Prolog;

Disclaimer; I don't own this amazing series of books, but I do own Rosie Hunter.

Rosie looked down at the man sleeping beside her, his chest was bare and his hair was ruffled with sleep. His breathing was soft, untroubled and his arm was wrapped around her waist, keeping her safe.

A small lock of his hair fell into his eyes and she gently pushed it off his forehead, yet again admiring the man she loved.

Everything about him made her heart beat faster and her breath catch in her throat. He had a way of turning her usual confident self into a blushing and babbling mess.

Rosie couldn't help cuddling in closer to him and burying her head into the crook of his neck. His arm unconsciously pulled her closer to him and he buried his head into her hair, breathing in the scent of her shampoo.

She let herself start to drift into the comfortable ignorance of sleep, content with his strong arms around her.

Her mind wondered while she was asleep, thinking of how she'd fallen for the man in her bed, how she was so in love with him. Head over heels, really.

She hadn't made it easy, that was for sure, but he'd loved the chase. He'd never given up on her. He'd always been there for her, through all the troubled moments of her life and she had no regrets for falling completely in love with him.

After all, love was everything. It was waking up on a Sunday morning to smell blueberry pancakes. It was the first snowfall of winter. It was completely giving yourself to someone and trusting them with your heart, your mind, your body and your soul.

Rosie Hunter never used to believe in love. She didn't see love in Sunday morning pancakes, as she never had pancakes on Sundays. She didn't see love in the first snowfall of winter, only life continuing as it should. She didn't see why people gave themselves to someone completely and then having their heart smashed to pieces like porcelain on a cement floor without a word of complaint.

He'd changed that. He'd showed her the beauty of life, of everything around her. He opened her eyes to possibilities she never used to believe were possible. He challenged her and pushed her to her full potential. He got on her nerves every single second of every single day, but she loved him for it.

Rosie could still vividly remember how she fell for him, every touch, every word, every single sound... she remembered it all.

Love was a conundrum, she'd decided a while back, but when you figured it out…the sense of accomplishment it brought to you… the happiness…it could never be forgotten. Hearts broke and feelings changed, it's true, there's no reason to dance around the subject. Heartbreak was why Rosie didn't give in earlier. She'd seen what a broken heart had done to her father, her brothers and her friends and she'd wanted nothing to do with love what so ever. She hadn't realized that caring for her friends was love, worrying about her family, comforting a crying child…all of it was love.

Rosie had a saying she'd taken to during her fourth year, when he'd kept asking her out. She'd known he'd hated the saying, hated it with a passion, and that's exactly why she said. Over and over again, every time he tried to show his affection.

The saying had changed over time, because of him. Every morning he woke up and murmured it into her ear before going to work or running an errand. Every night he whispered it to her while she rode the tides of a dream. And every morning and every night she fell in love with him all over again.

Rosie had dated boys before him, she'd even fooled herself into thinking she was in love, but she wasn't. She never was.

Rosie had kissed boys before him.

Her beliefs in love had been effected well beyond her first kiss, but that also put a crack in the vase.

There'd been no fireworks, no planets aligning, and no connection.

She understood why now, because it hadn't been him she was kissing. When she kissed him, it was like she was falling in love all over again. The slightest touch from him made her breath catch, the smallest kiss made her knees buckle.

This story, the story of how a girl fell in love, is way over done. They don't believe in love and by the end of it, everyone's happy...right?

Wrong.

Hearts are broken along the way, and how they fell in love, so easily, so effortlessly, shattered more than one heart. Just because they fell in love easily doesn't mean they gave in quickly. Rosie put up one hell of a fight before she admitted she was in love with him.

And so did he.

He'd hated that he was in love with her, positively despised the fact. Despised the fact that she didn't love him back, didn't even give him a chance. He'd brought her flowers, chocolates, presents and she rejected it all.

Rosie believed he was trying to bribe her into falling in love with him and how wrong she was.

So, he'd moved on for a few years, dated other girls and tried to get her out of his mind to no avail.

That's the thing about love, you can love someone so completely that you would die for him or her, or you could love someone so much that you move on for him or her and live the rest of your life in numb contention.

Thank God it isn't one of those stories.