Page 9 of Whispers of the Lake

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you want?”

“I’m worried about you,” he said.

“Maybe you should be more worried about keeping your dick in your pants.” I flashed him a faux smile.

“Rose.” He threw his hands in the air. “Come on, I’m trying here. We can still give this another shot.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, one arm still folded over my chest. “Look, I’m seriously not in the mood for this tonight. Stop coming to my apartment and expecting me to be open to the idea of you being here. I never will be. Why do you think I moved out of the house in the first place?”

The whole point of getting this apartment was so I wouldn’t have to see his face again. But he’d found out where I moved to when he saw the security deposit in my bank account. At the time, he still had access to my accounts. He wanted to know where I was, so he called my complex and figured out which apartment I was in. That was my fault. I should’ve changed all of my passwords and changed ownership of my accounts first thing. Instead, I spent days and nights crying in bed.

“It’s just . . . well, I miss you, Rose.”

“Goodbye, Cole.” I stepped back and started to close the door.

He wedged a foot in the crack to stop it.

I lifted my gaze to his with a frown.

“Have you heard from Eve?”

My brows stitched together so fast I didn’t have a chance to control my reaction. “What?” He couldn’t be serious right now.

“Eve? I—I was just wondering if you’d heard from her. She agreed to meet me last night.”

“Meet you last night forwhat?”

“There’s something I wanted to talk to her about. Just wanted to, uh, apologize for . . . everything. But the main reason was so I could ask her if she knew any ways I could win you back. She knows you the best, so I just figured—”

“Get the fuck away from my door, Cole.” I couldn’t stand here and listen to anymore of his bullshit. He truly was an asshole.

“But Rose, I—”

“GET AWAY FROM MY DOOR, COLE!”

He flinched and had the nerve to look flabbergasted. Perhaps he was. I hardly ever raised my voice. I also didn’t burn people’s clothes and then slap the shit out of them before walking away, yet here we were. This man brought a lot of ugly out of me.

I swallowed my rage, closed my eyes to fight the burn, counted to ten in my head like Cristine suggested when I felt a violent urge coming, then sighed as I opened them again. “I don’t need you trying to win me back,” I told him in the calmest voice I could muster. “We aredone. The divorce papers were sent to you weeks ago. I don’t want this to get ugly so please just get off my doorstep, sign the damn papers, and leave me alone. I amnevertaking you back.”

He opened his mouth like he was going to speak. Before he could, I shut the door in his face and locked it. I stepped back far enough to see his shadow near one of the side windows. He lingered for a while, then sighed. After a few seconds, his shadow moved, footsteps sounded, and he was gone.

Biting back tears, I returned to the kitchen and grabbed my leftover dinner. After pouring a glass of wine and taking a large gulp, I sat at the dining table and reached for my laptop.

I needed to focus on this article and turn it in to Twyla, but for the life of me, I couldn’t concentrate. Not only because of Cole’s random appearance, but also because of what he’d said about Eve.

Why were they still in touch with each other? What made him think she had any power to salvage our marriage? If anything, this made their situation appear worse. For all I knew, they were still sleeping together. They were both idiots. I wanted to say that to Eve’s face. I wanted to say that and a hell of a lot more, but I would never be able to arrange that if she didn’t answer her damn phone.

I ran my fingers over my forehead to smooth the frown lines before picking up my own phone. Once I found Nico’s name, I gave him a call.

“Hey, Rosette.”

“Nico.” I fought a laugh. “I told you to stop calling me by my full name. Only my dad has that privilege.”

“My bad. It’s a nice name though. I don’t get why more people don’t call you by it.”

“Rose is easier to say, I guess.”

“Sure, Rosette. Look, if you’re calling about the Melissa Cowan stuff, I’m still working on it.”

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