Love Her or Lose Her (Hot & Hammered #2)(57)

Her marriage was over.

For a second time.

Friday evening was darkening the sky outside the department store and Rosie hadn’t heard from her husband since yesterday’s ill-fated therapy session. All day, she’d been expecting him to show up and demand she cut the shit and come home. But he hadn’t.

He wasn’t going to, was he? Lord, that possibility terrified her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rosie caught sight of Joe the security guard making his rounds. Without thinking, she set down the bottle of perfume and clicked on high heels in his direction. Rosie’s expression must have matched her mood, because when she called Joe’s name, he turned to her with wariness etched into his craggy features.

“Hey there, Rosie.”

“Hi, Joe.” She forced a smile, but it felt fractured. “I’m just curious. When was the last time you saw my husband?”

He shifted. “Now, Rosie . . .”

She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

“This morning.” Joe coughed into his fist. “He came by this morning to drop off my envelope. Looked like hell, as a matter of fact. Are you two having a spat?”

“Something like that,” Rosie muttered, spinning on a heel and returning to her post only to find two puff princesses in hoodies going to town. Her husband was still conducting his protective measures behind the scenes, but he wouldn’t just call her. The last thing she needed to deal with, on top of her twice-broken heart, was a couple of lookie-loos. “Excuse me, ladies. Do you need—”

They jump-turned and flipped off their hoods.

“Surprise!”

It was Bethany and Georgie.

Rosie exhaled a laugh, even though her shoulders remained full of tension that wouldn’t quit. “What are you guys doing here?”

“I have the shopping bug,” Georgie said with a wince, setting down the pink bustier-shaped perfume bottle in her hand. “Ever since I got the makeover, I’m no longer satisfied with overalls and baseball caps. It’s very inconvenient. I have to wear the right bras . . .”

“And wash your hair . . .” Bethany added.

The sisters wrinkled their noses at each other.

“Anyway,” Georgie enunciated, giving Bethany her back. “We thought we’d pop in and say hello. We have a proposition for you.”

Rosie couldn’t have been happier to find her friends in the store. She needed the mental break and definitely required the laugh to maintain what sanity she was clinging to, but any minute now, Martha would stomp around the corner—

“I’m not paying you to socialize, Mrs. Vega.”

Pressure bloomed behind her right eye and started to pound. The voice of her supervisor was obnoxious any day of the week, but with Rosie’s diminished sense of smell, Martha’s syllables and vowels worked their way under her skin like thumbtacks.

“We’re customers,” Bethany said sweetly, picking up a random bottle without looking and handing it to Rosie. “This one, please. It’ll bring all the boys to the yard.”

Georgie buried her face in the crook of her elbow.

Rosie bit down on her lower lip to trap a laugh, but a snort escaped. And that’s when the avalanche effect happened. That show of mirth gave way to the beginning of hysteria. She’d just been spoken to—again—by her power-tripping supervisor, her marriage had gone from fractured to broken, her feet were killing her, and she’d inhaled enough scents to make her nose-blind.

On top of everything, she’d canceled the appointment to view the space on Cove Street with the realtor that morning. Dominic had said he’d come with her, but upon waking to no missed calls or texts, she’d been too afraid to find out if he’d show up or not. And God, that made her so mad. He was the one who’d asked for a second chance. Not her. She’d been prepared to move on and he’d come barreling back in, claiming they could fix what was broken. Well, he’d broken it all over again, and she was done.

Matter of fact, she wasn’t simply done with her husband. She was done with this job.

She hated this job.

It made her feel like scenery. And even though her confidence was shaky—it was so damn shaky—she needed to pick up and move on before she let herself drop back to that level of complacency she’d been in before leaving Dominic. She might even end up more comfortable with doing some thing she hated, unable to imagine a better situation. She could barely imagine one right now and that scared her.

A bubbling laugh escaped her mouth. “I quit.”

Martha reared back with a gasp.

Bethany’s and Georgie’s mouths dropped open.

Rosie exhaled in a rush and unclipped her name tag. She started to hand it over to Martha, but the woman crossed her arms, lifting her chin and refusing to take it. So Rosie dropped it on the ground and stomped it into a half-dozen pieces, little shards of plastic scattering on the marble floor of the cosmetics section.

“I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding someone to replace me. Everyone is looking for extra cash around the holidays,” Rosie said, putting some steel into her spine. “But you will have a problem keeping them. Especially if you keep reheating fish in the break room. That should be illegal. You, Martha, are the Le Squirt Bon Bon of bosses.” She tucked an escaped curl back into her bun. “Shall we, ladies?”