Chapter 6
Rosalie's POV
The fire was burning again.
Smoke poured down my throat as I reached for that familiar back. "Bryce—"
"Over here! Bryce, hurry!" It was Chloe's voice, shrill enough to cut.
He stopped. Turned to look at me, his pale amber eyes flickering once in the firelight.
"Bryce, save me—" My voice broke apart, choked by the smoke.
He didn't move. Just for a second. Then he grabbed Chloe's hand and bolted for the exit without a backward glance, leaving me alone in the middle of the burning floor.
I was going to die.
In the last instant before consciousness slipped away, the security door was kicked open.
"There's still someone inside!" A low male voice cut through the blaze. A tall figure charged in against the flames and, without a word, swept me up in his arms. In that scalding air, his hold was steady as iron.
"Don't be afraid." He pressed me into his chest, his voice muffled behind the mask, rising over the crackling roar of the fire. "I'll get you out."
A full-face mask, only a pair of eyes showing.
Fathomless gray-blue.
My eyes snapped open.
The back of my neck was slick with cold sweat, my heartbeat slamming hard enough to hurt my ribs. I sat in the dark and caught my breath, then shut my eyes and inhaled deeply. Cedar diffuser, a lingering trace of disinfectant, the smell of my own cold sweat—until my pulse finally slowed.
A dream. That dream again.
My phone buzzed on the pillow. Gemma.
"Rose, you awake?" Her voice was pitched low, but the words came fast. "Don't go back to sleep, something's happened—no, wait, there's progress. My cousin agreed to meet you."
"When."
"Now. Tonight." A jangle of keys came from her end. "I know it's insanely soon, but how many hours do you have left? The trust deadline won't wait. That twenty-four-hour diner on Beacon Street, two a.m. He'll be there."
"You're sure he's reliable?" I rubbed at my brow.
"Trust me." She turned suddenly serious. "Besides you, he's the person I trust most in this world."
I glanced at the cold line of text on the screen. The 48-hour countdown has begun.
"How old is he?" I asked.
"Thirty-five, ten years older than you. He's withdrawn, doesn't talk much, and has a rotten temper." She paused. "But he won't lie to you. I'd stake my life on that."
"One more thing." Her voice dropped again, as if she were holding something back. "When you meet him… there are things he can't talk about. Don't push it."
"What things."
"Nothing." She brushed past it. "You'll understand when you get there. I'll send you his file now."
"I'm on my way."
The diner was nearly empty. The fluorescent lights burned a cold, bleached white, and the air was thick with coffee grounds, cheap fried bacon, and mop water.
A bleary-eyed waiter came over. "Just one? Or…"
"Two," I said. "Over there."
I ran through the smells in my head and slid into the booth by the window.
He'd gotten there first.
The first clear look I got of him, my step faltered half a beat.
It wasn't that he was doing anything deliberate. He simply leaned back against the seat, in a washed-out navy work shirt with the cuffs rolled to his forearms—and yet he seemed to fill the entire booth, pressing even the harsh light overhead a few shades dimmer.
Short hair, dark brown shot through with gray. A layer of unkempt stubble along his jaw. His throat moving faintly as he breathed.
My gaze dropped without my permission. The rolled-up forearms were taut and hard, a black bramble tattoo climbing from the wristbone and vanishing into his cuff. Not the balanced muscle you build in a gym—the kind of strength that comes from years of hard use, that could drag a person out of a fire without breaking stride.
He looked a good deal older than me. There were faint lines at the corners of his eyes. A man that age carried none of what Bryce had in his gaze—that need to be coaxed and coddled—only a heaviness that said he'd seen everything.
That hard, deep-set stare turned toward me, and my heart skipped before I could stop it. My ears went hot, and I pulled my gaze back.
This wasn't logical. What was I doing.
For years my world had held nothing but Bryce's carefully maintained, gentle, approachable face. There was not one thing about this man you could call gentle. He was all blunt-edged menace, the opposite of everything I knew.
And he was looking at me too.
Those pale eyes rested on my face for an instant—quick, as if he hadn't expected the person sliding into the booth to look the way I did. Then he glanced away and picked up his coffee, as though the look had never happened.
But I'd caught it. His throat had bobbed.
"Cassian Thackeray." He spoke first, his voice low and even, his Boston accent swallowing the r's.
"Rosalie Fairfax." I sat up straight, set my bag on my lap, and forced down that half-beat of lost focus. "Gemma explained the situation."
"Mm."
The waiter came back with the coffee—a girl barely into her twenties. As she set the cup in front of Cassian, her eyes lingered a beat too long on his face, then his forearms, a flush rising in her cheeks. She fumbled and nearly knocked over the sugar jar.
"Anything—anything else?" Her voice wavered.
"Bring her one too." Cassian didn't look up, just tipped his chin toward me. "Hot."
The girl answered reluctantly, glancing back once more after she'd walked a couple of steps away.
I dropped my eyes to the table. So I wasn't the only one overreacting. This man's effect on the people around him didn't discriminate.
That inexplicable flutter flattened out at the thought. Just hormones. Anyone who looked would react the same. Nothing special.
"Then I'll go first." I laid it out plainly. "I need a legal marriage—registered, in effect, and after that, no interference in each other's lives. What you need, Gemma wasn't clear about."
"To handle the family," he said. "They're pushing me to marry. A married status buys me time."
"That simple?"
"That simple."
No. A man like this—unable to find anyone to marry, so he signs a contract with a woman he's never met?
"A man like you," I said, meeting his eyes, "wouldn't have trouble finding someone. Why a contract?"
He picked up his coffee, took a sip, set it down. A few old scars crossed his knuckles—the kind only people who work with their hands ever have.
"Firefighting accident." His tone didn't rise or fall. "Left me with an injury. I can't have a normal married life."
The word firefighting landed like a stone. Gemma's file had said the same thing—her cousin fought fires for a living.
It couldn't be that much of a coincidence, could it? I looked at him, waiting for more.
There wasn't any.
"That's it?" I asked.
"That's it." He looked up, a faint trace of amusement crossing those pale eyes. "What, Miss Fairfax—want to inspect the goods?"
My ears went hot. "That's not what I meant."
"I know." He put the smile away and sank back into stillness. "Just talking."
One second the man was hard as steel; the next, that careless, roguish edge surfaced when he smiled. The gap between the two was wide enough to knock me off balance.
I pressed my lips together and dragged my thoughts back into line. He hadn't asked why I needed a marriage at two in the morning, so I had no business asking about his wound. That was how a deal like this was supposed to work.
"So we each take what we need." I looped the bag strap around my fingers. "Let me state my terms."
"Go ahead."
"One: after we marry, we live separately. Two: finances stay completely apart—I don't touch yours, you don't touch mine. Three: no interference in each other's private lives. Married in name to the outside world, and nothing beyond that between us." I laid them down one by one. "A pure contract. Registered before my birthday, in effect—that's all it needs to do. A clear beginning, a clear end."
He heard me out, silent for two seconds.
"Fine." He set down his cup, and his gaze darkened as it fixed on me. "I have one too."
"Say it."
"Don't develop feelings you shouldn't."
Not a shred of a joke in it. That flash of roughness from a moment ago was gone, wiped clean.
My fingers tightened on the strap, then loosened. It was blunt enough to be almost offensive—as if he'd already filed me under women who flatter themselves.
Three days ago I might have found it grating. Now it only steadied me. A man who guards his boundaries this fiercely, who won't waste breath on a single pleasantry, at least won't do what Bryce did—cage me with gentle lies.
"Don't worry." I raised my eyes to him, my tone flat enough to give nothing away. "I just clawed my way out of a relationship. Feelings are something I can't afford right now—for anyone."
He looked at me for a moment, and something flickered through those eyes, too quick to catch.
"Good, then."
"The three-day waiting period," I reminded him. "Massachusetts law—three days from license to effect. I have less than forty-eight hours. If we can't get past that, nothing else matters."
"I'll handle it."
"How?" I frowned. "It's a hard statute, not a line you can cut."
"City hall, tomorrow morning." He stood and pulled a napkin from the table to set under his cup, his movements clean and efficient. Before he left, he picked up the untouched cup of hot coffee and placed it in front of me, the rim turned toward the side easiest for me to reach.
He left without another word.
I sat there, watching the steam curl up from the coffee, catching the last trace of pine as it scattered into the cold air.
Cassian Thackeray. Thirty-five. Firefighter. A man I'd known for less than an hour.
This time tomorrow, I'd be married to him.
The thought should have terrified me. In twenty-five years, the most out-of-line thing I'd ever done was switch to a major my family hated, behind their backs. And now I was about to marry a stranger—a man who wore danger like a second skin, who didn't fit anywhere in the world I knew.
Absurd. Absurd from beginning to end.
My hand trembled—whether from the cold or from the uncertain future ahead, I couldn't tell—as I lifted the warm cup and took a sip.
Looking down, I watched the heart etched in the foam bloom outward, ring by ring, and it hit me only then: marrying a stranger was the most reckless thing I'd ever done in my life.
And I had no intention of stopping.
