“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Kayla had been quiet through all of it. She put her toast down.
“Can I say something.”
“Go ahead,” Quinn said.
“You’re not going to like it,” she said to Rose.
“Say it anyway.”
Kayla looked at her. “You were forced into this arrangement. That’s where all of this started and that’s still the foundation of it. Everything happening now is happening inside something you had no real choice about entering. And now there are feelings in it.” She picked her toast back up. “I love you and I want you to be happy. I also don’t want you to get hurt inside something that was built to put you at a disadvantage from the beginning.”
The pool house was quiet.
“She helped Daisy at the wedding without thinking,” Rose said. “Before anyone could have staged it.”
Kayla nodded.
“And she went off script on camera last night when she didn’t have to.”
“I know.”
“I’m not saying it’s simple.”
“I know that too.”
Quinn refilled his coffee. Outside one of the gardeners moved along the far edge of the lawn.
“What are you going to do?” Kayla asked.
Rose looked at her wedding dress over the chair.
“Shower,” Rose said. “Then figure out the rest.”
She got up and went down the hall. Behind her, she heard Quinn and Kayla speaking in low, hushed tones.
Rose pushed the bathroom door open and stood at the sink. She leaned her weight on her hands, palms flat against the cold porcelain. In the mirror, a stranger looked back—hair wild, those small gold wedding earrings still mocking her from her lobes. She looked at her hand. In addition to the little ruby ring she’d decided to keep wearing as an engagement ring was an expensive gold band. They looked good together, like a joining of her new and old life.
But Kayla was right. She hadn’t chosen this new life. Not without pressure. And yet, being with Lizanne felt good. Right, even…
She turned the shower on and stepped inside. She stood under the spray, letting the water run hot, and didn’t try to force an answer.
Chapter 21
Lizanne
November 13th
The shop was the kind of place that didn’t put prices on anything. Rose had learned in the past two weeks that this meant the prices were either negotiable or catastrophic, and in Lizanne’s world they were usually both.
She stood in front of a display of linen throws while John, the camera operator, moved around them in the slow patient arc he used when he wasn’t sure what he was looking for yet. Pat sat on a cream ottoman near the door with her tablet, watching the monitor feed.
“So tell me,” Loraine said, in the tone that meant this was going in the show, “how is the merging going? Two very different worlds coming together under one roof.”
“Smoothly,” Lizanne said, holding up a throw. “Rose has excellent taste.”
