Page 86 of Resisting You
Kristen shook her head, but it wasn’t exactly a denial. It was pity. “I want you toprotecthim. Before he makes a martyr of himself and ruins both of your lives. He loves you,” she stated simply. “If you really love him—and I think you do—you’ll talk him into an annulment before this turns into a full-on PR wildfire. Before he’s painted as complicit in some fame-hungry, career-climbing scheme.”
“He’s not,” I whispered. “None of this was fake. Not anymore.”
“No,” Kristen agreed. “But perception is everything. And the perception now is that you used him. You built your practice on his back, and now that it’s blown up, he’s going to be collateral damage unless you draw a clean, dramatic line. If you do this for him, I promise I will help you rebuild your practice. Free of charge. It’ll take a long time. It won’t be right away. You’ll need to lay low for a couple years. But I swear to you, I will help you with your image once the dust settles.”
I gripped the edge of the heavy table beside me, grounding myself in the grainy wood. “I don’t want your help.”
“Don’t be ridiculous Rosa. Youneedmy help. Even if you can’t admit it right now,” she said simply.
Again, I shook my head. “He won’t agree.”
“Then you have to convince him.” Her tone was gentle, but firm. “Do it like you’re saving his life. Because in this business? That’s exactly what you’ll be doing.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Because what she was asking me to do felt like swallowing glass and calling it love.
But what if she was right?
I thought about the way Noah looked at me at the rehearsal. The way his hand never left mine. The way he stood up in front of everyone and demanded Morgan leave—even when Kristen warned him not to.
I’d never had anyone fight for me like that. Never had anyone look at me likeIwas the thing worth protecting.
Not even my own parents.
And now I was supposed to let him go?
I slid down to sit back onto my chair at the dining table. My pulse thrummed in my ears. My brain looping the words:If you really love him, let him goon repeat.
It would be easier if I didn’t love him.
If it hadn’t stopped being fake somewhere between our fourth accidental kiss and saving Birdie from an ill fate.
I nodded once, slowly. “I’ll do it. Tonight.”
Kristen placed a hand on my shoulder. “You’re making the right choice, Rosa.”
She walked away, and I was left staring at my reflection in the dark pane of glass across from me.
And I realized, the only way to save the man I love… might be to destroy the life we’d started building.
He didn’t know it yet, but I was about to give him the one thing that would cost me everything: his freedom.
Chapter 32
Noah
The elevator crawled. Like it knew exactly how desperate I was to get upstairs and decided to drag its cables out of spite.
My reflection in the mirrored wall looked wrong. Pale. Tight-jawed with a five o’clock shadow shading my chin despite having shaven merely a few hours earlier. My tie half-askew. I didn’t even remember loosening it.
All I knew was that Rosa had disappeared from our rehearsal dinner… and I had to find her.
After the blind item dropped, after I kicked Morgan out, after I tried to salvage what was left of our rehearsal dinner with damage control and polite lies—she was just... gone.
Callie and Ronnie hadn’t seen her since dessert. Even Hazel had no idea where she had gone. Kristen merely brushed me off with a tight smile, saying simply, "She’s probably taking a breather. Let her cool off."
Cool off? Rosa wasn’t a walking PR concern. She wasmy wife. And she looked like the ground had dropped out beneath her when she read that blind item.
I had searched everywhere. The ballroom. The restaurant bar. The rooftop garden. The fucking coat closet. I’d called her phone so many times my thumb had gone numb.
