I was the one being humiliated, branded a mistress, brutalized in front of everyone. And Valerie, the real other woman, was nestled in Adam's arms, laughing like she'd never been happier.
I couldn't even cry out that I was innocent before they shoved me to the ground. When the drinks ran out, they used their fists. Their shoes.
There it was. The thing I'd feared most had finally come.
My mother had lived through this exact nightmare before she died. The mob, the humiliation, the hotel. In the end, the shame was too much for her. She climbed to the rooftop and jumped.
That was why I'd broken things off with Adam so decisively. Because I was terrified this day would come.
And it came anyway, dressed up as justice, delivered through a lie.
The shadows Adam had once chased away gathered again, darker and thicker than before, closing over me. There was no light left in my world.
The light that had once shone on me was shining on someone else now.
I saw it. Adam was smiling at Valerie. Smiling so wide his eyes glistened with tears.
How happy he must have been.
Adam Sanchez. Why was the person who pulled me out of hell the same person who threw me back in?
Something snapped. I tore free from the crowd like a woman possessed, stumbled into the elevator the way my mother once had, and rode it all the way to the hotel rooftop.
Maybe because he remembered my mother too, Adam came running after me, his face white with panic, screaming, "Rosie, don't!"
But I didn't follow my mother off the edge.
I went up. One rung at a time, I climbed the ladder hanging from the helicopter above.
