Page 81 of Wait for Him

The door closes behind her, and the office goes quiet enough that I can hear the hum of the air-conditioning and the faint traffic thirty floors below.

The thought of walking back into that house, of looking at Elyse and Frank's whole arrangement dressed up as a marriage and remembering I've still got two years left on the sentence makes me want to jump into traffic.

I don't even let myself finish the thought. There's nothing useful waiting at the end of it, so I drag a hand down my face and reach for the Meridian file again.

“Why are you still here?”

Rosalie's voice cuts through the room.

“And why are you keeping Emily this late? I just passed her at the elevator, the poor woman.”

I look up.

Something about the sound of her voice gets me out of my chair before I've even figured out what's wrong.

“Why are you here?”

“Just came from dinner. Grabbing my bag before I head upstairs. Didn't take it with me tonight.” She says it lightly, casually, gesturing at the bag over her shoulder like that explains everything.

It doesn't.

I stop in front of her and look properly.

There’s an energy about her that’s making the hairs on my arms stand up.

Rose’s eyes are red-rimmed, not tired red, not allergy red. Crying red. The kind you get after you've spent enough time wiping at them that the skin underneath starts to look sore. There's a fresh peel on her bottom lip where she's been picking at it, which Rose only does when she's somewhere far past whatever control she thinks she's maintaining. Her hair is down and frizzed around the crown, strands pulled loose like she's been running both hands through it over and over.

None of those things alone would mean much.

Together, it makes me really fucking nervous.

She watches me put it together and I see the exact second she realizes I know.

Her bottom lip trembles.

“Don't.” Her voice comes out so small it scares the shit out of me. “Please don't, Jackson.”

Fuck.

Whatever this is, it's got both hands around her throat.

I don't ask. Not yet. I just take the bag from her shoulder and drop it into the nearest chair, then pull her against me.

Rose comes without a fight.

That's when I know how bad it is.

Her arms go around my neck, her face disappearing into the spot beneath my jaw where she always hides when she doesn't want anyone looking at her, and the first sob tears out of her before I've even fully gotten my arms around her.

“I've got you.”

That's all I say.

I reach behind us and lock the office door without letting go, then walk us toward the sofa with her still clinging to me. She barely seems aware we're moving. By the time I sit, she's half in my lap, folded into my chest and crying hard enough that breathing has become something she has to remember to do.

There isn't anything delicate about it.

There's a wail underneath the sobs that she keeps trying to choke off against my neck, and every time she gets close to pulling herself together, something else breaks loose. Her whole body is shaking in my arms, small and fierce and completely fucking wrecked, and I tighten my hold because I don't know what else to do with something this big.