Rose POV

"Mom."

She roused softly on the bed, turning to face me in the dimly lit room. Her eyes blinked repeatedly, like she was trying to place me.

"Mom, it's me." I scooted closer, taking her hands in mine. "Rose. The doctors said you'd be awake soon, so I decided to stay a while."

The skin on her forehead wrinkled softly in confusion. Her lips parted open and then closed again. Dread settled deep in the pit of my stomach. Raw and brutal dread that made me shiver.

"Mom, please...."

"Who are you?" she croaked, her eyes darting towards the door and then returning to my hands, still holding onto hers. I could see the discomfort in her gaze as she tried to pull away.

"You're not supposed to be here."

"Mom, what do you mean?" I didn't think I could take another beat today. After Thanksgiving dinner with my boss and all that it came with, I was desperately praying for something good.

"Mom?" Her lips were blue and dry.

"It's Rose," I breathed shakily. "Your daughter. Remember me? I came with you the day you got your diagnosis. We have been best of friends since the moment I was born. Remember me, Mom."

I was practically begging, the salt from my tears grazing my lips.

"Rose?"

I nodded eagerly, a sad smile on my face, thinking she remembered. But when the slight frown settled again, I felt my little hope break into numerous heart-wrenching pieces.

My hand tightened around hers. "Mom!"

Wrong move, because in that split second, panic flared in her eyes. She pushed me away, hitting the red button by the side of the bed to alert the medical team.

"Mom, no!" I wailed.

"Stop calling me that," she groaned weakly, her words heavy with breath. "I'm not your mother. Please. Go! Go!"

"Oh, God!" I got on my feet, getting even closer to her. She became erratic the closer I got, her hands thrashing all over the place, fighting my hold on her.

"You're going to kill me," my mother wailed. "What do you want? I don't have any money on me. Who sent you?"

It hurt. It hurt so bad that I felt it course through my body.

The doors pushed open, and the lights from the hallway shone in. I saw the tears staining her cheeks, the tremble of her lips and her hands, her dilated pupils.

Oh God!

Footsteps scurried in. I didn't know I was holding on to her so tightly until I felt a pair of warm hands wrap around my waist, pulling me away from her. I turned around into his arms, wailing into his chest.

It was embarrassing. There was a whole team of medical doctors in there, and the person who held me was probably one of them as well, but it didn't matter in that instant. I wanted my mom to remember me. I wanted to be there for her.

With her.

"Can you please take her out, Mr. Castel?" I heard someone ask behind me. "The patient is getting hysterical with her presence, and that's not good."

"But she's my..."

"Shhhhh."

The warm hands were yet to let go. Instead, they steered me in the direction of the door. My feet remained rooted to the ground, refusing to move. "I can't leave her!" I said desperately, trying to look at the person holding me. "You don't know her. Give me time. Give us time. She'll remember me, I promise."

"Rose, right?"

I paused when he said my name. There was something about it, about the deep baritone, the way it rolled off his tongue, the familiarity embedded in it, yet the strangeness all at the same time.

"Yeah," I murmured, stunned.

"Your mother needs some space right now. She's heavily dilated, in so much pain, and doesn't need this emotional distress added to it.

Can you understand that?"

He spoke to me slowly, accentuating every word like I was a child. Despite that, I nodded against his chest.

"Good girl," he murmured. "Let's head out."

I didn't turn back until we were in the lit hallway.

He'd taken his hands off me and kept a respectable distance. When I lifted my gaze off the ground and into his eyes, appreciation on my lips, every part of me froze.

"You."

Those blue eyes.

Confusion clouded his eyes for a few seconds before the realization settled. "Shit."

He tried approaching, tried touching my shoulder, but I raised my hands, pushing away from him. "Don't! Don't you dare touch me!

I might have been stunned back then, but I've had three good hours to think about how I was treated. And I don't want to listen to you. What the hell are you even doing here?"

Before he could respond, I tried to get past him, running towards the ward. But he caught up with me, his hand holding my waist and slamming my back hard into his chest. I waited for the feel of flesh, but all I felt was a solid wall.

He smelled like leather and oud.

"Let me go!" I yelled, hitting his hand. "I'm going to call the cops if you don't."

"They won't do anything," he responded calmly, and I immediately hated it. I hated that I sounded like a raging lunatic while he was graceful and calm behind me. Anyone who saw us would think I was the problem.

"Let me go!"

"Rose."

"And stop bloody calling me."

"I'm going to let go," he murmured slowly. "And you're going to turn around and head out with me. Very calmly."

"Why would I go anywhere with you?"

"Because I care for Emma as much as you care for her. And if you're anything she told me about, you'll be reasonable and have a conversation with me."

I stopped then, waiting for him to let go. Surprising myself, when I no longer felt his arms, I turned around slowly, looking up at him. Those eyes searched my face before landing on my eyes.

"Good girl."

Despite the situation, something clenched inside of me. I was too embarrassed to admit what part it was.

"There's a bar across the road. Let's talk there."

"How do you know my mother?"

Silence and a nudge was all I got as an answer to my question.

Rose POV

Jazz played in the background, along with the clinking of glasses. But I couldn't stop thinking about the coincidence that my life had just become: the stranger standing next to me.

He told me he cared about my mother as much as I did. And just a couple of weeks before the diagnosis, my mother started coming in late.

I joked about her keeping her boyfriend away from me, and now...

I shook my head in disbelief. It was impossible.

Right?

"Mr. Castel!" The bartender greeted, stretching out his hand to the man beside me. They exchanged pleasantries, a grim look in both their eyes. "How is she doing?"

Mr. Castel shook his head, glancing at me for a brief second.

"You shouldn't worry," the bartender said, staring at us with sympathy etched into his features. "She's going to get better. I believe that."

I hated the way he looked at me. I hated anyone feeling pity for me.

The bartender nudged his head in my direction.

"Rose," Mr. Castel muttered. "Emma's daughter."

"Oh, my God!" He placed a hand over his mouth, and I almost yelled at him to just bloody stop.

"How are you holding up? It must have been awful to have met your mother that way in the bathroom. I heard..."

"Gary." Mr. Castel shook his head slightly, and the bartender ruefully lowered his head.

"Sorry. I'm just... I hope she gets better." And then, he looked up. "The regular?"

Mr. Castel nodded. "And gin and tonic for her."

"I can place my order myself," I countered at once, standing on my full height even though it was nowhere near his shoulders. "I want something stronger. Vodka."

"You're not having that," he said without looking at me. "Gin and tonic. We'll be at the other end of the bar."

Mr. Castel didn't bother waiting for me or my response as he stalked away towards a dark corner, one hand in his pocket and the other buried in his hair. I could see it now. The slack in his gait, the worry creasing his eyes. Definitely the man Mom has been hiding away from me.

Beyond the chauvinistic and rude jerk that he was, perhaps he did really care for my mom. But that had nothing to do with me, and I needed to let him know that.

So I crossed the space behind him, waiting for him to be settled in the seat. He retrieved his phone and scrolled without paying me the slightest attention. Wasn't he the one who asked me here to have drinks with him?

"Is this how you act with my mother?"

He arched a brow.

"Control her every life, including what she drinks?"

"Your mother is a woman of her own. And I don't control anyone."

"What am I? A child?"

He shrugged. "Her child. And until she gets better, I am responsible for you."

"I am a fucking adult with a fucking job!" I was almost yelling.

"You are nineteen, in college with a part-time job that I really think you should quit."

I rolled my eyes. "That's hypocritical, coming from you. My boss is your wife."

"Ex-wife," he corrected, leaning back into the seat and now giving me his attention. "Charlotte and I divorced last year. I'm sure you heard about that. Practically the whole of the city heard."

"Yeah. Your last name is hard to miss."

He shrugged, then motioned to the seat in front of him. "Now, stop acting like a child and let's have an actual conversation."

Left with no choice, I lowered myself into the seat, waiting as the bartender, Gary, placed our orders gingerly on the table.

Well, more like Mr. Castel's order and the one he was forcing me to have.

Bloody gin and tonic.

"My mother didn't tell me she was seeing someone," I said when Gary left.

"I never said we were seeing each other," he murmured, leaning forward to grab his glass.

I rolled my eyes. Of course he was going to deny it. Mom probably told him not to tell me the truth.

"Emma is important to me," he continued. "She was going to introduce us, but she didn't think it was a good time. She said you were going through something at work. If I'd known..."

"...that your wife was the annoying bitch, you would have done something about it, right? Oh! Let's save my girlfriend's daughter from my wife's bitchy claws. I definitely see how that would have gone."

"Ex-wife," he stated again, this time with a stern look. He muttered something else under his breath, but I didn't catch it. "And no. I wouldn't have saved you from her claws. I would have bought her out of the company."

My lips parted, but no words came out. It wasn't often that I was rendered speechless. Leaving that, I decided to go another route. I needed to vent.

"And what was that about earlier? I was going through something that apparently, you are going through too. And you ask Charlotte to kick me out?"

His slender fingers reached for his hair, burying inside the strands and messing them up. "I didn't know who you were... and.... I'd just heard... Never mind."

"You'd just heard what?"

"Rose...."

"Tell me!" I insisted. "Is this about my Mom?"

"She's in her fourth stage," he breathed, after what felt like an eternity.

"Oh...."

"You don't have to worry, Rose. There's a new treatment that's going to be tried, and the doctors are hopeful. Your mom doesn't want you to worry."

"Is that why she didn't recognize me?" I couldn't hear my own voice, but for some reason, he did.

And he nodded.

"It's a side effect."

"Does she recognize you?"

It took a full minute before he nodded.

"Oh, God!"

"Rose..."

"I'm going to need more than a fucking gin and tonic," I muttered, getting on my feet. "And if you dare stop me, I'm going to yell rape and get you arrested."

He seemed to think better of it, leaning back into his seat as I sauntered away from him back to the bar.

"I need shots of tequila," I told Gary. "Loads of it."

Gary looked at me and then towards where Mr. Castel sat.

"He's not my father."

"You are not up to twenty-one," he said ruefully. "The only reason I obliged to the gin and tonic was that Mr. Castel asked for it. I'm afraid he's going to have to give his consent to this, too."

I turned towards my mother's boyfriend, even though he claimed he wasn't, with a lethal glare on my face, and he had the effrontery to smirk at me.

Motherfucker.