Page 19 of Surfer's Paradise

Before she could demand an answer, before she could push him away again, before she could do anything at all—

Amy’s voice cut through the room.

“Rosie! You still here?”

Rosie inhaled sharply, breaking the moment, blinking rapidly.

Isaac’s jaw clenched. His eyes flicked to Amy, then back to her.

She squared her shoulders. “We’re closing, Isaac. Go home.”

A long, stretched-out silence.

Then—

He nodded and turned, sauntering out that door.

* * * * *

Rosie pulled the strap of her duffel higher onto her shoulder and stepped out into the warm San Diego night.

The gallery doors shut behind her with a muted thud, muffling the last of the voices inside. Amy and the staff were still wrapping up, double-checking sales, packing away leftover wine bottles. Amy had told her she could wait, that she’d drive Rosie to wherever she was staying—but Rosie didn’t want that.

She needed to be alone.

Needed to let her head stop spinning.

Because it was spinning.

From the success.

From Greg Taylor’s offer.

From the way people had looked at her art like it mattered.

Like she mattered.

And from Isaac.

Always fucking Isaac.

Rosie exhaled hard as she walked, the city pressing in around her. The night was humid, the smell of the ocean thick in the air, mixing with the scent of asphalt, street food, the faint trace of cigarette smoke from an alley nearby.

Her heels clicked sharp against the sidewalk, but inside, she felt floaty, detached, off balance.

She had pushed him away.

For the first time in her life, she had shut him out.

And he’d let her.

That should have felt like a victory. Like proof that she was finally—finally—untangling herself from the gravitational pull that was Isaac Rayleigh.

But it didn’t feel like victory.

It felt like a hole in her chest.

Rosie adjusted her grip on her duffel, pressing forward, walking faster.

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