Krista Ritchie - Kiss the Sky

I hold her by the waist and lift her hand, pointing out the large diamond on her finger, stones encased all around the band. “This was one of the first designs,” I say.

“I have a Cobalt original?”

“Yes.”

She appraises the ring on her finger, her lips rising again. “When someone asks me who I’m wearing, I’m going to say me and my husband.”

The strangeness of that appeals to me just as much as it does to her. I lift her chin so her eyes meet mine, her lipstick dark red, bolding her features. “How much time do I have left with you?” I ask her.

“All day,” she says. “I cleared my schedule.”

I frown. “ You cleared your schedule?” I almost laugh. “I saw your to-do list this morning. It was five pages long.”

“I’m trying something new,” she says, touching my chest with her hands and smoothing my suit.

“And what’s that?”

“Delegation,” she says. “I have a store manager. She’s taking care of the inventory and the mindless tasks.” Rose opened a boutique with her clothes in Philadelphia, no longer under the command of a department store. She could have accepted a couple offers from them. Many people were asking for a lingerie line from Rose, the demand increasing.

She’s been designing one, but not for H&M or Saks. It’ll all go in her new store. And even though she’s given up millions of dollars in return for being a small business owner, she’s happy. I can see it in her eyes. The pressure of success and fear of failure is finally gone.

“But we do have dinner plans,” she says.

“We do?” My brows rise.

“Loren and Lily are meeting us at a restaurant a few blocks over.” Rose tucks her hair behind her ear. “I think Lily is doing better.” She nods to herself.

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.

This book is about dreaming big. And we want to thank our parents for allowing us to dream the biggest dreams of all, for encouraging us to go after them and giving us support that we will never be able to repay. The most we can say is thank you, right here, for being the whisper in our ear that told us we could be anything and do anything. Thanks Mom and Dad. We owe you big time.

Thanks to our brother. Even when you’re toiling over your own work, you constantly think about ways to help us further our careers. One day, big brother, we’re going to celebrate together, and we know you’ll be right by our side.

And to the rest of our family and friends—the constant love is what keeps us going. And to our French translators, Violaine, Sarah, and Nieku, you girls rock. Thank you, Nieku, for all those Gossip Girl nights in our dorm room. We miss them dearly.

To our readers, our fans, this book is for you. Like all great television, fandoms drive every scene, every word and they are the chorus to what could be a silent play.

Thank you for giving music to our work.

You are the impassioned spirits that paint our world with color. We will never forget that. We promise.