CHAPTER 004
1534 Words
~Roseline's POV~
Let me tell you something about pretending.
I'd been doing it my whole life, pretending I was fine, pretending I wasn't running, pretending I hadn't been sold like livestock at thirteen years old.
So pretending that I hadn't kissed my client and let him mark me two days ago? Should have been easy. It wasn't.
The mark burned. It didn't burn the way it happens in movies where the girl clutches her neck and collapses beautifully.
More like a paper cut that kept reopening. A persistent, infuriating throb right at my pulse point that had absolutely no respect for my work schedule, my professionalism, or my rapidly deteriorating mental health.
I pressed my fingers against it for the hundredth time that morning, grabbed my folder and headed for the board meeting.
That was mistake number one.
Mistake number two was the shortcut past the library.
I heard her laugh before I saw her. And I wish I hadn't because it was familiar in the worst possible way. The exact pitch of a laugh I hadn't heard in ten years but still somehow carried in my chest like a scar that never quite faded.
I looked up and stopped walking.
Jeremy had her pressed against the library wall, one hand curved around her jaw, mouth on hers like she was something he'd been dying to get back to. Her fingers were curled into the front of his jersey.
That jersey.
The same one I'd grabbed two days ago when he kissed me in my office and my brain had completely abandoned its post.
My heartbeat faltered. Recognition hit me like ice water on skin.
I was staring at my own reflection wearing an expression I'd never once seen in my own mirror. She was cold, unbothered and completely at home in his arms, the same arms I wanted to be in.
I really, really should have kept walking but I didn't.
She opened her eyes and looked directly at me over his shoulder. Neither of us moved.
The only sound was my own pulse doing something completely unhinged in my ears.
Then she pulled back from him slowly, turned around fully and looked at me like I was something she had found stuck to the bottom of her shoe on a hot day.
"Well,” she sneered. "Look who decided to show up."
I managed a weak smile. "Evelyn—"
"Don't." One word. Quiet and sharp as a knife pressed flat against skin. "Don't say my name like we're old friends catching up." Her cold green eyes moved over me slowly. "Don't say my name like you have any right to it at all."
Jeremy had gone completely still behind her. quietly showing his support. Smart man.
Evelyn smiled. And God, it was the most unsettling thing I'd ever seen on a face that looked exactly like mine. She took one step toward me and dropped her voice so low only I could catch it.
"You slept with my man." She frowned. "You looked him in the eye, let him call you by my name and said absolutely nothing." She tilted her head slightly. "Ten years, Emma. That's what you came back to show me after ten years."
“My name is Roseline!” I spat back and faced her squarely, letting our eyes meet for the first time. “At least I didn't steal your life for ten years, Evelyn.” I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please, get over it. He's not the only man in the world, you know, and honestly, I still can't figure out if his little d**k was even worth all this stress.”
She held my gaze for one more second, scowling hard, then she picked up her bag and smoothed her hair like we'd just had a perfectly pleasant conversation.
"I can't touch you on campus," she said, almost cheerfully. "You're staff." She started to smile but it stopped well before it reached her eyes. "Lucky you.”
Then she walked straight past me and deliberately rubbed her shoulders roughly on mine without another word. Just the faint trail of her perfume and a threat so quiet it didn't even need to raise its voice.
I watched her go. Then I made the mistake of turning to Jeremy.
He was already watching me. Jaw tight. Eyes careful. He'd put his shutters back up — the same ones I'd watched crack open in our session — except now they were reinforced. Like he'd spent the last forty-eight hours rebuilding them with extra cement and zero regrets.
"You're back together," I said.
It wasn't exactly a question. I mean, even the blind could see that.
"Yes." He cleared his throat. "The sessions helped. I saw things more clearly." He paused. "She knows you're my counsellor. Nothing more."
Nothing more.
Right.
I nodded and faked a smile so convincing I almost believed it myself.
"Thursday's session still—"
"Roseline."
He said my name and my chest did something stupid and embarrassing and completely unhelpful.
He stepped off the path, away from the students walking past, and tilted his head toward the gap between buildings.
I should have said no.
I really, genuinely, with every functioning brain cell I had left, should have said no.
I followed him anyway.
Because apparently I had a gift for making terrible decisions.
The moment we were out of earshot he turned around. All the politeness was gone. What replaced it wasn't anger — no, it was worse than that. It was decided. Like he had spent two days rehearsing something and had finally worked up the nerve to say it to my face.
"The other day—" he started.
"Was a mistake," I cut in. "I know."
"It can't happen again."
"Agreed."
"The mark." He exhaled. "There are suppressants. I can have someone—"
"I said I'll handle it,” I said, sharper than I meant. Way sharper.
He looked at me for a long moment, a million emotions running through his eyes before he dismissed them. Then he straightened.
"You're my counsellor," he said. "You're Evelyn's sister and from the look of things, you're a rogue with no pack and no lineage the High Council would ever accept. I'm rejecting you as my mate on those grounds." Each world was like a pin pressed through my throat. "I'm going to be Lycan King in a few months. The woman standing beside me when that happens cannot be you." A pause. "It was never going to be you, Roseline. You need to understand that.”
It was never going to be you.
The realization sank in hard and ugly.
I'd heard versions of this sentence my entire life. Not good enough. Wrong name. Wrong blood. Wrong everything. I was used to it. I'd told myself so many times that I was used to it.
But hearing it from him? It hit differently.
I didn't let him see that. I'd sooner swallow glass.
"Crystal clear," I said.
My voice didn't shake. I was unreasonably, embarrassingly proud of that.
"Roseline—"
"You've made yourself very clear, Mr. Lockwood." I adjusted my folder. "I'll see you Thursday."
I turned and walked away at a completely normal, totally unbothered, absolutely fine pace.
I didn't make it to the board meeting. I turned right instead of left, went straight back to my office, got through the door and shut it behind me.
Then I screamed. The mark didn't just burn.
It tore. Like my body hadn't gotten the memo. Like something in me was still reaching for him while the rest of me was desperately trying to walk away and the two things were pulling me apart at the seam.
I stood there until the worst of it passed.
Then I wiped my face, straightened my jacket and took one breath. Perhaps I could still make it to the board meeting.
I turned around to leave again and noticed the drawer. My desk drawer, the one I always locked, without exception, not negotiable, every single day, was hanging open.
The floor dropped out from under me.
I crossed the room in three steps. Everything inside had been moved. Not ransacked. Not obviously disturbed. Just shifted carefully.
Whoever had been here knew exactly what they were looking for and didn't want me to know they were ever here.
My phone was still there. My documents were still there. I checked twice. Then a third time because I was really, truly hoping I was wrong.
My diary was gone.
I stood there staring at the empty space where the small brown notebook used to sit.
It had six months of my real name written inside it. Alex's name. The Blackwell contract. Every single secret I was carrying, in my own handwriting, on actual paper, in a drawer I had been stupid enough to think was safe.
Gone.
Someone had been in my office while I was outside falling apart over a man who had just looked me in the eye and told me I would never be enough.
And they had taken the one thing that could burn my entire life to the ground.
- Writer
