Adam took my silence as surrender. He turned the key in the ignition, then stopped halfway.

"Oh, right. Starting today, when you ride in my car, you sit in the back. She told me the passenger seat is hers and hers alone from now on. I gave her my word, and I'm not going to break it."

He turned to look at me. "You know me. I've always been a man of my word. I promised to take care of you for the rest of your life, and even though I'm marrying someone else, I'll still take care of you."

A smile spread across his face. "You probably don't know this yet, but in three days, she and I are going to register our marriage. I had to beg her for ages before she finally agreed. I can't afford to upset her again. She's not easy to coax like you are. She says she's a red rose, and if you love the flower, you have to accept the thorns."

Adam was lost in his sweetness with her. But I felt as though those thorns had pierced me instead. A sharp, stinging pain shot through my palm.

I looked down. When I'd been unbuckling my seatbelt, my hand had caught on an earring left on the seat. Its pointed back had broken the skin.

I opened my palm. Blood was already pooling.

Adam saw it too. His voice spiked. "How could you be so careless?"

For a split second I thought he was worried about me. I was about to say it was nothing, that this tiny pain was less than a fraction of what I felt inside.

Then his next words sent me plummeting.

"That's her earring. She's a germaphobe. If she finds out her favorite earring got stained with your blood, she'll be furious."

So my blood was dirty to him. The pain in my hand throbbed up into my skull, making the world tilt. I stared at him, blank-faced, for what felt like forever before something that might have been guilt flickered across his expression.

He lowered his gaze. "I'll let it slide this time. I'll cover for you. But don't touch her things again."

Then he pulled out a sanitizing wipe and began cleaning the earring. Carefully. Methodically.

My palm was still bleeding. I could feel it trickling down to my thigh now, warm and steady, but I sat there like a fool. I couldn't form words. I couldn't make my hands move to stop it.

I just sat there. Perfectly still.

When he finished wiping it down, he wrapped the earring in a clean tissue, placed it gently in the glove compartment, and only then turned to look at me.