Chapter 3
The bell above the heavy glass door of *Wild June* chimed at precisely eight forty-five the following morning.
I was in the back workroom, my apron dusted with peat moss and the bitter scent of crushed eucalyptus leaves filling the air. My hands were stained green from trimming garden roses, my hair pinned up haphazardly with a wooden pencil. This shop was my sanctuary. Here, surrounded by water buckets, shears, and the honest, quiet labor of keeping fragile things alive, the glittering nightmare of Calder House felt like a bad dream.
Until the click of four-inch designer heels sounded against my concrete floor.
I dried my hands on a towel and walked out to the front counter.
Victoria Ashford stood among my buckets of ranunculus, looking like an editorial spread from *Vogue*. She wore an ivory cashmere coat draped over her shoulders, oversized black sunglasses resting atop her sleek blonde chignon, and a diamond bracelet that sparkled under the warm hanging bulbs of my shop.
She was alone. No paparazzi. No Manhattan socialites. Just the woman who had held Ethan’s heart for years, invading my ten-foot-by-twenty-foot world.
“Quaint,” she said, not looking at me. She reached out a black-gloved finger and tapped the petal of an antique hydrangea. “A bit damp, though. Smells like a greenhouse in an asylum.”
I folded my arms over my apron, refusing to be rattled in my own home. “Can I help you, Victoria? Or did you just come downtown to check out the real estate?”
She took off her sunglasses, revealing pale blue eyes rimmed with artful eyeliner. There was no alcohol to dull her edges today; she looked sharp, awake, and entirely focused on destruction.
“I came to offer you a way out,” she said smoothly, leaning her hip against my reclaimed-wood counter.
I let out a short, incredulous laugh. “A way out of what?”
“Of an impending catastrophe.” She unclasped her alligator-skin purse and pulled out a slim, cream-colored envelope, sliding it across the counter toward me. “Ethan thinks he is an immovable object. He inherited his grandfather’s stubbornness and his father’s pride. But he’s playing a game he can’t win.”
I didn't touch the envelope. “What is that?”
“A check for three million dollars,” she said without blinking. “Drawn from an offshore account. Untraceable by Whitmore Capital, non-taxable under foreign investment clauses. You take the money, you file for an uncontested divorce citing irreconcilable differences, and you relocate. Upstate, Paris, wherever romantic little florists go to recover from reality.”
The air felt thin in my lungs. Three million dollars. That was enough to pay off the mortgage on the building, secure Mia’s future, and ensure I would never have to worry about wholesale flower margins again.
It was also an insult wrapped in silk.
“You think I married Ethan for money?” I asked, keeping my voice dangerously quiet.
“Of course you did,” Victoria said with an easy, dismissive shrug. “Why else would a girl like you marry a man like him? You have nothing in common. He reads quarterly reports in bed; you probably read poetry. He belongs in a boardroom; you belong in a potting shed. You were convenient because you had no connections, no family to interfere, and you were desperate enough to sign whatever contract his lawyers shoved under your nose.”
Every word struck with surgical precision. Because part of it was true—I *was* convenient. I *had* no powerful family.
“You don’t know him,” I said.
Victoria laughed, a sound like dry autumn leaves scraping across pavement. “I don't know him? Claire, I know the scar on his shoulder from when he fell off a sailboat at nineteen. I know how he drinks his scotch when he’s terrified of failing. I know that he only purges company boards when he’s deeply, profoundly lonely. And I know that he came to my suite at the Carlyle three nights ago.”
The floor beneath my boots seemed to tilt.
*Three nights ago.*
Ethan had arrived home at midnight that night. He had smelled of cold air and expensive scotch. He had stood in the kitchen doorway while I made herbal tea, his tie loosened, looking exhausted. When I asked him how his day had gone, he had simply said: *Complicated.*
“He didn't tell you, did he?” Victoria tilted her head, watching the color drain from my face with pure, unadulterated satisfaction. “Marcus arranged the meeting. Ethan came because he wanted to see if I was serious about supporting his father’s merger. We talked for two hours. He didn't look like a happily married man, Claire. He looked like a man who regretted every signature he put on paper.”
She tapped the envelope once more.
“Take the money. If you don't, Marcus’s legal team is going to file a motion on Monday accusing you of contractual fraud. They have private investigator photos of your separate bedrooms in the penthouse. They have the blind date setup. They will drag your mother’s name through the court filings to prove you married for financial survival. You will walk away with nothing, publicly humiliated.”
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Before I could speak, before I could throw her check back into her face, the bell above the door rang again.
A heavy, deliberate step sounded behind Victoria.
“The only person walking away from this room,” a deep, icy voice commanded, “is you.”
We both turned.
Ethan stood in the entrance of Wild June. He wore his tailored charcoal overcoat, no umbrella despite the drizzling rain outside, his dark hair damp against his forehead. His presence consumed the small shop, suffocating every bit of Victoria’s calculated elegance.
His eyes swept over the scene—Victoria leaning against the counter, me standing rigid behind it, and the cream envelope resting between us.
Victoria barely flinched. She gave him a slow, knowing smile. “Ethan. How chivalrous. Did you track her phone, or do you just make a habit of hovering over downtown flower shops during trading hours?”
Ethan walked forward. He didn't look at Victoria. He walked straight up to the counter, his eyes fixed on me, checking my face for damage with a quiet, burning intensity. When he saw the envelope, he reached out, picked it up, and tore it in half without opening it.
Then he turned to Victoria.
“Get out,” he said.
“Ethan, be reasonable—”
“You have three seconds to leave this building,” he said, his voice dropping into a register that made the hairs on my arms stand up. “If you ever approach Claire again, without my knowledge or her consent, I won't just block the merger. I will call the regulators at the Financial Conduct Authority and hand over every single tax filing from your ex-husband’s shell company in Jersey. You think you came back to New York with clean hands, Victoria? Try me.”
Victoria’s face drained of color. The composure she had worn like armor shattered instantly.
“You wouldn't,” she whispered.
“One,” Ethan said.
She stared at him, seeing the absolute, lethal truth in his eyes. Without another word, she snatched her sunglasses from the counter and swept out the door, the bell chiming violently as the glass slammed shut behind her.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Ethan stood there, chest rising and falling, the ripped halves of the check still clutched in his fist.
I gripped the edge of the wooden counter until my knuckles turned white.
“Did you go to her hotel?” I asked, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. “Three nights ago. Did you go to the Carlyle?”
Ethan closed his eyes. When he opened them, the cold corporate warrior was gone, replaced by a man carrying an impossible weight.
May you like
“Yes,” he said.
***
