What. The. Hell? In slow motion, I made my way back to Bren’s apartment. Why was Rosalyn at Will’s apartment, looking so completely comfortable? Like she had every right to be there? The part of me that had been with him the past week knew there had to be an explanation. There had to be. No one was that good of an actor.
But even if there was a reason his ex-fiancée stood in his living room dressed in his clothes with messy hair while he showered—jeez, that sounded way worse when I laid it out like that in my head—it was the jolt I needed to remind me we would never move forward until he dealt with the hangovers from his past. Rosalyn in his life. Keeping secrets from his parents. Standing up to all of them.
Yesterday!He’d told me only yesterday that he’d protect my heart, that I wouldn’t regret opening up to him. Yet here I was, already with a lump in my throat, blindsided.
Five years later. Same shit, different day.
I went back to my donation piles.
I needed to finish sorting out what would be coming home with me.
Chapter twenty-six
Will
“Why are you wearing my clothes?” I came out of the shower to find Roz sitting on my couch, scrolling through something on her phone.
Her eyes narrowed. “You may have caught most of the spill, but that doesn’t mean the spots on my dress were going to wash themselves out. I found these in the drawer in your room. I’ll have them cleaned and sent back to you later this week.” She gestured to where her soaked dress hung over a barstool. “I rubbed out most of the stains in the sink, but you need to have club soda around the house for stuff like this.”
My hackles rose at the way Rosalyn thought she could still boss me around. And dig in my dresser drawers, apparently. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Are you going to call now?”
“Actually, Roz, I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t think I should call Wicklein for you.”
“The fuck! Why not?”
“Because it’s not right that I keep jumping in with you, or with Wallingford. I want to make a clean break from the company. I need to.”
She made a derisive noise. “You’re never going to break completely, William. That’s ridiculous. It’s your parents’ company.”
“I realize that. But I shouldn’t be having contact with clients. I can draw that line. You should call Wicklein. I’m sure you can use all your charm to keep him in your portfolio yourself.”
“My charm?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Fine then. Your business acumen.” I sat down across from her. “At the end of the day, if he won’t accept you as his rep, I can’t keep coming in to make him stay. No matter how lucrative his account is. If he’s going to be this way, eventually you’re going to have to say, ‘fuck him.’”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have skin in the game anymore. Not really.”
“Trust me. It hasn’t been easy to break away from the company.”
She snorted. “Trust you? Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”
I hoped Rosalyn grasped my underlying point—that I didn’t want a reason for us to be in each other’s lives anymore. We weren’t enemies, but we also weren’t friends. I wouldn’t mind getting to a place where we waved at parties or made small talk at fundraising events. But I didn’t want to create intentional opportunities for contact. I was serious about getting thingsright with Maureen. And that meant eliminating complications that might give her a reason not to be with me.
I couldn’t undo the past, but I’d committed to taking the reins of my life fully in hand, making choices that best served my own goals.
First up, setting firmer boundaries with my ex.
Rosalyn had knocked on my door unexpectedly this morning, carrying a tray with two coffees. Her excuse was to make sure I followed through on my promise to call Wicklein today. She sniffed at the size of my apartment and gave me stink-eye about wearing pajamas so close to noon. When I’d asked her to please call or text before showing up, she lost her shit, calling me an asshole and slamming the drinks down on the counter. One of them fell out of the tray and spilled twenty ounces of molten brown lava into my lap. The other bounced twice before tipping sideways, spraying her dress and somehow launching a stream of coffee into her tightly coiled hair.
“Jesus Christ!” I’d screamed and jumped up, the hot liquid perilously close to my package. Racing to my bathroom, I shed my soaked pants and henley, getting into the shower to spray my lower half with cool water and soap off the sticky mess.
I came out to discover Roz had pilfered clothes from my room. She’d also taken her hair down and run water through the section doused by her latte.
And now, she was back to telling me off because I didn’t want to call Wicklein for her.
“You know, you’re being a real dick, William. You could just do this for me.”
