Love Her or Lose Her

  Dedication

  For Esther

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  By Tessa Bailey

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Rosie Vega: a department store shopper’s worst nightmare.

  Really, that’s what her name tag should have read, instead of COSMETICS CONSULTANT. In order to fulfill that title, someone would be required to consult her first, right? Problem was, no one ever asked to be spritzed with perfume. And really, that’s all it was. Just a little spritz. Why wouldn’t customers let her make them smell good? Was it so much to ask?

  Rosie hobbled over to the Clinique counter in her high heels, watching out for her supervisor, Martha, before performing a casual lean against the glass, groaning as the pressure on her toes and ankles lessened. One might surmise that Rosie was in the military, instead of a perfume girl at the mall. If Rosie was caught taking an unscheduled break, she wouldn’t be docked pay or anything so serious. She would just get the shittier-smelling perfume to demonstrate tomorrow. Martha worked her evil in backhanded ways.

  Rosie leaned over the counter and checked the clock on the register: 9:29. A little over half an hour to go and she was exhausted from standing on her feet since three o’clock. The only customers left in Haskel’s were buying last-minute birthday presents or shopping for impromptu job-interview clothes. There were no pleasure cruisers at the mall this late, but she was required to stay until the very end. On the off chance someone wanted to smell like begonias and sandalwood right before bed.

  A squeal rent the air and two children holding giant mall pretzels came tearing through her aisle, their mother sprinting after them with no fewer than three bags on each arm. Rosie managed to lunge out of their way, but one kid’s legs got tangled in the other’s and they went sprawling, both pretzels turning end over end like tumbleweeds into a Dior display, which tilted, wobbled, and crashed onto its side. Perfume bottles hit the floor with a cringe-inducing smash, the scents of several fragrances pooling and combining in what could only be referred to as too much of a good thing.

  “Kill me now,” the mother wailed at the ceiling, turning bloodshot eyes on Rosie. “Help us. Please.”

  Feedback screeched over the department store PA system. “Janitorial services to cosmetics.”

  Both kids burst into noisy tears, neither one of them making a move to get up off the floor.

  The PA system sent a ripple of static into the atmosphere, forcing everyone to plug their ears, which Rosie could only accomplish with one finger since she was still holding a perfume bottle. “Bring a mop,” the man on the speaker finished sleepily.

  Rosie chewed her bottom lip for a moment, then set down her fragrance, thus committing a cardinal sin in the eyes of her supervisor. Don’t dawdle, always have a bottle. Those words were on a plaque in the employee break room in size 72 font. Desperate times called for desperate measures, however, and with her hands free, Rosie could stoop down to help the children to their feet, while their mother lamented the fact that she no longer smoked.

  A teenager appeared on the scene dragging a mop behind him, music blaring in his earbuds, and Rosie ushered the kids over to their mother, waving off her gratitude, knowing she needed to find her bottle before—

  “No perfume, I see,” Martha drawled, rising from behind the glass counter like a vampire at sundown. “How are we to entice the customer?” She pretended to search the immediate area. “Perhaps our commission will appear out of thin air.”

  Smile in place, Rosie picked her bottle back up and gave it a shake. “Armed and prepared, Martha.”

  “Oh! There it is.” Martha sauntered off to go terrorize someone else. But not before calling to Rosie over her shoulder, “You’re sampling the Le Squirt Bon Bon tomorrow.”

  Rosie ground her molars together and threw a thumbs-up at her supervisor. “Can’t wait!” No one had ever sold a bottle of Le Squirt. It smelled like someone woke up with a hangover, stumbled into their kitchen without brushing their teeth, and housed a cupcake—then breathed into a bottle and put it on shelves.

  She was debating the wisdom of paying the janitor to hide every bottle of Le Squirt—an inside job!—when the sound of footfalls coming in Rosie’s direction forced her spine straight, as if on command. She pushed off the glass and held her perfume bottle at the ready, a smile spreading her mouth and punishing her sore cheeks. A man turned the corner, and her smile eased somewhat, her hands lowering. Even if he were to buy the scent as a gift for his wife, the dude definitely wouldn’t want to go home reeking of women’s perfume.

  Rosie assumed the man would pass on by, but he stopped at the counter across the aisle, peering into the glass case for a moment. Then he straightened and sent her a warm grin.

  “Hi.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, and Rosie performed her usual customer checklist. Nice watch. Tailored suit. Potential for an upsell if she could convince an obvious businessman that the three-scent gift box was a must-have for his lady. “Shouldn’t they have sent you home by now?”

  Was he talking to her? Weird. On the cosmetics department floor, most people passed by Rosie as if she were an inanimate object. A minor annoyance they had to successfully avoid for 3.7 seconds, unless they needed directions or help wrangling their kids. She had an urge to glance over her shoulder to confirm the man wasn’t addressing someone behind her. Maybe Martha had doubled back to make sure she was spray-ready.

  “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 h
is 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.

  It was their scheduled night to fuck like the world was ending.

  She reached over and plucked her purse off the passenger seat, holding it in her lap as she considered the door just a few feet in front of the car’s hood. It led into their kitchen. She would walk into the house like she did every single night, kick off her heels, and figure out dinner. Her own dinner. Dominic would have already eaten alone. Separate meals. Just another part of their marriage that should have signaled the end long before now.

  With her heart pounding in her ears, Rosie left the car and climbed the stairs to the kitchen door. She paused with her hand on the doorknob, anticipation heating her skin despite her common sense. Sense had no place in what happened between Rosie and Dominic once a week, when the sexual tension between them reached a fever pitch and they gave in. Gave in hard.

  Their marriage might be cold, but the bedroom was not.

  Ever since Dominic had taken her virginity on the night of her seventeenth birthday, sex between them had grown more and more explosive. That hadn’t changed when he returned from overseas, but something important was missing. Something she needed for it to feel right and not just about slaking an urge. Affection. That had gone the way of her husband’s warmth, caring, and support, leaving nothing but a brutally gorgeous man who knew her body’s every single filthy secret.

  Giving her lower lip a warning bite, Rosie opened the door and stepped over the threshold into the house, the familiar sounds of the news reaching her ears. There was already an empty beer bottle sitting by the toaster. An accusation. You’re late. I’m waiting. Ironic that a man who showed so little awareness of her as a woman would keep such close tabs on her schedule. Enough to know she usually walked into the house at 10:15 and it was now 10:22.

  Rosie toed off her high heels and loosed a silent groan of relief at the ceiling.

  Before she could stop herself, she slipped her feet into her running sneakers, nylons and all, her heart starting to slam loudly in her ears. This is it. I’m doing it. I can’t take the lack of love anymore when it used to be so abundant. There was so much slack in their rope now and nothing to pull it taut.

  Even though her stomach was growling for something to eat, Rosie bypassed the refrigerator, stepping ever so slightly into the living room. Enough that she could make out her husband’s profile in the flickering light of the television. Tonight was the night she got relief, and her libido knew it well. Sticky, sweet need meandered downward into her belly, turning her limbs fluid. Yes, Dominic was a gorgeous man. Even though he’d slowly, so slowly, broken her heart, leaving it limp and gasping in her chest, there was no denying how her body responded to the sight of him. Her husband sat shirtless on the couch, leaning forward with his hands clasped between his knees. Tattoos wove over his ripped shoulders, black ink on brown skin, including the single-starred flag of Puerto Rico she’d licked too many times to count.

  His head was shaved, the cross around his neck gifted to Dominic at his high school graduation by his father. A Bronx man raised Catholic. Tradition, honor, respect. Those qualities were ingrained in him growing up, but only the skeleton of them remained. At least when applied to her. He provided. Worked himself raw day in and day out on the construction site, had never been late paying a bill or delayed the repair of something around the house. In her bones, she knew Dominic was faithful. Didn’t have a single doubt. He might be the perfect husband.

  If only he’d give her the time of day.

  He was prepared to give her the time of night. That was made obvious by his lack of shirt and socks—and when he leaned back, she knew the top button of his jeans would be undone.

  A full bottle of beer rested on the coffee table in front of him.

  Minutes had passed and he’d made no move to touch it. He knew she was there and hadn’t gotten up to greet her. Hadn’t even said hello. Just sitting there like a king, waiting for his queen to climb on and ride, so they could st
art the clock again. Another week of silence. Another night of rough sex. A cycle that would never end.

  Unless she broke it.

  When Rosie normally would have started stripping off her clothes on the way to the bedroom, she turned on the toe of her sneaker and reentered the kitchen. She opened the cupboard above the sink and took out her address book. She set it on the counter and stared at it before reaching back up and leafing through documents. Bills, financial records, things she wasn’t sure why she needed, but certainly would. There was a folder with their marriage certificate and a deed to the house. All of it was coming with her. As much as Dominic treated her like a part of the scenery, he would never file for divorce.

  It would have to be her.

  “What are you doing?”

  His voice climbed her spine like ivy. Endorphins rushed underneath the top layer of her skin and her body begged for the relief her husband doled out like a punishment. But as Rosie turned to face him, she reminded herself how lost and alone she’d felt in Haskel’s that night. How she’d become a stranger in her own life—and she was done waiting for the old Dominic to come back and revive it. The man who used to share her dreams, make them his own? He was gone.

  “A man was interested in me tonight.”

  Rosie had no idea where those words had come from. They were unplanned. As soon as they were out of her mouth, though, her determination to leave multiplied tenfold. That’s right, husband. I’m a badass. One you’ve taken for granted way too long.

  Dominic had gone very still at her statement. Within the boxed doorframe between the kitchen and living room, he seemed to expand, his muscular chest rising and falling as if he were winded. “Excuse me, Rosie?”

  “You heard what I said. A man. Was interested. In me.” She cocked a hip, feeling more like her old self than she had in years. “Tonight.”

  Charged silence stretched between them.

  “If someone touched you,” he said slowly, taking a step into the kitchen and filling it up like a hundred balloons, “that someone will regret it.”