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She did. In a lot of ways, Rose took after her father more so than her mother. “Of course.” Talking to her mom was always hard. At least with her dad, the silences were comfortable. Often with her mother, the silences felt… stifling. Rose was young and accomplished but, somehow without saying anything at all, her mom made her feel like she wasn’t enough.
“You didn’t have to meet me at the airport,” she said at last and her mom shrugged, a slip of white-blonde hair falling free across her cheekbone.
“I wanted to,” Annabel said and Rose found herself out of words again. It was ironic really, how alike she and her mother looked. They both had the same slim nose and long blonde hair, but Rose had her father’s eyes. If not for them she would look like a carbon-copy of her mother, and when she’d been younger she’d loved that. They’d dressed up in the same costumes at Halloween and done mother-daughter piano duets at Christmas, but at some point Rose had grown up and realized she didn’t know who she was. Of course, that was the same feeling most college students had, but it was strange to realize that she’d spent so long being her mother’s mini-me that she didn’t know whoshewas or what stylessheliked. Sometimes their relationship was a loss she mourned, despite it still being right there.
The sounds of the city here were so different from New York, more like a comfortable hum of background noise rather than the roar that New York seemed to operate on constantly. By the time they pulled up toThe Hartthe silence had become permanent and her heartbeat had slowed to a gradual calm.
Rose waved her mother off as she slipped off her seatbelt and leaned in, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “No, no, stay here. The driver will take you wherever you want to go, I’m just going to head inside and relax.”
“Don’t forget about your date!” her mom called as Rose grabbed her suitcase with a smile of thanks to the driver.
“I wish,” she muttered before waving as the car drove away and then headed inside. Luckily, she’d been dropped off right outside the entrance to the hotel because already a few people seemed to have taken note of her arrival. Rose ignored them as she pushed through the doors and into the lobby.
These days she didn’t even try to keep up with her social media notifications, but she was certain that now she’d been spotted arriving back into Cincy she would have been tagged in half a dozen photos already. It was a vaguely nauseating feeling, knowing someone was always watching.
Rose only had the small carry-on suitcase to roll up to her suite on the top floor, thankfully. Most of the clothes she’d worn in the city had been one-time pieces that she’d left in the closet atThe Phoenix & The Dove,one of her family’s hotels in New York. For someone like her, re-wearing an outfit was a statement and she didn’t feel the need to make it. Instead, the gorgeous dress she’d worn to the masquerade would stay in the private penthouse at the hotel until she ever decided to break it out again. The penthouse was closed to the public – much like the suite atThe Hartthat served as her primary residence.
Her case was a shimmery baby pink color that matched her nails and caught the light as she made her way through the hotel lobby to the elevator, humming idly as it took her up to the penthouse that was accessible only with the special key card she carried.
The suite was a sight for sore eyes. Rose traveled a fair amount for work, planning various events and attending them too, but she couldn’t say she always enjoyed it. The travel was stressful even if you were in first class and, while she normally stayed in hotels that her family owned, there was always a sense of the unfamiliar that set her on edge.
Life for a DuLoe was constantly in the limelight and most of the time she didn’t mind it so much. Her parents both came from old money and decided to build a business portfolio so large that it was unlikely any of their grandchildren would ever have to work. But Rose, much like her parents, enjoyed it. Having a busy mind suited her, idle hands made her antsy.
But having every move cataloged and analyzed and critiqued came with its own set of anxieties and made keeping secrets and dating a little more difficult, plus god forbid she gained a few pounds or ever went out without make-up – the tabloids would be screaming that she was pregnant or dying. There were definitely a few things about having a high profile that she would change if she could.
The elevator doors opened and the soothing beiges and baby pinks of her lounge area made her shoulders drop as she took in the familiar gold accents with a small smile. Maia had helped decorate this place to be both luxe and soothing, so it was no surprise that she was in such high demand for her services these days when her interiors came out like this.
A card sat atop the marble countertops, propped up by a wooden fruit bowl that one of the maids had likely replenished for her. The staff atThe Hartwere amazing – of course, it helped that the DuLoes owned the place.
Rose left her suitcase by the elevator doors, nudged off her cream heels and sighed at the feel of the thick cream carpet beneath her toes as she padded her way over to the cream fabric sofa with the card in hand. It had a simple red heart on the front and the paper was thick, likely expensive. Rose smiled softly as she opened it and read the typed message inside.I missed you.Maia had likely arrived back home before Rose had and left this for her. The note wasn’t signed, but it was exactly the sort of thoughtful thing Rose’s sometimes-roommate and always-best-friend would do.
For a moment, Rose just held the note to her chest. She’d missed Maia a lot and above all else, was glad to be home. She was a creature of comfort, that was for sure, and her least favorite part about traveling was living out of a bag and how much it affected her everyday routine. But she was home now and had a couple of hours to unpack and get ready before the date Samantha and her mom had arranged for her later tonight.
Rose looked longingly down the hallway to where she knew her sinfully large bathtub waited and thought once again that she really needed to gently cut things off with Sam. If not for her, Rose could be enjoying a long soak right now instead of having a quick shower and getting dressed up for a date she didn’t even particularly want to go on. Rose could only hope that her date would remain ignorant of who exactly she was, despite going toThe Hummingbird,otherwise it became impossible to work out whether they likedheror her name. To have any possibility of that happening she would need to call the bar while she got dressed and just pray she could get there at a time that her mother was not. Though now her mom knew about the blind date, the chances of that happening were slim. The bar was her mom’s baby so she was there most nights, but hopefully luck would be on Rose’s side and her date would never have to know he was there with the heir to the DuLoe fortune.
