I’ve already started dreaming up proposals. I’ve got about four different scenarios I’m considering, one of which is to simply drop down on one knee during a Monday night walk.
Rose pockets her phone and strides toward me. Stress lines bracket her mouth.
I grab for her hand. “Everything okay?”
“Fine.” Her voice is tight.
“So no, then.” I nudge her shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, Anton. Leave it.”
“If you tell me, maybe I can help.”
She looks away from me.
“Hey. I don’t like that.” I stop walking, pulling her back when she tries to keep going. I reach over and tip her chin in my direction. She won’t meet my gaze. I frown. “Sammy Rose?”
She flinches, and when she finally looks at me, an avalanche of emotion thunders through her eyes. I’m startled by the pain and agony I see, but even more than that, what terrifies me is the look of determination in the depths of her baby blues.
“I don’t want to do this anymore.”
I swallow.Don’t panic. Surely this doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means. “Don’t want to do what?”
“This.” She pulls out of my grasp. “You. Me. This relationship. It’s stifling. It’s not what I want. I’m out.”
She spins on her heel, and I’m reeling. Where is this coming from? Earlier today she texted me a photo of a page of her manuscript and asked me for my thoughts. Nothing about her behavior makes any sense.
Stunned as I am, I’m not letting her walk away from me without more of a conversation. I jog to catch up with her, coming to a stop directly in front of her, cutting off her exit strategy, at least for now.
She lets out a frustrated, dismissive huff. “Get out of my way, Anton.”
She makes a move to go around me, and I don’t stop her, but I keep pace so we’re walking side by side. Waves are coming off of her, but I can’t tell what the emotion is. Sadness? Anger? Regret?
Add in some desperation, and maybe I’m describing myself.
“You’re ending what we have with no explanation. I won’t let you do that.”
She stops abruptly. “You don’t get to control me. You want a reason? Fine. I was trying to spare your feelings, but here you go.” She sucks in a breath. “This was fun, but we were never going tobe anything more than a fling. We’re from different worlds. I ran into you in that bar, and I got to have a whirlwind romance with a football player and a prince. But dating you long term is way more pressure than I would ever want. There’s no future here.”
I’m trying to digest all of this, but it’s like taking insults through a firehose from a person who holds my heart in her hands. I’m shattering.
“I mean, my gosh, Anton. I have no desire to deal with the baggage that comes with a real relationship with you. I was going to go along with it for a bit and try to let you down easy, but then you kept pressing me, so now you know. I’m done. It’s over.”
“I—” I cut myself off because what do I even say? “I don’t know what to say.”
She presses her mouth into a flat line and glances away from me.
I’m so hurt. I don’t think I can breathe.
It’s like I’m back in third grade, overhearing a conversation between one of my so-called friends and his mother when she was dropping him off at the palace for a playdate.
“But, mum,” my friend had whined, “I don’t want to stay. I don’t even like him. He always wants to look at American football trading cards. He’s such a nerd, and it’s so stupid.”
“Nonsense, Alexander. You’ll stay, and you’ll like it. Best to keep the palace happy, and it’ll pay off to have a friend in high places someday.”
My mind flashes forward, and I feel like I’m that awkward sixteen-year-old boy standing in front of Scarlett Monahue on the bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, having just had my first kiss, only to lean away and find her sneering. She cocked her head over her shoulder to where a gaggle of girls had their hands covering their mouths in an attempt to quiet their laughter.
“What’s…going on?” I spluttered.
