The Wrong Kind of Beautiful
The music was too loud, the tequila was too cheap, and Rose Haven's heart rate was doing something it had no business doing over a stranger in a black shirt. "Nina," she said, gripping her best friend's arm. "Nina, look at him." "I've been looking at him for ten minutes. You're the one who just noticed." "I was busy being heartbroken." "You've been heartbroken for six weeks. Take a break."
Rose was drunk...not sloppy drunk, but honest drunk, the kind that stripped away every filter she owned. And the filter she needed most right now was the one that stopped her from staring at the man leaning against the bar like he owned the building. He probably did. He had that look. Dark hair, sharper jaw than should be legal, and an expression like he was watching a mildly amusing disaster unfold — which, considering Rose had just spilled a shot down her own dress, was accurate. He caught her staring. He didn't look away. Neither did she.
"Oh no," Nina whispered. "He's coming over." "I can't feel my legs." "That's the tequila." "No," Rose said, watching him move through the crowd like the crowd was inconvenienced by existing. "That's him." He stopped in front of her. Up close he was worse... better — worse. His eyes were the kind of grey that looked calm right before a storm decided otherwise. "You're staring," he said. "You're the one who walked over." "Fair point." A small, unimpressed smile. "You spilled your drink." "I'm aware." "On purpose?" "I don't plan my humiliations. They just happen to me."
That got a real laugh out of him — short, low, surprised at himself. "I like that. Most people in this club plan everything. Their outfits, their angles, their conversation." He tilted his head. "You're refreshingly unplanned." "Is that a compliment?" "I haven't decided yet." Rose should have walked away. She would tell herself that later, over and over, lying in bed replaying every second of this...I should have walked away. But the tequila had her honesty turned all the way up, and her honesty said: stay.
"What's your name?" she asked. Something flickered behind his eyes. Calculation, maybe. Caution. Gone as fast as it came.
"Rowan," he said. Just that. No last name offered, and something in his voice told her not to ask for one. "Rose." "Rose," he repeated, like he was testing the weight of it. "Of course it is." "What's that supposed to mean?" "It means," he said, stepping closer, close enough that she had to tip her chin up to hold his gaze, "that you're the kind of beautiful that gets men killed, and you have no idea." Her breath caught. It should have sounded like a line. It didn't. It sounded like a fact he'd learned the hard way.
"That's either the best or worst thing anyone's said to me tonight." "Give it time," Rowan said. "I contain multitudes. Mostly bad ones." She laughed...too loud, too real, the kind of laugh that made Nina glance over with wide, delighted eyes from across the bar. Rose didn't care. For the first time in six weeks she wasn't thinking about her ex, or her rent, or the mountain of flour-dusted bills waiting for her at the bakery. She was thinking about the way Rowan's hand found the small of her back like it belonged there.
"Dance with me," he said. Not a question. She noticed that about him...he didn't ask things so much as offer them and wait to see if you were smart enough to take them.
"I don't even know your last name." "Good," he said. "Keep it that way." She should have found that strange. She would, later — much later, when strange became terrifying, when the calm grey of his eyes turned out to belong to a man half the city crossed the street to avoid. But right now, drunk on cheap tequila and the particular thrill of being wanted by someone who looked like he never wanted anything twice, Rose Haven took his hand.
The last thing she remembered clearly, before the night dissolved into heat and laughter and a stolen kiss against the hallway wall outside the bathrooms, was a man in a sharp suit stopping dead in the doorway of the club, staring at Rowan with the particular terror of someone who had just seen a ghost holding a woman he had no right to be touching. "Mr. Miller," the man said, voice shaking. "Sir. We have a problem." Rowan didn't even turn his head. "Everyone in this building has a problem. Be specific." "It's Cross, sir. He's here." And just like that, the warmth in Rowan's grey eyes went cold...cold enough that Rose felt it against her own skin like a door slamming shut.
"Rowan?" she said. "What's wrong?" He looked at her like he was already saying goodbye. "Nothing you need to know," he said. "Yet." Then he was gone, disappearing into the crowd with the man in the suit, leaving Rose standing alone in a hallway with her lipstick smudged, her heart wrecked, and a name Mr. Miller, that meant absolutely nothing to her. It would mean everything by morning.
