Chapter 8

Rosalie's POV

Those three words drove straight into my chest.

Coming from a man I'd known less than twelve hours, they should have meant nothing at all. But he said them so steadily—the very same way he'd said I'll get you out in the fire.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came. I could only look at him. Those gray-blue eyes were too close, close enough that I forgot what I'd meant to say. My heart hammered until my ears ached.

It took me several seconds to find my voice, and when I did, it came out thin and unsteady. Almost on instinct, I snatched up those four words and held them between us like a shield.

"Mr. Thackeray." I turned my face away. "We have a contract. You don't have to… say things like that."

"Mm." He gave a low sound of acknowledgment, but his gaze didn't leave my face. "Habit. It's what you say when you're saving someone."

When you're saving someone.

My breath stalled.

The morning light cut across the city hall corridor at a slant, falling over half his face. He'd changed into a clean shirt, cuffs rolled to the forearms, baring the wrist where a black bramble tattoo crept upward. Across the back of his hand ran a few faint, pale old scars—the kind only people who work with their hands ever carry. Broad knuckles, joints sharply defined. A pair of hands that could drag someone out of a fire without a flicker of hesitation.

My eyes fixed on them without my meaning to, then I yanked my gaze back.

It wasn't logical.

"What are you smelling," he said suddenly.

I stiffened. "What?"

"Since you walked in, you've wrinkled your nose three times." He tilted his head slightly, a trace of amusement flickering through those eyes, so faint it was nearly invisible. "Smell something off?"

So he'd been watching me the whole time. Watching closely enough to count how many times I'd wrinkled my nose. My ears went hot, and I clutched the documents in my arms.

"…Occupational habit," I said, bracing myself. "I do research. Sensitive to smells."

"To what."

"To yours." The second the words were out I regretted them, but I forced myself to finish. "Smoke, pine, soap. You've washed it plenty of times, but the smoke won't come out."

He was silent for a beat. His eyes lingered on my face a little longer, as though he hadn't expected the woman standing in front of him this morning to look the way she did—or to say a thing like that. Then he lowered them, his gaze sliding away to settle on the papers in my arms.

"Sharp nose," he said, his voice dropping half a note. "That brain of yours doesn't go to waste, at least."

I didn't know how to answer. It was the first time anyone had ever praised my brain instead of my face.

Three years. Bryce had only ever told me I was like a peach ripe enough to burst at one squeeze. Never once had anyone stood a single step away from me and said, that brain of yours doesn't go to waste.

I crushed that inexplicable little tremor down and pretended I hadn't heard.

I said nothing, only drew in a breath on instinct and took his scent apart all over again. Smoke and fire, pine, soap.

Very clean.

Exactly like the man who'd charged in against the flames and carried me out of death's grip.

Rescuer. Contract husband. Gemma's cousin.

Three identities stacked onto one man—absurd past all reason.

But my heartbeat had no intention of settling. It was still careening through my chest, each beat heavier than the last, pounding until my ears burned and my fingertips went numb. I took six deep breaths, broke his scent down and sorted it three full times, and still couldn't press it back.

Never before. Not even in the first three months of Bryce's courtship had my heart ever slipped this far out of control.

I turned my face away, not daring to look at him again.

"Nothing else, then I'll go." Cassian tugged his coat collar up, his voice sliding back into that businesslike flatness. "Keep your documents safe. Reach out if you need anything."

"The details are in a document." I stared at the toes of my shoes. "I'll send it tonight. Read it before you sleep."

"Mm… all right."

He paused, not leaving right away. I could feel his gaze settle on me again.

"Your hands have been shaking the whole time."

I instinctively drew my hands back into my sleeves. "It's cold."

"It's not cold in here." He called the bluff mildly, but didn't press further. His gaze only sank, then dropped at last to the marriage certificate I'd crumpled in my grip. "Hold on to it. Don't lose it. This one's real."

This one's real.

He'd probably tossed it off without thinking. But those words landed in my ears heavier than anything else. The last one had been fake. I'd clutched it and played someone's wife for three months, in the dark.

I didn't look up, afraid he'd see how red my eyes had gone.

"I know."

He said nothing more, and turned to leave. That tall figure vanished quickly into the morning light at the city hall entrance, taking the smell of smoke and fire away with it.

Leaving me standing there alone, my heart still a frantic mess.

I pinched my own palm in irritation. Absurd. A man I'd known twelve hours, whose opening line had been don't develop feelings you shouldn't—what on earth was I getting flustered over.

Just then the phone in my bag buzzed.

I looked down almost as if grabbing at a lifeline.

Bryce.

Those five letters on the screen, like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head.

The fever that a moment ago had burned my ears hot, the heartbeat I couldn't press down—all of it went cold in an instant.

I stared at the incoming call, standing on the empty steps, my fingertips going cold degree by degree.

I drew in a deep breath, answered, and tuned my voice into the soft, docile one he was used to.

"Hello."

"Rose? Where'd you go?" Bryce's voice was gentle as ever—gentle enough to turn my stomach. "With your eyes in the state they're in, out this early, and you don't even tell me? Hm?"

Three months ago, that line would have had me scrambling to explain myself.

Right now it only struck me as ridiculous. So a person could shove you into a fire with one hand, and ask you where'd you go in that tone with the other.

"Came out to take care of something." I kept my eyes lowered, my tone flat without the smallest crack. "Did you need me for something?"

"Of course I do." He paused, dropping his voice, sweet to the point of cloying. "Baby, did you forget the arrangements for our wedding? We need to talk it over. I'll wrap things up at the office and come by your apartment tonight."

My fingers slowly tightened, nails biting into my palm. Traffic streamed past below the steps, the morning light glaring in my eyes, and yet I felt cold all over, my head abnormally clear.

Three months of lies. A fire that had nearly taken my life. A me left behind on a burning floor.

Now it was my turn.

Facing the glaring morning light, I smiled slowly into the phone.

"Sure," I said, my voice soft enough to drip. "Eight o'clock tonight. I'll be waiting."