I know he’d make arrangements if I said no. Lachlan would bend over backward to make this work.
I have to be willing to do the same.
Finn chimes in uneasily. “You have a history. We know. You don’t have to do this.”
Half the Assembly knows about Rose and me. Anyone who went to school with us knows about our history, about the way things splintered between us.
Or at least, they think they know. There’s only one man who really knows the truth.
“I can handle it,” I tell them.
I don’t even know if that’s the fucking truth.
The more I think about Rose, the more memories come back. I don’t know how to sort them out. I don’t know for certain if I can trust myself. I don’t even know how I’d react if I saw Rose today, now, right here before me. What does she look like now? Has she changed?
I cared about her once.
Once, I would have given her everything.
Now, I hate her whole goddamn family.
And she’s going to be my bride.
CHAPTER4
Rose
It’s nice to be home.
I lean back against my pillows, relaxed and too content to get up and do anything just yet. The sheets smell fresh, like flowers, but not the synthetic tang of cheap soap.
Glancing over at the vanity that sits across from the window, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My dark blonde hair is long, soft, and wavy, pulled back in the messy ponytail I threw it into before I got on the plane.
My eyes have always been my favorite thing about myself. They’re green like my father’s. People have always pointed that out, and it’s never failed to make me smile.
Aside from my eyes, most of my face is softer than my father’s. I have more of a heart-shaped face, rounder cheeks. One of the guys that flirted with me in college said I had a classical look, like the doll faced women in Renaissance paintings.
My father isn’t back from work yet, so I get up and roam around the house a bit restlessly. Dad has lots of pictures hanging on the walls, images of me as a child. I stop to look at a photo from my twelfth birthday party, lost in the memory of that day until the sound of footsteps brings me back to the present.
When I turn to look, I see Tara at the end of the hallway, emerging from my father’s bedroom with a hamper at her hip. It’s funny how she looks exactly the same but also older, a paradox that makes me feel like I’m in a time capsule.
Tara’s been with the family for years. She was the one making me soup when I was home sick from school. I would pretend to be hiding from her in the summer, giggling to myself as I darted away from the sound of her orthopedic shoes on the floor. She was never looking for me, but she pretended to when I needed it. When I was distracting myself from the family business.
“Hey, Tara,” I say, smiling. “How’s it going?”
Tara smiles and adjusts her grip on the hamper before making her way to me. “As good as can be expected with these old hips acting up. I didn’t realize you were here. Are you waiting for your father to return?”
“Yeah. I don’t need to sightsee in Boston, you know?”
She laughs. Tara has always been friendly, feeling less like a nanny or maid and more like a distant aunt.
“And your friends?” she asks. Her smile is genuine, soft.
She wouldn’t know that it’s the wrong question to ask.
It’s not like I have many people here at home. Not after what happened in high school. I never really wanted to make ties to this place again, too hurt to even consider it. I moved on with my life, and I didn’t care that I let go of almost all of my connections to Boston.
My father was all I ever needed, anyway.
