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ChapterOne
Sometimes, Rose really couldn’t remember why she was friends with Samantha. She’d arrived back in Cincinnati from New York a few minutes ago and had checked her phone once she’d landed, finding a slew of texts and messages that were mostly from her overexcited mother.
Then there was Samantha.
Rose could almost picture the slight wrinkle between Sam’s eyebrows, the way she’d pucker her mouth and nod her head slowly and condescendingly while Rose talked. They’d gone to college together, so she supposed it had been a friendship of convenience, but the truth was that Samantha made Rose feel small. The month she’d spent with Sam in New York had felt a lot longer than four weeks, and as terrible as the thought was, it had only really driven home just how much Rose missed Maia. Sam and Maia, Rose’s best friend, had only met a handful of times and couldn’t be more different. Where Maia chased love, romance, and adventure, Samantha’s biggest ambition in life was to be married with at least three children before the age of thirty-five. While there was nothing wrong with that in itself, the way that Samantha sneered at the thought of doing anything else was more than a little aggravating, especially for someone like Rose whose mother constantly badgered her about ‘settling down’.
Rose had only been free of Sam for the duration of the plane ride and she was already pestering her, though thankfully she knew that Sam would likely have forgotten all about her by the time evening rolled around and Samantha remembered all her other snooty, judgy friends. Rose was no stranger to snooty, but Samantha’s girl group was on another level.
Deciding to check the messages from Sam and her mom once she was actually off the plane, Rose stepped back onto the tarmac and froze at the well-coiffed woman waiting next to a blacked-out town car, beaming. So much for a peaceful ride home.
“Mother,” she said, resuming her walk as she moved towards her. “How did you know what time my flight got in?” Because Rosedefinitelyhadn’t told her.
“Samantha let me know.” Her mom’s lips puckered when Rose didn’t immediately hug her and she sighed, putting her case down by the car door and letting her mom wrap her into a heavily perfumed embrace. “Though I would rather have heard it from my daughter,” she whispered reproachfully in Rose’s ear and Rose bit back her sigh. “I take it you haven’t seen the messages?”
Rose disentangled herself and pulled open the door with a quick nod to her driver as he stowed her luggage in the trunk. “Gosh, Mom. I landed two seconds ago, so no, I’ve not checked anything yet.” Her irritation rising with every moment that passed, Rose tugged her phone back out of her purse again as her mom climbed in the car.
Sam’s latest text message did little to assuage the feeling of irritation. The whole time she’d been in the city Sam had been pestering her about dating. Of course,Samhad been seeing a nice, bland, corporate man for the past two years and was certain he was about to pop ‘the question’ any day. This, naturally, prompted the conversation of ‘and who areyouseeing, Rose?’ To which the answer was simple: nobody. She was in the city to work, not to speed date, regardless of how many eligible bachelors Sam had thrust under her nose at surprise lunches or drinks in the evening.
Samantha, much like Rose’s mother, felt that Rose needed to ‘put herself out there more’. So she didn’t do casual sex? It wasn’t for everyone! So she hadn’t been on a date in… crap, had it really been over a year? Well, that wasn’t her fault – dating as a DuLoe was practically impossible between the people more interested in her parents' businesses and money than her and the others who only liked her family name.
Rose was an events coordinator, one in fairly high demand because she didn’t strictlyneedto work – so she only took on the projects that genuinely interested her. Take New York for example, she’d been there to organize a masquerade ball that doubled as a fashion show for an upcoming designer. Nowthatwas interesting – listening to Samantha ramble about how big her engagement ring would be, on the other hand, was not.
Worse, Sam knew her mother. They’d met at the graduation party her mother had put together for Rose and they had clicked in a way that had been wholly horrifying. If it was just Samantha in the text chain, Rose might have been able to blow off the date Sam had arranged without consulting her. Unfortunately…
Annabel DuLoe:A blind date! Oh how fun, you must bring him byThe Hummingbird, darling. What a fabulous idea Samantha!
Rose groanedbut quickly smothered the sound as her mom gracefully sank into the seat next to her. Dating just didn’t excite her anymore, and why did sheneeda man anyway? She was successful, rich, attractive, educated, and well-traveled. What could a man really add to any of that? And bringing him toThe Hummingbirdwas just asking for trouble. It was one of the many establishments her family owned and ran, though it was by far the newest, and as such it held her mother’s attention a lot more than the chain of hotels she’d bought and renovated several years ago. Going on a blind date was bad enough, but doing it in front of her mother…?
Rose loved her mom, really, but they were very different people.
“So how was your flight? How was New York? It must have been so nice for you to catch up with Samantha. You two don’t get to see each other nearly enough.”
Rose let her mom ramble on, after all, she didn’t pause for breath and clearly wasn’t looking for an actual conversation. Instead, she nodded in the right places and made sympathetic sounds whenever there was a slight silence as her attention drifted.
It was only a short drive to the apartment suite atThe Hartbut with traffic and her mother in the seat next to her, she knew this drive could easily double as torture. At the very least, they had the AC.
Her mother’s next words caught her drifting attention and she blew out a harsh breath as she tuned back in, wrinkling her nose and hoping she’d misheard.
“I’m sorry, what?”
The frown she gave Rose had her forcing out a polite smile and her mom sniffed as the car finally began to move again. “Isaiddon’t forget we have dinner with the Blakes next week. Grace has been dying to see you.”
A bitter feeling crawled its way up her throat until Rose had to swallow, biting her tongue against her next question because she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer.
Back in town for barely any time at all and her mother had already corralled her into dinner with the Blakes as well as this blind date. Grace was her mother’s best friend, though their friendship was something of a mystery considering they were polar opposites. If it were just dinner with her, Rose wouldn’t have minded too much. But her mother had saidBlakes –as in, plural. Combined with the fact that her mother was constantly trying to set her up, Rose had an unfortunate suspicion that she knew who else would be at that dinner. David.
David Blake was charming, sexy (if the recent press photos she’d seen were to be believed) and stinking rich. Rose also hated him with pretty much every fiber of her being.
They had been forced together a lot as kids because their families were close and, at first, Rose had always wanted to hang out with Blake and his slightly older group of friends. But naturally she was younger and therefore uncool, yet in the quiet moments she’d resented Blake less – like when he’d snuck her extra dessert, or held her hand all the way home after she’d fallen over into the sea at the beach party her parents had been hosting.
Unfortunately, the unpleasant memories fully outranked any small acts of kindness David Blake had seen fit to send her way. Especially once they both had become older. The dinners and parties and lunches and cocktail meetups had become unbearable, partially due to the fact that Blake had become handsome and knew it and the rest was down to Rose’s mother’s unabashed hope that Rose and Blake might… date. Of course, eventually Rose had simply begun to decline the invitations. It was for the best really. Blake got under her skin in a way that made it hard for her to keep her mouth shut and her thoughts to herself, he seemed to make it his personal mission to annoy her whenever they saw each other. So far, she’d managed to successfully avoid him for about five years which was no mean feat considering her mother’s proclivity for setting them up.
“I’ve texted you the details,” her mom continued when Rose stayed silent. “It’ll be nice to have the gang together.”
“Will Dad be there?”
“Oh, well, you know how busy your father gets.”
