“You have to get down here, right now!” Lily yells so I can hear over the loud music.

“What’s going on?” I ask while I look for them at the bar. Rose is no longer arguing with the bartender. The thirty-something guy next to her is in her fucking face. And she’s in his as they scream.

I can hear her voice in the background of Lily’s receiver.

“Just order the fucking beer!” he yells. “Who cares what size it is?!”

“For you to understand me, you’d have to open your tiny, infantile brain,” she sneers, “and try to step onto my plane of existence!”

“Girl size or guy size, it’s not that fucking hard of a concept! Small or large!”

“FUCK YOU!” she shouts, not even that drunk.

I race down the balcony stairs at that last curse word. And I feel Ryke and Loren behind me, the distress must be clear in my muscles that constrict from my neck to arms.

When I reach the first floor, still on the phone with Lily, I sprint ahead, the crowds parting as soon as they see me. The bar is in sight. Maybe fifty feet away.

And then he punches her.

In the face.

Everything moves quickly.

The momentum knocks Rose off the bar stool. Lily crouches down to help her, and Daisy shoves the guy, screaming and trying to hit him back.

My heart is in my throat. The sensible, reasonable part of me that I have always listened to says to go to Rose, to make sure she’s okay. But the livid, boiling side that Rose is familiar with has a mind of its own. I’m already making my way to him, my hand clenched around my phone, my knuckles white with hatred. Who the fuck punches a woman? I’ve met some assholes—some really fucked up people that would sell their child if it meant living an A-class lifestyle. But this shit is something new and foreign and disgusting.

I almost reach the guy.

But as soon as he says, “Oh, you’re that prick on the show. Come to restrain your fucking crazy girlfriend? She needs her mouth taped shut—”

I lay one fist into his stomach before the bouncers separate us. My grip was strong enough to break the screen on my phone. These stupid, raging emotions collect as I realize Rose is still hurt. On the ground.

I find her within a second. Lily has her arms above Rose so no one enters her space. And Lo is right beside Rose’s head, holding a napkin filled with ice to her cheek that he must have grabbed from the bar.

“Tell me you hit him,” Lo says the moment he sees me.

I nod once.

“Thank God.”

“Thank me,” I say, dropping to my knees while Lo just laughs. It’s easy to joke right now. This is the hard part. “Rose?” I inspect her cheek that swells. Not a shiner, but she’ll have a bruise on the bone. I can barely breathe without seeing a fist in her face. Her body falling off the stool. The motion is repeated over and over again. I want to fucking puke.

“He hit me!” she growls, her eyes flickering hot. She tries to sit up to go attack him, but Lo keeps his hand on her shoulder, forcing her down.

“I have her,” I tell Lo, and I swiftly cradle her in my arms. She holds onto my bicep, not trying to go after the guy. Lo passes her the ice, and she keeps it to her cheek, silent again.

“How bad is it?” she asks. “Oh my God, the wedding pictures.” She grimaces. “What an asshole!” She growls again.

“There’s such thing as Photoshop,” I tell her with an even-tempered voice. I hate that she’s hurt, and another guy was the cause. From the sound of it, he wasn’t even a heckler.

“LET ME AT HIM!” Daisy screams.

We all turn our heads. Ryke has Daisy thrown over his shoulder, beelining towards the exit. I follow with Rose in my arms, Lily and Lo behind me somewhere.

Daisy tries to climb down Ryke’s back to go attack the tattooed guy who’s seated at the bar again. Her head is near his ass until he pulls her back up on his shoulder.

“HE HIT MY SISTER!!!”

“Say it a little louder, Dais!” Ryke shouts at her. “The world can’t fucking hear you!”

She screams incoherently and then yells, “If someone hit Lo, you’d kill them!”

“Someone did hit Lo, and I didn’t do a fucking thing,” Ryke retorts, “so calm the fuck down!”

I remember that night. It was when they met each other. He didn’t really know Lo then. I try to concentrate on Rose, who looks murderous at any person who passes, as though every dancer in the club wronged her.

“You’re okay,” I tell her.

“I should have punched him back.”

“You were on the ground.”

She huffs. “How do I look?” she asks, her eyes softening as she stares up at me. Her cheek continues to swell.

“Beautiful,” I say, and I kiss her forehead before she can refute.

“At least he didn’t break my nose,” Rose says, pinching the bridge with two delicate fingers in gratitude.

If he broke her nose—I think my mind would have truly ejected at the sight of her blood.

Just as Ryke disappears through the door to go outside, I glance over my shoulder to make certain that Lily and Loren are following. But I notice Scott close by, speaking to Brett, both of them laughing and smiling together.

I have a horrible feeling.

[ 48 ]

ROSE CALLOWAY

I’ve willfully handed over my pleasure and the wedding to-do list to Connor Cobalt. I’ve either gone mad or he’s put a spell on me. I smile at the thought. He doesn’t like when I accuse him of witchcraft.

My phone buzzes as I finish clipping the buckle to my heel in my bedroom, back in Philly, cameras positioned overhead.

4 days and I bought new makeup for you – Mom

I head to the vanity just to check my face once more. It can’t be that bad…well it’s not good.  A purplish bruise puckers on my cheekbone. It could have been worse. My eye could have swelled shut and oozed puss—that’s what Connor told me to lessen my misery. It worked. Now I’m just happy I don’t have a puss-filled eye to deal with.

And I can also say I’ve been punched. The bachelorette party hasn’t aired yet, but if anyone thinks it’s my fault, I don’t really care.

 Connor walks into the bedroom, shirtless and in a pair of black slacks. His muscles ripple across his abdomen, dipping down towards a place that I saw early this morning. He’s sexier than he realizes—no, no, he definitely knows how hot he is.

He holds up two button-downs by the hanger. “White or blue today?”

“Did you just come out here to show off your body?”

His eyes gleam with mischief, telling me that’s exactly what he did. “I need your impeccable fashion advice, darling. White or blue?”

But I like this more than he knows. It feels comfortable and normal. Sharing space. Sharing each other. I want to wake up and be the woman who chooses what color he wears for the day, and I want him to be the man who chooses what position we’ll take at night.

“White,” I say easily. “I like you in white.”

“Blue it is,” he replies casually.

I glare and his eyes rake my body, taunting me even more. He loves to make me mad. He rests the blue shirt on the desk and takes the white one off the hanger.

“What are you working on today?” I ask as I head towards the door, my purse hung on my forearm.

“My proposal for Cobalt Inc.,” he replies. “The board members approved it this morning. It will go into effect within the next few months.”

He still hasn’t revealed what he’s doing to the company.

I think he just wants to surprise me.

I slip into the hallway, wearing a dark purple peplum dress. Before I can go downstairs, Scott ascends them. His ugly gray eyes latch onto mine. Really, whatever part of him was decently cute or hot has suddenly become putrid like a rotten sulfuric swamp.

“Rose, how are you?” he asks cordially.

“Brilliant,” I say. “As always.” What? I never claimed to be humble.