Chapter 52: Something of her own

Rosalie had forgotten how loud the city could be.

Cars crowded the roads, pedestrians moved steadily along the sidewalks, and cafés occupied corners she remembered as empty lots. She spent most of the drive looking out the window, trying to match what she saw with a city that now existed mostly in her memory.

"So much changed."

Alejandro glanced toward her.

"You haven’t been here at all?"

"Not this part."

"For how long?"

Rosalie thought about it.

"Long enough that answering would probably make you angry."

"I’m trying not to spend our first week arguing with you."

"Good plan."

Traffic slowed as they approached one of the busier districts, where construction barriers redirected several lanes.

Rosalie frowned. "What’s happening there?"

"The bridge is still being repaired."

"Which bridge?"

Alejandro pointed ahead.

"That one."

She looked again, then remembered something Alexander had mentioned.

"Is that the project Alex is working on?"

"Vance is still involved. Mercer took over the operational work Sebastian used to handle."

Rosalie slowly turned toward him.

"Mercer?"

"Giovanni."

"Oh."

A moment passed.

"And Dominic?"

Alejandro sighed.

"There it is."

"What?"

"The question I’ve been wondering when you’d ask."

Rosalie folded her hands in her lap.

"I remember Dominic."

"And Victoria."

Her expression changed immediately.

"Unfortunately."

Alejandro almost laughed.

"Your father adored that woman by the end."

"Victoria worked very hard to make sure he did."

Rosalie glanced at him. "What happened?"

So Alejandro explained.

Not every humiliating detail. Alexander could decide later how much of the Marriage Bureau incident he wanted his mother to know, but Rosalie learned enough to understand what had happened.

Dominic hadn’t appeared, the engagement had ended, and Sebastian Group had removed him from leadership. The alliance their families had spent years building was now being dismantled.

"Alex is all right?" she asked.

"He’s working."

"That’s not what I asked."

Alejandro looked at her.

There was the mother he remembered.

"He was hurt. He’s handling it, but he was hurt."

Rosalie’s gaze dropped.

"And Giovanni?"

Alejandro’s mouth twitched.

"What about Giovanni?"

"You’re smiling."

"I’m driving."

"You’re still smiling."

He shook his head.

"They’ve been spending time together."

Rosalie looked back toward the bridge.

"The three of them were inseparable once."

"I know."

"And now?"

"Now Dominic appears to have made certain there are only two."

Rosalie went quiet.

She remembered Victoria arriving at the Vance home with food and gifts, always mentioning Dominic’s name with practiced casualness. Back then, Rosalie had thought the boy unusually thoughtful.

"Augustus would’ve hated being fooled."

Alejandro laughed outright.

"That’s probably why no one told him."

Rosalie smiled, but it faded as she turned back toward the window.

Augustus had always been so certain about people.

About Victoria.

About Dominic.

About Rosalie.

For much of her life, she’d mistaken that certainty for wisdom.

Even after his death, she’d continued hearing his judgment whenever she looked at everything that had gone wrong.

Unsuitable.

Perhaps that had been the cruelest part.

Augustus hadn’t needed to be alive anymore for Rosalie to keep letting him decide who she was.

The doctor’s appointment proved considerably less dramatic than Alejandro had feared.

There were blood tests and enough routine examinations to establish that Rosalie was underweight, mildly deficient in several areas, and very obviously hadn’t been taking proper care of herself.

Thankfully, there was no immediate medical crisis.

"I want you eating consistently and returning for your follow-up tests," the doctor told her.

Rosalie glanced toward Alejandro.

"I told you."

He stared at her.

"The doctor just said you’re malnourished."

"He said underweight."

"He said both."

The doctor wisely lowered his eyes to the chart.

Rosalie sighed.

Alejandro pointed at her.

"That’s another bad one."

"Please stop classifying my sighs."

She left with dietary recommendations and follow-up appointments, but also with a sense of relief she hadn’t expected.

Her body had been neglected.

That could be corrected.

Afterward, Alejandro suggested dinner.

Rosalie expected somewhere painfully expensive. Instead, they stopped at a smaller café-style restaurant with warm lighting, savory meals, and glass cases filled with pastries.

The sign above the entrance read:

MATTEO’S

Rosalie stopped.

"Matteo?"

A framed portrait near the entrance answered.

"Giovanni’s father."

Alejandro looked toward the plaque beneath it.

"Apparently."

Once they were seated, Rosalie studied the restaurant with renewed interest.

"He named this cafe after his father."

"So it seems."

"Did you know?"

"No."

Alejandro looked around again.

"The boy did well."

"His father took the risk."

"And his mother worked while they waited for it to pay off."

Rosalie glanced toward the pastry display.

"And Giovanni did both."

Alejandro looked at her.

"Worked and waited," she explained.

Their meals arrived, and Rosalie had barely taken her second bite before noticing Alejandro watching her.

"Don’t."

"Don’t what?"

"Watch me eat."

"The doctor said—"

"If you mention the doctor during dinner, I’m leaving."

"You don’t know how to get home."

"I’ll call Alex."

Alejandro wisely turned his attention to his steak.

Rosalie tried on pastries, then another. By the time coffee arrived, she was looking toward the display again.

"I used to bake."

Alejandro looked up.

"I remember."

"No. I mean properly."

"I know."

"When the boys were little."

"You made bread every Tuesday."

"And pies."

"Apple."

"Peach too."

"You burned the first peach one."

Rosalie gasped.

"I did not."

"You absolutely did."

"You ate half of it."

"I love you."

Silence.

The words hadn’t been planned.

Alejandro seemed to realize it at the same moment she did, but he didn’t take them back or try to turn them into something she wasn’t ready to answer.

Rosalie looked down at her coffee.

"I’ve been thinking."

"About?"

"What I’m going to do."

Alejandro waited.

Rosalie ran one finger along the edge of her cup.

For years, she’d allowed herself to be defined by whatever happened around her.

Before Alejandro, she’d been the woman Augustus considered unsuitable. After marrying into the Vances, she’d spent years trying not to prove him right. Then Ben died, and Rosalie had managed to turn the older man’s judgment into her own.

She’d failed her son.

She’d failed Alejandro.

Eventually, she’d convinced herself that disappearing was the only decision she still had any right to make.

She was tired of living that way.

"I want to open a bakery."

Alejandro blinked.

Rosalie almost laughed at his expression.

"A small one."

"All right."

"That’s it?"

"What else am I supposed to say?"

"You’re supposed to ask whether I’ve thought this through."

"Have you?"

"Not remotely."

"Excellent."

"Alejandro."

He smiled.

"Do you want me to invest?"

Rosalie hesitated.

Once, that question would’ve made her uncomfortable.

Augustus had spent years making her painfully aware of what she hadn’t brought into the Vance family. Education. Money. The right background. Even after Alejandro married her, some part of Rosalie had remained determined never to ask for anything that might make Augustus’s judgment feel justified.

But Augustus was gone.

And Rosalie was finally beginning to understand how much of her life she’d spent arguing with a dead man inside her own head.

"Yes," she said.

Alejandro waited, apparently sensing there was more.

"I want you to invest, but I don’t want you to build it for me."

His expression softened.

"All right."

"I want to work there. Maybe not every day at first because I know I need to get stronger."

"Good."

"And I don’t know enough about running a business."

"I do."

"I know."

Rosalie looked directly at him.

"That’s why I want your help."

"With what?"

"The things I don’t understand yet. Accounting, permits, suppliers. Whatever else I’m missing."

"That’s a very long list."

"Then you’ll have something to do."

Alejandro laughed.

"Apparently retirement is over."

Rosalie looked back at the pastry display.

"I don’t want something huge."

"It doesn’t have to be."

"And I don’t want Vance Holdings attached to it."

Alejandro nodded without hesitation.

"Then it won’t be."

Rosalie looked back at him.

"I mean it."

"I know."

"I don’t want people coming because I’m your wife or because Alexander owns Vance Holdings. I don’t want someone else deciding what it should become because they know more than I do."

"Then they won’t."

The certainty in his answer made her pause.

No argument.

Just an answer.

Rosalie swallowed.

"I want it to be mine."

Alejandro reached across the table and rested his hand beside hers.

"Then we’ll build it that way."

Rosalie looked at his hand for a moment before covering it with her own.

"Partners?"

"Partners."

Alexander received the call that evening while he was still at the office.

"How did the doctor go?"

"Apparently, your mother intends to live," Alejandro said.

"Dad."

"She’s fine."

"I’m underweight," Rosalie called somewhere in the background.

"Malnourished," Alejandro corrected.

"I heard that."

Alexander closed his eyes.

For some reason, hearing them argue reassured him more than anything else probably could’ve.

"So what’s the plan?"

"Food, sleep, follow-ups."

"And?"

A pause.

Then Alejandro said, "Your mother wants to open a bakery."

Alexander sat back.

"A bakery?"

"Small," Rosalie called.

"Very small," Alejandro confirmed.

Another pause followed.

"We’re going to start working on the numbers this weekend."

"We?"

"She’s baking. I’m handling the boring things."

"The boring things are usually what keeps businesses alive."

"Exactly."

A month earlier, his father had been sitting alone at the ancestral home with an untouched chessboard.

Now his mother was back, his parents were bickering over medical terminology, and apparently they were starting a business together.

"Send me the initial numbers when you have them."

Alejandro laughed.

"I knew the CEO would appear eventually."

"I’m your son."

"Who’s asking for financial projections?"

"They’re not mutually exclusive."

Rosalie said something Alexander couldn’t hear.

Then Alejandro replied, "Your mother says you’re not allowed to turn her bakery into a Vance subsidiary."

"I wasn’t planning to."

"She doesn’t believe you."

"Smart woman."

"I heard that," Rosalie called.

Alexander laughed.

"Come this weekend," Alejandro said.

"I will."

He was about to end the call when Rosalie’s voice came through more clearly.

"Alex?"

"Yes, Mom?"

"I need a favor."

Alexander leaned back.

"What do you need?"

"I want to see some commercial spaces."

"All right."

"Not Vance properties."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

"Because I already told you. I want this to be mine."

Alexander was quiet for a moment.

Then he understood.

"Okay."

"I’ll find my own place, and I’ll negotiate my own lease."

"Mom—"

"I know I’ve never done it before."

The firmness in her voice stopped him.

"I know there are things I don’t understand, Alex. That’s why I’m asking for help. But asking for help isn’t the same as asking someone else to decide for me."

Alexander said nothing.

Rosalie tightened her grip on the phone.

She should’ve learned to say things like that years ago.

Maybe if she had, Augustus’s opinions wouldn’t have followed her long after he was gone. Maybe she would’ve stopped confusing someone else’s certainty with proof that her own judgment couldn’t be trusted.

She couldn’t change any of that now.

But she could decide what happened next.

"All right," Alexander finally said.

Rosalie blinked.

"Just like that?"

"It’s your bakery."

A smile slowly appeared on her face.