Eventually, Armie stood and paced to his desk, while Dominic and Rosie remained unmoving on the pillows. He scratched a few notes onto a legal pad and moseyed over to the office door, opening it.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Team Vega,” he said briskly. “But we’ve arrived at the end of our fourth session and I’m afraid your marriage isn’t going to make it.”
A lead weight dropped in Rosie’s stomach. Her limbs lost feeling.
Dominic leapt to his feet, his broad shoulders riddled with tension. “Excuse me?” He laughed without humor, but Rosie could see the panic in his eyes. “That’s bullshit.”
“I’m rarely wrong about these things.” Armie let out a weary breath. “Like I said, I’ve been doing last-chance couples counseling for thirty years and I get a pretty accurate read by the fourth and final session.” He drummed his fingers on the door. “We gave it the old college try, folks, but a resolution is simply not in the cards.”
Rosie took her first breath in what felt like hours, her body remaining winded even though she hadn’t moved a muscle. “A-are you sure?”
Armie nodded sadly and the pillows beneath her turned to spikes.
“Rosie!” Dominic near-shouted, demanding her attention. “We’re not going to take one person’s opinion as fact. Let’s go.” He held out his hand to her, but she couldn’t lift an arm to take it. “Rosie,” he said raggedly. “Come on. Please.”
God, she wanted so badly to take his hand and forget everything Armie had said. Dominic was right. Taking one person’s opinion and running with it didn’t make the best sense. If only she hadn’t witnessed her husband shutting down so resolutely. Refusing to give her a full explanation as to why he’d left their date. Okay, he’d unintentionally held her back. He felt guilty about it. If that was the source of their problems, she was prepared to work on it. But there was more. So much more that he’d left unsaid. And so she couldn’t leave with Dominic. Not when she couldn’t trust him.
Oh God, is it over?
For real this time?
When she continued to leave Dominic’s hand suspended in air, her husband went very still. Still as stone. Finally, a muscle slid up and down in his throat, and he backed toward the door, never taking his eyes off her until he was gone. The utter disbelief and horror she’d seen in his expression lingered long after his truck roared out of the parking lot.
Chapter Seventeen
For the first time in Rosie’s life, she was considering getting drunk at work.
In the perfume-sampling business, there were customers called puff princesses. They went down the entire line of little glass bottles, spraying each of them into the air and sniffing as the particles fell around them in a fine mist. Puff princesses were the worst. They made a mess, they stunk the place up, and they never, ever bought anything.
Usually during a shift, Rosie came across one or two of these types of customers, but today would land itself in the record books, because she’d had to endure no fewer than a dozen puff princesses. Someone had to be playing a practical joke on her. It wasn’t even dinnertime and she’d already lost her sense of smell. Rosie could vouch for the science that suggested a person’s other senses were heightened when one of them stopped working. Because there she stood in her uncomfortable heels, bottle in hand, smile plastered to her face—and she could count every speck of gray in the marble floor. Could hear every conversation taking place among the maze of glass cosmetics cases so clearly, the browsers might as well be hissing in her ears. If she squeezed the green bottle in her hands any tighter, it was going to shatter.
Her marriage was over.
For a second time.
Friday evening was darkening the sky outside the department store and Rosie hadn’t heard from her husband since yesterday’s ill-fated therapy session. All day, she’d been expecting him to show up and demand she cut the shit and come home. But he hadn’t.
He wasn’t going to, was he? Lord, that possibility terrified her.
Out of the corner of her eye, Rosie caught sight of Joe the security guard making his rounds. Without thinking, she set down the bottle of perfume and clicked on high heels in his direction. Rosie’s expression must have matched her mood, because when she called Joe’s name, he turned to her with wariness etched into his craggy features.
“Hey there, Rosie.”
“Hi, Joe.” She forced a smile, but it felt fractured. “I’m just curious. When was the last time you saw my husband?”
He shifted. “Now, Rosie . . .”
She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.
“This morning.” Joe coughed into his fist. “He came by this morning to drop off my envelope. Looked like hell, as a matter of fact. Are you two having a spat?”
“Something like that,” Rosie muttered, spinning on a heel and returning to her post only to find two puff princesses in hoodies going to town. Her husband was still conducting his protective measures behind the scenes, but he wouldn’t just call her. The last thing she needed to deal with, on top of her twice-broken heart, was a couple of lookie-loos. “Excuse me, ladies. Do you need—”
They jump-turned and flipped off their hoods.
“Surprise!”
It was Bethany and Georgie.
Rosie exhaled a laugh, even though her shoulders remained full of tension that wouldn’t quit. “What are you guys doing here?”
“I have the shopping bug,” Georgie said with a wince, setting down the pink bustier-shaped perfume bottle in her hand. “Ever since I got the makeover, I’m no longer satisfied with overalls and baseball caps. It’s very inconvenient. I have to wear the right bras . . .”
“And wash your hair . . .” Bethany added.
The sisters wrinkled their noses at each other.
“Anyway,” Georgie enunciated, giving Bethany her back. “We thought we’d pop in and say hello. We have a proposition for you.”
Rosie couldn’t have been happier to find her friends in the store. She needed the mental break and definitely required the laugh to maintain what sanity she was clinging to, but any minute now, Martha would stomp around the corner—
“I’m not paying you to socialize, Mrs. Vega.”
Pressure bloomed behind her right eye and started to pound. The voice of her supervisor was obnoxious any day of the week, but with Rosie’s diminished sense of smell, Martha’s syllables and vowels worked their way under her skin like thumbtacks.
“We’re customers,” Bethany said sweetly, picking up a random bottle without looking and handing it to Rosie. “This one, please. It’ll bring all the boys to the yard.”
Georgie buried her face in the crook of her elbow.
Rosie bit down on her lower lip to trap a laugh, but a snort escaped. And that’s when the avalanche effect happened. That show of mirth gave way to the beginning of hysteria. She’d just been spoken to—again—by her power-tripping supervisor, her marriage had gone from fractured to broken, her feet were killing her, and she’d inhaled enough scents to make her nose-blind.
On top of everything, she’d canceled the appointment to view the space on Cove Street with the realtor that morning. Dominic had said he’d come with her, but upon waking to no missed calls or texts, she’d been too afraid to find out if he’d show up or not. And God, that made her so mad. He was the one who’d asked for a second chance. Not her. She’d been prepared to move on and he’d come barreling back in, claiming they could fix what was broken. Well, he’d broken it all over again, and she was done.