she was reciting something she’d practiced.
“It means you’re a distraction I can’t afford.”
The word hit me like a slap. Not because it was cruel. Rose wasn’t being cruel. She was being surgical. Cutting away anything that wasn’t essential to survival, and I’d just been classified as non-essential.
“A distraction,” I repeated.
“Your words are in my head when I should be running numbers. Your face is in my head when I should be making calls. I’m spending energy on us that I don’t have to spare.” She met my eyes. “I’m drowning, Graham. And I can’t save myself while I’m trying to figure out how to love you at the same time.”
“You don’t have to figure out how to love me. You just do.”
