Page 42 of Wait for Him

“Then why'd you ask?”

She narrows her eyes at me over the rim of her wineglass before taking another sip, and I smile into mine.

That's better.

Rose watches me take my first drink, but I can tell something else is turning over in her head now. Her fingers stop moving around the stem of her glass, and when she looks at me again, some of the frustration with Bennet has been replaced by concern.

“And you?” she asks. “How'd you fare?”

I roll my sleeves to my forearms. “The board's treating me like Bennet's glorified babysitter. But what's new?”

“Join the club.” She lifts her glass an inch off the table in a toast to nobody, the patron saint of cleaning up after Bennet Sullivan.

I tip my glass back at her.

Rose has ten years on her brother, and she's been his keeper for most of them. Every fire I've put out, she put out one first, usually before I knew it was lit. So, when she says it, she's not complaining. She's reporting from a longer service than mine.

Which is exactly why the mood doesn't track. Bennet being face-down in a scandal isn't new. It's practically a season we observe. We've spent years two steps behind that man with a mop, a bucket and a statement ready for the press. She's never once let it put a second glass in her hand before the first was finished.

This isn't about him.

She's been off all day.

And when she called me Marcus on the phone this morning, it stung worse than it had any right to. That's the name she reaches for when she's sealing herself off, bricking up a wall nobody gets a hand into, and I hate it every single time. Hate being on the outside of her.

But I let it go because between the fountain, the firm and whatever else she's carrying, she's already holding more than most people could. I've never been selfish enough to ask her to carry my feelings too.

“What is it?” I ask, tilting my head.

She looks up and studies me for a few seconds. Doesn't say anything, just gives me that long Rose stare that usually means she's deciding how much bullshit I'm feeding her.

“Don't do that.” She shakes her head and takes another drink.

“Don't do what?”

“Act like you can read my mind.”

A smile tugs at one corner of my mouth. “Can't I?”

For half a second something in her shoulders gives, the smallest concession, there and gone. Then she reaches for the bottle and pours herself more wine, concentrating way too fucking hard on not spilling it.

“I found David in my bed cheating on me this morning. When I got home.”

The pour keeps going. She says it to the glass, not to me, as if she keeps her eyes down it'll hurt less.

I'm going to snap that motherfucker's neck. I'm going to find out where he is right now. I'm going to do it slowly, and I'm going to enjoy the snap, crackle, and pop.

“I'm sorry, Rose.”

That's what comes out. But nothing in my tone matches the rage in my bones.

“That fucker.”

“Oh, he was absolutely doing that.”

A giggle slips out of her, then a hiccup right behind it, and she presses her hands to her mouth like she's surprised at herself.

“How long were you here drinking before you called me?”