Page 2 of Dearly Unbeloved (Spicy in Seattle #3)

SIERRA

Quit touching my stuff. Surely you have enough of your own considering it’s taking over the apartment. - R

KYO

You’ve been thirty for two months, SiSi. You have less than a year left. I love how optimistic you are, but it might be time to just accept you’re not getting the money.

G uilt and frustration curdle in my stomach. I sit back, kicking my legs up on the couch as I consider my reply.

A year’s a year. Have a little faith, Kyo. ; )

My brother replies with an eye roll emoji, but he quickly follows it up with a message that tugs on my heart.

You know how much I love you, right? I really appreciate you trying so hard to do this for us, but if you can’t make it happen, it’s okay.

I know, I love you too. And it’s going to happen.

If anyone can do it, you can.

I toss my phone on the couch and rub my face, groaning. What a clusterfuck.

My brother and I never met our maternal grandparents—they died when our mom was still in college—but that hasn’t stopped them from stressing us from beyond the grave.

We knew we had an inheritance to look forward to growing up, but our parents never explained the strings attached until Kyo and I were teenagers: we couldn’t claim a penny until we turned thirty, and we had to be married before they would release the inheritance.

If we hit thirty-one unwed, the money will be split between a list of charities of my grandparents’ choosing.

As teenagers, we barely thought about it.

We had plenty of time. But then he fell in love with two people, and as progressive as Washington is, he can’t marry both of them.

No amount of money in the world would have made him choose between Rylan and Lina, and he didn’t seem upset by the lack of inheritance.

Until Lina got sick. She’s better now, but the treatment took any chance of them conceiving naturally away. IVF is their only option, and their insurance won’t cover it. If I get my inheritance, I can give them the money they need. Not getting it isn’t an option.

But finding a wife in the next nine months, when I’ve failed for the past three years, is looking unlikely.

I’ve met people, I’ve dated, and I’ve called every relationship off after three months.

Because the more I let people in, the higher the risk of them hurting me.

I keep trying, but I haven’t met anyone worth getting hurt over yet.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to say I have commitment issues.

I look around the apartment and sigh. Rose is going to lose it when she gets home.

I had a shitty day at work, so I stopped by my favorite flower shop on the way home and bought three bunches of fresh flowers and two plants.

Considering her name, you’d think my roommate would be a little more foliage-friendly, but she hates all things green.

“They’re supposed to be outside. You can keep one.

Get rid of the rest,” she said when she came home our first week living together and spotted the vases all around the apartment.

Did I have too many? Maybe, but I couldn’t have cared less if she liked them or not.

I still don’t, but when I refused to get rid of them, she did it for me.

I came home from work the next day to find every vase empty except one—the smallest—and the rest of the flowers in the trash.

There was a purple Post-it Note on the remaining vase, with Rose’s perfect handwriting :

I told you to get rid of them - R

And that was the moment I realized that Rose and I would never be friends. At this point, we barely tolerate each other. The second I get my inheritance and give Kyo half, I’ll be using the rest to get my own place far, far away from Rose Cannon.

Our apartment is big by Seattle standards, airy and bright, and the perfect environment for plants to flourish.

Despite what Rose thinks, I try not to push her.

It would be stupid to keep buying things I know she’s going to throw away, so I keep my plants in my room, and stick to one flower arrangement at a time… mostly.

Not today, clearly. She can take it up with her sister if she has a problem with it—I don’t want to deal with the fight today, and it’s Jazz’s fault I’m so tired.

Rose and I met through her sister. Jazz is the executive assistant to Cal Michaelson, the top business lawyer in the Pacific Northwest. He’s also her father-in-law and her best friend’s husband, but they work well together, considering they’re family.

I’m Jazz’s assistant, and although I love my job, she’s not the easiest person to work for.

She’s as organized as a rummage sale and, usually, we’re in sync enough that it doesn’t cause problems, but I’ve been off my game since I turned thirty and realized just how close my deadline is.

Everything I tried to do today was set back by something Jazz had forgotten to do, and by the time the end of the day came around, I was so ready to get out of the office.

I should get up, put the flowers in vases, and move the plants—and the brownies and three bags of weed gummies I bought—into my room, but I hear the jingle of Rose’s keys in the door before I get the chance. Great.

She walks into the living room, and I brace myself.

Her long blonde hair is thrown up in a high pony, perfectly neat considering she’s spent the whole day working in a lab.

Rose and Jazz are polar opposites in personality, but they share their mom’s golden-hazel eyes.

Rose is tall and lithe, with permanently rosy cheeks to match heart-shaped lips that spend most of their time scowling around me.

Objectively speaking, Rose Cannon is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. It’s a shame she’s so fucking insufferable.

Her eyes land on the kitchen island, taking in the mess I’ve left behind. But instead of snapping like she usually does, she just sighs and tosses a pile of papers on the island. They come close to knocking my brownies over, but someone, somewhere, is looking out for me.

“Stop writing your stupid quiz answers on my shit,” she mutters, but there’s no heat in her words. Something’s rattled her. Something that isn’t me, for once. I might care enough to be worried—again, if she wasn’t so fucking insufferable.

But she is, and I don’t care that something’s bothering her.

I should just take it as a win. Only one pissy comment, instead of the usual twenty-five the second she gets home, should be a relief.

Especially after the day I’ve had. I should keep my mouth shut and take it…

but I’m predisposed to snap back at this point.

“It’s not a stupid quiz just because you’re shit at it, Cannon.” I fully expect her to shoot daggers at me. But she doesn’t. She just lifts a shoulder indifferently.

“Doing well on a pop culture quiz about celebrities and gossip I don’t care about isn’t exactly high on my priority list,” is all she says as she opens the fridge and grabs a bottle of rosé.

She gets a glass from the cabinet and pauses in front of the island. With an inhale, she slowly pushes a pink pothos plant to the side without a word and sets the wine and the glass down.

I feel my face pull into a tight frown. “Did someone die?” I ask, standing up and hovering by the couch.

Rose raises a perfectly arched brow, unscrewing the bottle top and pulling her glass toward her. “No.”

“Did you fuck up and accidentally facilitate the spread of some deadly disease?” Truthfully, I don’t really understand what she does at work, but I expect that would count as a terrible day.

“No.”

“Did your coworkers finally call you out for your glowing personality?” I say sarcastically, and her stony expression slips. Bingo.

A split second later, she’s back to the pretentious ice queen I know and hate, just in time for her to stop the wine from overflowing. She sets the bottle down and rolls her eyes.

“Maybe I just don’t want to talk to you. Oh wait, it definitely is that.” She puts the half-full bottle back in the fridge and bumps it closed with her hip. “Clean this shit up,” she says, and then she’s gone.

“A delight, as always,” I mutter under my breath as I hear her bedroom door close.

Despite Rose’s one-bunch rule, I kept my vase collection when we moved in together.

I like to switch them out, depending on the flowers.

There’s a thick layer of dust on most of them, since whoever designed this apartment thought the aesthetics of open shelving were more important than the practicality of doors, so I grab a few and set them in the sink to wash.

Usually, since I only get one bunch at a time, I buy them pre-made, but I went all out today, buying bunches of individual flowers so I could make the arrangements myself: snap dragons, lilacs, carnations, sweet peas, roses, and a bunch of mixed greenery to fill out the displays.

I hear the whirr of Rose’s treadmill from her room seconds before her workout playlist blares through the apartment.

Our building has a gym, but she never uses it.

She runs outside before work and on her treadmill after work.

Forty-five-minute runs, twice a day, every day, even on major holidays.

At least her playlist is good, and I find myself humming along as I trim stems and carefully arrange the flowers.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so snippy. She’s clearly had a bad day, and, as much as I’d rather not breathe the same air as her, I don’t have to be an asshole. I’m not like this with anyone else. Rose just brings out the worst in me.