Erasing His Rose Island

Kendall finalized her divorce on the exact day of my sixth anniversary with Wesley. While they were busy rekindling their old romance, I was staring at a positive pregnancy test.

I have a few things to take care of before I walk away for good. I need to remind him of the six grueling years it took to finally break down my walls.

I am going to make him hallucinate the pictureperfect family he could have had. Chapter 1 On my sixth anniversary with Wesley, Kendall crawled back into town.

Back when Wesley's family was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, his first love had kicked him to the curb without a second glance and warmed someone else's bed.

I couldn't fathom the sheer audacity it took for her to show up now, dragging a kid behind her, begging Wesley to give a poor single mother a place to crash.

I watched with my own eyes as Wesley slid the pinky ring he never took off from his finger and tossed it straight into a nearby bussing cart's trash bin. "Fish it out, and I'll help you." Kendall stared at the bucket of warm, greasy leftovers.

A choked sob tore from her throat. Wesley laced his fingers through mine. He didn't even glance back. "Let's go. We're going home." I thought that was the end of it.

I thought the love and the hate were both dead and buried in that trash bin. And I would have kept believing that.

If I hadn't found that exact same pinky ring tucked safely inside his leather wallet. A few days later, Wesley stumbled through the front door, reeking of expensive scotch.

His assistant, Cole, was propping him up by the shoulders. "Sloane, he's had backtoback client dinners. Cut the boss some slack tonight." I gave him a nod. "I know.

I've been tied up with the art direction team lately." "Once I wrap that up, I'll be back at the office.

Thanks for getting him back in one piece." At the sound of my voice, the dead weight leaning against my shoulder suddenly shifted. Wesley's eyes cleared up just a fraction.

He watched my face carefully. "Sloane… I hired Kendall.

She's working at the company as a janitor." My breath hitched, but I quickly forced the corners of my mouth up. "I trust you." We had six years under our belts.

Six years of building something solid shouldn't crumble over a ghost from the past. He searched my face for a crack in my composure.

Finding none, the excuse he had loaded on his tongue seemed to dry up. "She's a golddigging snake," he muttered. "Nothing like you.

You're… you're too good." "You've built an empire, Wesley. She's probably kicking herself every day." I reached up and brushed my thumb along his jawline.

The bedroom lighting cast soft, hazy shadows across the sheets. He tangled his hand in my hair, pulling me close the way he did when we first started dating.

His free hand popped the top button of his dress shirt. "It still feels like something's missing," he murmured, his voice dropping an octave. "We don't have a kid of our own yet." We had seen a specialist a year ago.

Clean bills of health all around. The doctor had just told us to let nature take its course.

I planted my palms against his chest and pushed him back gently. "I'm not feeling great lately." My cycle was late.

A dull ache had been pulsing low in my stomach for days. "You need to see a doctor," he insisted, pulling me back into a warm, heavy embrace. "It's time we start a family." The mention of a baby made my pulse skip a beat.

I really needed to make that clinic appointment. Wesley hadn't lied. Kendall was actually pushing a mop.

She was swallowed up by an oversized black janitorial uniform, clumsily sorting recyclables from the trash.

Even with a surgical mask covering half her face, I could spot the heavy mascara. A cheap, cloying perfume cut through the smell of industrial disinfectant.

Kendall froze the second she saw me. Her eyes did a slow, calculating sweep from the tip of my designer heels to the top of my head.

Her gaze finally locked onto the heavy diamond resting on my left ring finger.

She stared at it like it was burning a hole in her retinas. "Wesley is about to use this conference room. Wrap it up," Cole snapped at her.

The second she heard Wesley's name, her knees hit the tile. She started scrubbing the floor frantically right in front of my shoes. "I'm so sorry, Sloane.

I'll get it cleaned up right now. Please don't be mad." Her voice was a pathetic, trembling whisper.

She tucked her chin, playing the perfect, abused victim, painting me as the evil overlord. Right on cue, Wesley walked through the glass doors.

A faint crease formed between his brows as he took in the scene. "Why are you suddenly on your hands and knees?

You were just halfassing it with the mop two minutes ago," Cole scoffed, rolling his eyes. "You're making it look like Sloane is torturing you." Wesley's jaw tightened.

He shot a cold look at his assistant. "Drop it, Cole." Chapter 2 Wesley stared blankly at the projector screen during the pitch.

Every time I brought up the art department integration, his eyes glazed over. His gaze kept drifting toward the frosted glass of the conference room door.

Halfway through the presentation, he used a phantom phone call as an excuse to bail. The boardroom fell dead silent.

So silent that Kendall's muffled sobs bled right through the heavy mahogany door. I could hear every pathetic word.

She was crying about how she only left because she felt insecure, how she was so terrified.

She spun a sob story about her family dodging debt collectors, claiming she spent nights crying her eyes out in fear. Then came the kicker.

She said she was just so jealous of me, that I got to stand by his side in the daylight as the perfect, supportive wife. Heavy silence hung in the hallway.

When Wesley finally spoke, his voice was a gravelly scrape. "If you hadn't walked away when we were nineteen… that seat next to me would have been yours." A dozen executives shifted uncomfortably in their ergonomic chairs, shooting me nervous, sidelong glances.

I snapped the cap back onto my pen and tossed it onto the table. "Wesley's absence doesn't stop this train. You're his assistant.

Walk us through his projection numbers." I gutted Wesley's proposal on the spot and slashed his preferred art vendor from the deck.

When he finally came back, he didn't even put up a fight. He was too distracted to care.

Once I locked down the new art firm, I caught a redeye out of state for a weeklong site visit.

When I rolled my suitcase back into headquarters a week later, Kendall had a shiny new desk sitting directly outside Wesley's office. She wasn't holding a mop anymore.

She was his new executive assistant. She was wearing a tailored blazer—in the exact same slategray I favored—paired with a microskirt and sixinch stilettos.

Her blowout was fresh from the salon. It was a massive upgrade from the pathetic, greasestained woman crying by the food cart.

She froze midswipe with her lipstick tube the second she spotted me.

She scrambled to her feet, ducking her head in that exaggerated, submissive way. "Sloane, please, Wesley just took pity on me.

It doesn't mean anything…" I walked straight past her like she was a piece of cheap lobby furniture. I pushed open the heavy oak door. Wesley was already waiting.

Before I could even drop my bag, he reached over and snapped the blinds shut, cutting off Kendall's line of sight. "I just wanted to rub it in her face," he murmured, wrapping his arms around my waist carefully. "I wanted her to see that I'm not that broke kid anymore.

That's all it is, I swear." The demand to fire her instantly died on my tongue. I swallowed the thick knot in my throat.

I couldn't shake the gut feeling that he was still hung up on her, but I didn't have a smoking gun.

And I refused to play the part of the psychotic, insecure girlfriend, screaming over a stagefive clinger without hard proof.

Wesley pulled me flush against his chest from behind, lacing his fingers through mine. The cold metal of that silver pinky ring dug sharply into my knuckles.

Two days later, Kendall dragged her spawn into the office. The kid was a walking nightmare.

He ransacked the receptionist's desk, screamed for juice, and ended up puking all over a senior designer's keyboard.

Kendall barely offered a halfhearted scolding before the brat hit the floor, kicking and screaming in a fullblown tantrum.

I marched over and laid it out for her. "This is a corporate office, not a daycare. Get him out of here before he ruins any more equipment.

And the overtime pay required to fix that designer's fried motherboard is coming straight out of your bonus." Kendall blinked.

Her bottom lip immediately started trembling as she geared up for the waterworks. The kid—who was at least eight and old enough to know better—saw her crying.

He snatched a heavy Yeti tumbler off a desk and launched it straight at my head. I threw my arm up. The stainless steel slammed into my wrist.

Pain flared instantly, leaving an ugly, dark bruise spreading under my skin. "You bitch!" he shrieked at the top of his lungs. "You're a homewrecker!

If it wasn't for you, my dad would still be with my mom!" The bullpen erupted into chaos just as Wesley sprinted out of his office.

His eyes darted straight to Kendall, who had thrown herself on the floor to play the human shield for her little monster.

Only then did his gaze shift to me, clutching my throbbing wrist. "Daddy!" The kid barreled straight into Wesley's legs, burying his face in his trousers before shooting me a vicious, mocking grin.

Chapter 3 Whispers hissed through the bullpen. Wesley looked like he wanted the floor to swallow him whole. I stared at him, my voice dead flat. "Is he yours?" "…No!

How could he be?" But the second the question left my mouth, his eyes darted to the brat.

He actually paused to check if the kid shared his features before scrambling to deny it. "He's just confused! His dad passed away a long time ago, he just thinks Mr.

Wesley is nice so…" Kendall's eyes were already swimming with fresh tears. "I'm so sorry, Sloane.

Please don't hold it against him, he's just a little boy." "Sloane, let's get some ice on that." Wesley stared at my bruised wrist, real panic flashing across his face.

Kendall froze. She gritted her teeth and raised her hand as if to slap the kid. "Look what you did! You made Ms.

Sloane mad!" Wesley caught her wrist midair. "Don't hit him." I stood there, watching them play house—the strict mom, the protective dad, and their rowdy son.

It made me the wicked witch in their little fairytale. Back in his office, Wesley pressed an ice pack against my swelling skin. I looked down at him.

The worry twisting his features was real. But so was the instinct to shield Kendall and her brat out there. Six years.

Was it really hatred driving him, or just the agonizing itch of the one that got away?

Could he even tell the difference anymore? "Sloane, don't be too hard on them," he murmured, his thumb brushing my knuckles. "Kendall's had it rough.

Raising a kid alone isn't easy… The boy is just shy and acts out, but he's not a bad kid…" I yanked my arm back.

The ice pack hit the carpet with a dull thud. "Did I make her life hard?" I leveled a glare at him. "And if that kid is so terrified of strangers, why did he dive straight into your arms?" "Tell me, Wesley.

What base are we on behind my back?" The color drained from his face. He finally realized he had stepped on a landmine. "Wesley, can I still trust you?" He froze.

I stared dead into his eyes. "That pinky ring. Did she give it to you? Don't lie to me." Wesley didn't know the whole truth. I knew Kendall long before he did.

My parents' marriage blew up because of her family. We grew up in the same hometown. We went to the same high school.

Her parents made some quick cash in the garment business, then pivoted, claiming they were investment gurus. They went doortodoor, promising astronomical returns.

Invest a hundred grand, get five grand a month in interest. My parents drained their life savings, borrowed from everyone they knew, and handed them three hundred thousand dollars.

They lost every single cent. The feds called it an illegal fundraising operation. A classic Ponzi scheme.

Kendall's dad packed his bags and vanished with the cash, leaving Kendall and her mom behind.

Her mom just played the victim, sobbing on her knees, refusing to pay back a dime. "My husband took the money! What does that have to do with us?

We're just a poor widow and her child!" They swore they were dead broke. Bullshit. For the next three years of high school, Kendall's mom was still a regular at the luxury medspas.

Kendall always had the newest iPhone the day it dropped. They scammed half the town.

Even in college, the rumors followed her—everyone knew her family were a bunch of deadbeats living off dirty money. Freshman year, Wesley was an arrogant trustfund kid.

He drove a different sports car to campus every day just to court her. He even caught an assault charge defending her honor after someone called her out on the scam.

It was a massive scandal. Even after they broke up, Wesley swore she was just an innocent, purehearted victim of her father's crimes. Then, the Wesley empire crumbled.

The supply chain snapped. Creditors circled like vultures. His family went completely bankrupt, and his parents jumped from the roof of their corporate highrise.

I remember the blizzard that night. Nineteenyearold Wesley dropped to his knees in the dead of winter, sobbing, begging Kendall to just wait for him.

He told her he had lost everything. He told her she was the only reason he hadn't put a bullet in his own head. He swore he wouldn't let her suffer, if she just gave him time.

Kendall had her arm wrapped around some new rich kid. She didn't even spare him a second glance. Their toxic romance and explosive breakup were the stuff of college legends.

Everyone knew.

Chapter 4 The first time I met Wesley, it was damn near impossible to connect the whispered campus legends of the untouchable billionaire heir with the soaked DoorDash driver shoving his face over the greasestained counter. "Order 78 ready?" I nodded, sliding the bagged latenight takeout across the linoleum.

For six months, our entire relationship existed within those fivesecond handoffs. Until the night a group of trashed frat boys cornered me by the registers, demanding my number.

One of them grabbed my wrist. I froze. My lungs locked up. My feet rooted to the linoleum. My throat clamped shut. "Back the fuck off." Wesley didn't even hesitate.

He dropped his delivery thermal bag and threw himself at them. It was a bloodbath. He was hopelessly outnumbered.

By the time the sirens wailed, Wesley's left shoulder was dislocated and his face was painted in bruises. "At least we didn't have to pay for their dental work," he panted, leaning heavily against the precinct wall. "Your campus security guys are pretty chill." I stared at him.

He was trying so hard to look like a badass action hero, but blood was actively crusting on his split lip. A hot tear spilled over my lashes. "Hey!

Whoa, don't cry," he panicked, his bravado instantly evaporating. "It doesn't even hurt.

I swear." "Look, punch me." He grabbed my hand with his good arm and smacked my knuckles against his bruised chest. His face immediately contorted in agony.

A sharp hiss escaped his teeth. A laugh bubbled up my throat. The second my lips curved, the tension bled out of his shoulders. He grinned. "There we go.

You look way better when you smile." The administration moved my workstudy away from the latenight shifts and secured me a quiet spot at the campus library.

Wesley and I became friends. Terrified those frat boys would come back for revenge, he walked me back to my dorm every single night.

Even though the walk from the library to my building was less than a hundred yards. Even though he went to a completely different college across town.

He claimed it was on his way for two straight years. In those two years, he confessed his feelings four different times. I knew I was falling for him. It was impossible not to.

But the crushing debt my parents left behind after their divorce was a suffocating weight around my neck. Wesley didn't care. Every time I put up a wall, he didn't get mad.

He just scratched the back of his neck and smiled. "Alright… I'll just have to try harder." Bankruptcy hadn't completely snuffed out the fiery, relentless spark in his blood.

I was slow to trust, burying my feelings under layers of ice, terrified to hand over the keys to my life. It took him two grueling years to finally melt that ice.

Freshman year, Wesley had thrown some of his early cash into his roommates' indie game startup.

Eventually, he coded a tiny, pixelated game of his own and practically forced me to play it. It was a simple sidescroller.

A little faceless avatar traveled the world, collecting trinkets to unlock doors. The avatar used a dandelion puff as a parachute and kept fireflies in a glass jar for a flashlight.

It was rudimentary, but insanely addictive. The weirdest part? The faceless, genderless pixel character had a designated zodiac sign: Virgo. My sign.

When I asked him about it, he just smirked. "Beat the final level, and I'll tell you." The final stage was a desolate, floating island in the sky.

A massive pixelated monster guarded the gate: The Beast of Time. Attacking it did zero damage. It wouldn't accept gold coins. Keys vanished against the door.

I was stuck on that barren island for weeks. The day before graduation, Wesley asked if I had finally beaten it. I told him it was rigged.

I had thrown every item in my inventory at the monster, and it refused to budge. Wesley leaned over my laptop. "Give it the Briar Rose seeds." I clicked the item.

The screen flashed.

Suddenly, the barren, gray island exploded into a vibrant sea of blooming wild roses. [ Level Cleared. ] The next day, right after the graduation ceremony, Wesley asked me to meet him.

We were walking laps around the university track field when the sky suddenly ripped open. A massive summer downpour drenched us in seconds.

We sprinted toward the library awning, breathless and completely soaked. The rain hammered against the concrete like a waterfall. Thunder rattled our ribs.

But as Wesley stepped closer, his voice cut through the storm, crystal clear. Chapter 5 He locked his eyes onto mine. "Over the years, you've shot me down four times.

The first time, you blamed our zodiac signs. The second time, you told me you weren't into guys." "The pixel character in that game is me. No gender, just a Virgo.

The perfect match for a Taurus. The fourth time, you said you were terrified that if we got together, we'd eventually crash and burn." "I know about your family's mess.

I know why you lock everything down. But I'm dead serious.

The second I make enough money, I'm putting a ring on your finger." "We're going to build a real family, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life proving you're safe with me." "…But the weather is absolute garbage today, so I know you're just going to reject me again." His shoulders slumped.

The third time he asked me out, I brushed him off by saying the overcast sky ruined my mood. Today, it was a torrential downpour.

The worst weather possible. "I haven't learned much over the last few years, but I did figure out that life is a freaking ripcurrent.

If we don't hold onto each other, we're just going to get washed away in the crowd. I'm giving the game to you.

Take care of yourself, Sloane." "I doubt we'll bump into each other much after this. So… I guess that's it. I need to go pack my dorm." He stared at the concrete.

He was fully bracing himself for the rejection. I reached out and grabbed his hand. "Then let's go together.

Okay?" The shock on his face instantly melted into blinding, raw elation. After graduation, everyone scattered. Wesley launched his own indie game studio. He named it The Vow.

A tribute to us starting from nothing. Wesley and Sloane. A literal promise. We rode the subway four hours a day just to pitch to cheap investors.

When we were completely broke, we survived on boiled noodles and wilted greens. Cup noodles were a luxury we couldn't afford.

We didn't qualify for the big gaming expos, and we had zero ad budget.

So, in the middle of a hundreddegree heatwave, we stood outside the convention center doors, handing out crumpled flyers.

The day the studio hit its first ten million in revenue, he dropped to one knee right in the middle of our office rager.

He slid a threecarat diamond onto my finger. "Sloane, I know exactly what betrayal tastes like," he whispered over the cheering. "I will never do that to you.

I'm going to give you a home, and I will never be the reason you cry." You don't just erase six years of history. Wesley fired Kendall. He threw away that silver pinky ring.

On the surface, everything snapped back to normal. Except for the deep bruise on my wrist. The winter air made the dull ache linger. It just refused to heal.

We had this unspoken agreement to never say her name. But that exact silence made her feel like a ghost haunting the apartment.

We never spoke a single syllable about her, but it felt like we were both filtering every sentence through her memory before opening our mouths.

On Christmas Eve, Wesley booked a table at a Michelinstarred steakhouse. "I was originally going to save this place for your birthday," he said, effortlessly slicing my ribeye into bitesized pieces.

His iPhone screen lit up next to his water glass. A new text notification. His eyes instantly darted to my face—a pure, guilty reflex.

Then he looked down, tapping out a quick reply. A soft, unconscious smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. The second he caught me staring, the smile vanished.

He cleared his throat. "Just a client." I gave a slow nod, resting my chin in my hand as I looked past him, out the frosted window. He hadn't changed much over the years.

If anything, building an empire had just sharpened his jawline and made him look more grounded. I thought my wrist was finally getting better.

But as my fingers closed around the heavy silver fork, a sharp, throbbing pain shot up my arm. Outside the glass, a young couple was hovering near the restaurant's menu display.

The prices were clearly out of their league. The guy puffed out his chest, trying to play it cool for his girlfriend.

She just smiled, gently tugging his jacket sleeve, and shook her head.

They ended up walking away, huddling together in the biting wind, sharing a steaming paper basket of streetcart churros. They couldn't stop grinning at each other.

My chest tightened. I couldn't tear my eyes away. Chapter 6 Wesley finally set his phone facedown on the table. "Let's head back.

I'm full." He walked me on the inside of the sidewalk, wrapping his arm around mine and tucking my hand into his heavy coat pocket.

These past few days, he had been deliberately playing the part of the obsessed boyfriend in the honeymoon phase.

We went on dates, took long walks, and fell asleep tangled together after latenight movies. My body felt incredibly heavy lately, but my sleep was thin and fractured.

Wesley pressed a soft kiss to my forehead and clicked off the bedroom projector.

Under his pillow, his phone screen pulsed with incoming messages, casting a faint, erratic glow against the sheets. He whispered my name.

I kept my breathing slow and even, faking sleep. He carefully rolled over, snatched the phone, and slipped out onto the balcony to answer the call.

He might not even be talking to Kendall, but the trust was already dead and buried. The front door clicked shut. Wesley was gone.

I sat up in the pitchblack bedroom, staring at the wall for a long time. I had thought about how to fix us.

But every time I closed my eyes, I saw him nodding with redrimmed eyes when I asked if she gave him that silver pinky ring.

The metal was gone, but the pale indentation left on his skin after years of wear was blinding. I wondered if I was overreacting. There was no hard proof of him sleeping with her.

Maybe he really just left for a latenight work emergency.

But I refused to turn into that paranoid, pathetic girlfriend, hyperventilating over every shadow, getting into a catfight with a homewrecker over a man's divided attention.

A love that hesitates isn't love at all. He could have cut her off the second she showed up.

He could have maintained absolute boundaries, but he weaponized my trust to push the envelope.

The freezing night air slipped through the cracked window, turning the warmth he had spent six years building inside me into solid ice.

Even with all the logic laid out perfectly in my head, my chest still cracked open.

I bit down on my lip, but hot tears spilled over my lashes anyway, soaking the collar of my pajamas. After all these years, I still hadn't managed to build a real home.

Our six years of quiet, comfortable routine—huddling together to survive the cold—felt completely gray compared to the raw, bleeding history he shared with Kendall.

I couldn't even conjure up a single, earthshattering memory to prove that the universe demanded we be together. We were just ordinary.

We met, we fell in love, and now we were falling apart. What were he and Kendall? They were the epic secondchance romance. The tragic, unresolved high school sweethearts.

He was the boy trapped for a lifetime by the ghost of the girl he couldn't have. A positive pregnancy test completely derailed my plan to hand Wesley divorce papers.

Two stark pink lines glared up at me from the bathroom counter. The air punched out of my lungs. If it wasn't for Wesley, I never would have wanted a kid.

I was terrified of the pain, terrified of dying on the table, and absolutely terrified of screwing up a human life.

Wesley had lost his empire once, but he grew up soaking in his parents' unconditional love. I didn't. After my family's money vanished, my house turned into a war zone.

I was just the annoying stumbling block preventing my parents from starting their new, happy lives. I was kicked back and forth between them, stumbling blindly into adulthood.

I always thought a home only needed two people to be complete. But Wesley had mentally played the role of a father a thousand times.

When we renovated the penthouse, he explicitly walled off a nursery. Since we didn't know the gender, he painted the walls a soft sage green.

The custom Lego wall he wanted was insanely expensive, and when I balked at the price tag, he compromised by installing a massive chalkboard instead.

He built a row of floating bookshelves himself, pointing at the empty wood with pure electricity in his eyes. "The bottom shelf is for picture books.

The next one up is chapter books.

By the time they reach this high, it'll be SAT prep guides and AP Calculus textbooks." I used to tease him about it—he barely survived college, yet he was already daydreaming about raising an Ivy League prodigy.

But hearing him map out that future over and over… a tiny, dangerous part of me had actually started looking forward to it.

Chapter 7 I sat in the middle of the empty nursery for a long time. My mind drifted back to my parents' messy divorce.

After the papers were signed, they fought tooth and nail over every asset, ripping apart everything they had built together. The only thing neither of them fought for was me.

Wesley had been obsessing over having a baby for six years, but he wasn't a grown man ready to be a father.

Deep down, he was still just that pathetic nineteenyearold boy sobbing on his knees in the snow for Kendall.

I decided to give him one last shot. "I'm pregnant." I slid the ultrasound printout across the kitchen island. "Four weeks." Wesley froze.

The blood drained from his face before pure, chaotic joy hijacked his features. He immediately grabbed my shoulders, steering me into a chair