After the sex tapes, Rose’s name wasn’t tarnished the way Lily’s was. Women praised her for her openness and many wanted to ask her questions.
Rose looks physically ill when we talk about the differences between this case and the sex addiction leak. Even now, her eyes tighten as she stares off in recollection of the past few months. Lily was quiet towards Rose for a while.
“It’s not fair,” I heard Lily cry to Loren one day.
She’s right.
It’s not really fair.
Rose hates that Lily was beaten down, especially since her sister was the one with the illness. But Rose had sex with her long-term boyfriend. Lily was with many different partners before Loren. Rose was the virgin. Lily was the slut. In the eyes of the world, one is right, one is wrong.
And changing the world—if that’s in anyone’s power—time has to be on your side. One of the few things I can’t control.
Rose’s eyes catch a newspaper on a nearby bench. I follow her gaze to see the headline New Connor and Rose Cobalt Sex Tape Sold for $35 Million. Scott just sold the rights to the footage of us in the bathroom. The one where Rose gives me head. It’s a reminder that he’s profiting off us even months after the reality show ended. We dropped the lawsuit about a month ago. The time and stress to battle him in court wasn’t worth what we have now.
We surrendered. And Scott Van Wright won.
But he didn’t win what matters.
Though, I do take solace in the fact that he doesn’t have footage of us in the Alps, the night Rose lost her virginity, the night we slept together for the very first time. He can sell as many sex tapes as he wants, but that moment is ours, and only ours, forever.
When I reroute my attention from the newspaper and back to Rose, I realize she’s already left the headline in the past. She’s studying me with an entranced, wistful gaze.
“What is it?” I ask. My heart lightens and soars as I keep watching her look at me this way.
She shakes her head with a smile, and tears crest her eyes as she says, “I love you more than anyone.”
My mouth falls a little. I never thought I’d reach that place in her heart, above her sisters. It seemed unfathomable, for however much I wanted it to be true.
When the shock passes, I smile deeply and grip the back of her head, my fingers sliding through her silky hair. “I love you more than I could ever love myself,” I whisper the words and lift Rose’s chin again, raising her gaze to mine, not to say anything else. I just smile as I watch her eyes churn with a familiar, unbridled emotion.
I love knowing I’ll fall asleep and wake up to those impassioned eyes. I love that the most terrifying what if—the one without her—is the path that won’t ever come true. My new dreams are in the faraway future, filled with children. And love.