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Rose took her bouquet downstairs and perched in the doorway, watching Oren.
“My life flipped upside down,” Oren said. “I lost someone very dear to me. Someone I will never forget.” He pressed his hand over his chest and made a forlorn face.
Rose thought,He’s faking his sorrow. He loves me so much more than he could have ever loved her. Doesn’t he?
“But I also met someone else,” Oren said. “Someone who knows me, who knows my heartache, who knows my soul.”
Suddenly, the five-piece string orchestra swelled from the corner. Lights came on in the corner and darkened elsewhere. More lights came on to illuminate a sort of “aisle” between the tables and chairs. Rose’s throat spasmed with panic. But she clung hard to her bouquet, fixed her face into a smile, and walked down the aisle just as she’d practiced that morning. She tried not to glance to either side. But when her eyes shifted, she couldn’t help but notice how different the crowd’s emotions were. Some were emotional. Some were panicked. Some looked stricken. But Rose continued to the front of the room tolink her arms with Oren, raise her chin, and recite her vows.
Within fifteen minutes, she was officially Rose Grayson. The crowd was on their feet. More champagne was poured, but Rose didn’t drink a single glass. She placed her hand on her lower stomach gently and smiled at everyone, shifting through the crowd as Oren thanked everyone for coming. Rose was never required to say anything except “Thank you,” “Oh, it’s so nice to meet you,” and “Oh, isn’t your dress so nice?”
She came upon Mr. and Mrs. Walden near the far wall. Mrs. Walden gave her a kiss on each cheek and said, “Darling, you look perfect. Doesn’t she look perfect, Oren?” But her smile was so sinister that Rose wanted to run away from her.
“Mrs. Walden hates me,” Rose whispered when she and Oren walked away.
“Don’t be silly, darling. Mrs. Walden hates everyone. But she hates herself most of all,” Oren assured her, then kissed her ear.
It wasn’t till after the fireworks blasted through the night sky over Manhattan that Oren dipped Rose into a kiss and whispered in her ear: “What do you say we spend the next few months in Paris?”
Rose’s eyes bugged out with surprise. “Paris?”
Rose had never envisioned herself in Europe.
But she’d already known Oren long enough to understand that when Oren wanted something, he got it. He had a vision for Paris. And Paris was where they were off to.
Rose was already in over her head. She just didn’t know it yet.
Chapter Seventeen
Present Day
Rose drove Sean back to his police car later that afternoon. Sean carried a box of “potential evidence” regarding the Oren and Natalie investigation that contained journals, photographs, and personal items. Rose could only think,Natalie never thought her private things would be gone through like this. She never thought her diary would be evidence for her murder.
Rose cut the engine and gazed at Sean through the dying cerulean light. It was suddenly strange to her that she hadn’t seen him around so often in the past several decades. She’d hardly left since 2004. Where was he?
She asked.
“I left Nantucket for a while,” Sean admitted. “I met someone; I wanted to try to make it work. She wasn’t an islander, and she convinced me there would be more upward mobility career-wise if we went somewhere bigger.”
“How did you like that?”
Sean sniffed. “For a long time, that was my life. We had a couple of kids. We had bills to pay, windows to wash, and cars to take care of. We went to bed every night and ate breakfast every morning.”
Rose searched through his words for some sign that he’d loved her. But what did love really mean?
“I didn’t know she was cheating on me,” Sean admitted finally. “When she confessed, I was blown over. I had no idea she was so good at lying.”
Rose felt it like a knife through the heart. She wet her lips. “Did you leave immediately?”
Sean shook his head. “No. I think forgiveness is an essential part of every relationship. I wanted to go to therapy. I wanted to talk about everything. I even asked her a bunch of questions about the guy, just so I could fully grapple with the situation. She was up for it at first. But after a couple of months, she said she couldn’t respect me anymore.”
Rose’s jaw hung open.Respect?
“She said she would have preferred if I’d gotten angry,” Sean said with a soft laugh. “She wanted me to, like, punch a wall or something.”
Rose’s hands were clammy.
“Maybe it was a test I failed,” Sean said. “But I don’t blame her, and I don’t blame myself. We grew apart over the years. That kind of thing happens all the time.”
