Love Her or Lose Her (Hot & Hammered #2)(2)

“Um.” Rosie tried not to be obvious about shifting in her heels, transferring the ache between feet. “No rest for the weary, I guess. The mall closes at ten, so . . .”

Speaking to a man felt strange. Foreign. She hadn’t even talked to her husband, Dominic, about anything of real importance for years. And, God help her, someone giving enough of a damn to ask why she was terrorizing people with a perfume bottle at nine-thirty did feel important. Someone asking about her, noticing her, felt important.

For a split second, Rosie let herself notice the man back. In a purely objective way. He was cute. Had some dad bod going on, but she wasn’t judging. With both hands in his pockets, she couldn’t look for a wedding ring. Some intuition told her he was divorced, though. Maybe even recently. There was something about how he’d approached as if intending to go straight for the exit that told Rosie he was only pretending to be interested in the jewelry case now. His tense shoulders and stilted small talk suggested he’d actually stopped to speak to her and wasn’t overly comfortable doing it.

“Have you been working here long?”

This man was interested in her. In the space it took Rosie to have that realization, she noticed her own wedding ring was hidden behind the perfume bottle. Without being obvious, she curled the bottle into her chest and let the gold band wink at him from across the aisle. The light in his eyes dimmed almost immediately.

Rosie had been faithful to Dominic since middle school and that wouldn’t be changing anytime soon, but she allowed herself the feminine satisfaction of knowing a man had found her attractive. Had she even allowed that simple pleasure for anyone but Dominic? No. No, she didn’t think so. And in the years since Dominic had returned from active duty, she hadn’t gotten that light, bubbly lift from him, either.

Everything between them was dark, lustful, confusing, and . . . so far off course, she wasn’t sure their marriage would ever point in the right direction again.

Maybe it was silly, allowing this stranger’s attempts at flirting to bring everything screaming into perspective, but that was exactly what happened. On a boring Tuesday night that should have been like any other. Suddenly, Rosie wasn’t just standing in her usual spot beneath the fake crystal chandelier while boring piano music was piped in over the speakers. She was standing in purgatory. Whose life was this?

Not hers.

Once upon a time, she’d been a straight-A student. A member of the Port Jefferson High School volleyball team—B squad, but whatever. She’d been an aspiring chef.

Wait. Wrong. Rosie was an aspiring chef. She needed to stop thinking of that dream in the past tense. Something that faded with a long-ago wish upon a star.

Rosie set the perfume bottle down on the Clinique counter and sent the man a wobbly smile. “How long have I been working here?” She laughed under her breath. “Too long.”

The man laughed, seeming grateful that she’d broken the wedding-ring tension. “Yeah, I can relate.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well, I guess I should get going . . .”

He trailed off but made no move to leave. It took Rosie a tick to realize he was gauging her interest level, even though she was married. With a quick intake of breath, she nodded. “Have a nice night.”

Rosie stood there long after the man left, still trapped in that out-of-body feeling. Whose life was this, indeed? In a few minutes, she would clock out from a job she hated and go home to a too-quiet house. A horribly, painfully quiet house where she would orbit around Dominic as if they might catch fire if they made eye contact. Where had everything gone wrong?

She didn’t know. But twenty-seven was too young to settle for unhappiness. Discontent.

Any age was too young for that.

Yet that was exactly what she’d done. Professionally and personally.

“I think I’m done,” she whispered, the words swallowed up by elevator music, the sounds of cash drawers being removed from registers and gates being pulled down at the entrances to Haskel’s. Likewise, gates were coming down around a heart that was broken every time she passed through the living room and didn’t receive so much as a hello, how are you.

I love you.

When was the last time she’d heard those words out of her husband’s mouth?

She couldn’t even remember.

She couldn’t even remember.

Maybe Dominic was the reason she couldn’t make the leap to step three of her aspirations. His lack of faith and encouragement—his utter lack of acknowledgment—was holding her back. She’d become content to waste away in this perfume purgatory. If she had more courage, she would tell Martha where to stick a bottle of Le Squirt Bon Bon. That bravery was missing, though. It had been for way too long.

What happened to us? We used to love so hard. We used to be a team.

With a chest full of crushed glass, Rosie leaned over the counter and checked the clock again. Ten. She’d made it another day. Her marriage wouldn’t.





Chapter Two


Marriage to Dominic was complicated.

To say the absolute least.

Rosie pulled her car into the garage and shut off the engine, keeping her hands on the steering wheel as she breathed in and out. In and out. His truck was parked at the curb outside their house, so Rosie knew he was inside, probably nursing a beer in front of the evening news.

Tonight was not only the night she would tell her husband it was over.