The Rose Bargain Quotes

“Sometimes I feel like one day every other girl was given instructions on how to grow up, and I missed the lesson.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“It seems only determined anti-romantic Ivy Benton was strong enough to scale bleeding-heart Emmett’s thousand-foot-high walls. I don’t even know if she’s realized yet just how devoted he is to her.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“I’ve spent my whole life on my hands and knees, clamoring for crumbs of love. I don’t know if there will ever come a time I am not hungry for it.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“Somewhere, across time and space, there's a version of me and a version of you, wearing matching rings, tangled up in front of a fireplace, together. I have to believe that's true.
In another life, it would have been us, but not in this one.
I can't have you in the way you deserve to be had.
Know how desperately I love you.
Know how sorry I am.
And know that I'm doing the best that I can.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“He pulls back enough to look me directly in the eye. “Like you? Ivy Benton, I am obsessed with you. It’s going to kill me.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“Emmett looks up at me. “I’ll be in hell when I see you on his arm, when I picture you in his bed, but I will watch, and I will burn for the rest of my life if this is the only way I get to have you,” he says.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“But I know now, the thing about love is that you don’t realize you’re in it until it’s too late.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“When one makes a faerie bargain, one must be prepared to pay the price. There is one silver lining. I have nothing to lose.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“not resent you, but I’ll say it just this once. I would have loved you. I would have loved you so well.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“I sit and I read and I wait for the end of the world.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“He was a romantic in the way only men can afford to be. In that moment, I hated him for it.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“Lady Ivy, tell Bram that hilarious thing you were just telling me," Emmett says. I could kill him.
"Um-" I rack my brain for anything clever I've ever said. "Shrimps' hearts are in their heads," I stammer.
"What?" Bram says at the same time that Emmett says "What?" even louder.
"Uh, shrimps' hearts-"
"No, we heard you," Emmett says.
"Are you . . . fond of shrimp?" Bram asks.
"Not particularly."
"Oh," Bram says while Emmett stands behind him, looking at me wide-eyed and horrified.
"I'll go now." I turn and walk in the opposite direction.
"Wai, no, the other hilarious thing!" Emmett calls, and I run, not toward the center of the maze, but to hide from him.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“I reach out across the expanse of our shared bed and grasp his cold hand in mine. He squeezes, and I squeeze back. I could love you. Let me love you, but I can’t, and he knows it as well as I do.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“But Ivy was already mine inside my head.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“I remember everything. I remember everything so much I am being crushed under the weight of it all. If I weren’t so horribly defined by everything I’ve ever loved and lost, maybe I could be the kind of person who moved through life easily.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“No husband. Oh boo-hoo. I’ll find some way to carry on.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“He didn’t love the way I imagined love would be.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“Remembering is heavy. It lasts so long.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“There's no possible universe in which my sister's heart stops beating and I keep on living, unaltered.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“Why did you leave?” Me. I leave that part off. Why did you leave me? He groans and pushes himself more upright. “Because I don’t think I’m strong enough to stick around and watch you win.” “Why’d you come back?” “Because I wasn’t strong enough to stay away.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“Have you ever been in love?” I ask in return. I don’t know what makes me say it. He nods slowly, like it pains him. “Just once.” “What did it feel like?” He thinks for a moment, his eyes boring into mine all the while. “Like getting run over by a carriage.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“Do you want me to convince you not to go?” Emmett asks. “Because I will. I will get on my knees.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“I’m not strong enough to be under the same roof as you,” Emmett confesses against my mouth. “I am sick with the knowing I cannot have you.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“She’s easier to love when she’s not in front of me. I like her so much more when she’s not around.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“Thank you for believing I might be someone worth bleeding for, Lady Ivy.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“Our clever bargains for shinier hair or prettier feet are just another line item on our wifely résumés, proving that we are good girls. Rose Bargains, they’re called. Bargains to make us beautiful, fragile, sweet—perfect English roses.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“In another life, it would have been us, but not in this one. I can't have you in the way you deserve to be had.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“But who am I, if not a sister?”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“I crane my head, searching for my parents, but turn to find Bram’s face inches from mine. He smiles, and it stretches across his face lazily until that single dimple pops out. “Hi, darling. I’ve missed you.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain

“Emmett leans out the door, a calling card clutched between his knuckles. He reaches out to me. “Please. Can I see you again?” “Absolutely not,” I reply. “I beg of you, consider it.”
― Sasha Peyton Smith, The Rose Bargain