Where the Blooms End, Spring Returns

When I was seven, a single woman brought me home from the orphanage.

My adoptive mother taught me from a young age: When you date a rich man, the one thing you must never do is fall for real.

When he loves you, he talks feelings. Only when he stops loving you will he talk money.

At twenty-three, I was delivering flowers to the Hillcrest Estates.

That was when I saw Oliver Stephens climb out of a Maybach and crouch at the roadside in the rain, feeding a stray cat.

That same night, I changed my flower delivery route.

For the next three months, I walked past every day with my armfuls of flowers, and fed the cat along the way.

Oliver asked me why I came by every day.

I smiled and said, "I'm a florist. I have a long-term client over here."

The ninth time we met, he held an umbrella over me.

The seventeenth time, he asked for my number.

After that, we dated for four years.

But Oliver had a flaw. He respected me too much.

He gave his sister eight-figure jewelry, and gave me a ceramic cup he'd cracked in the kiln three times before it finally came out right.

Once, I deliberately stared at a two-million-dollar bag for seven full seconds.

The next day, he gave me a canvas tote he'd sewn himself. Cost: a hundred and sixty-eight dollars.

And he told me earnestly, "Expensive doesn't mean precious." I was so moved I hugged him with tears in my eyes.

Then went home and lay awake all night, furious.

Until the news of Oliver's arranged marriage broke.

That night, he asked to see me.

I put on the white dress he liked best, and before I left I bowed reverently to my adoptive mother's photo.

Mom, you were right.

A man's love has an expiration date, but a breakup fee doesn't.

...

Oliver had booked the restaurant where we'd had our first date.

Four years ago, the first time I sat here, I hadn't dared to drink more than one glass of water.

Not out of nerves.

Mostly because the bottled water on the menu went for eighty-eight.

Now I could order a sixteen-hundred-dollar fish without so much as a flinch.

It was the last meal anyway. Might as well eat up.

Oliver studied me for a while, then finally spoke. "The marriage. You saw it?"

"Mm. Fake?"

"Real."

My hand paused for a second over the fish, then kept cutting.

Good. Straight to the point. No sense letting it ruin my appetite.

Oliver leaned back in his chair, his voice flat. "The Swanson family has a few projects coming up that'll be tied to the Stephens family. My grandfather's health is poor. He wants the marriage settled before the year's out."

"Oh."

"Tilda Henson."

"Mm?"

"You don't have anything you want to ask?"

I thought about it seriously.

"When's the engagement?"

His brows drew down.

"That's all you care about?"

What else? Was I supposed to care how many tables were at the reception, whether there'd be an ex-girlfriend seat set aside for me?

I set down my knife and fork and gave him a smile.

"If I know the date in advance, I can steer clear of the press."

Oliver's face darkened further.

"No one's asking you to steer clear."

"So you want me there?"

"Tilda!"

It was the first time he'd said my name so hard.

I went quiet.

Oliver shut his eyes for a moment, like he was holding something back.

After a while, he reached over and took my hand.

"It's only a marriage. It won't affect us."

I almost thought I'd heard him wrong.

"What do you mean?"

"Michelle Swanson and I each get what we need. After we marry, I won't interfere with her, and she won't interfere with me."

He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You go on living your life the way you always have."

I stared at him for a long moment. So this was how advanced high-society love was these days. The girlfriend even got pre-marital asset separation.

I slowly pulled my hand back.

"And what does that make me?"

Oliver paused.

"You're still you, of course."

Four words that nearly made me laugh from sheer anger.

"Oliver, can't I just be Tilda? Do I have to moonlight as the other woman too?"

His face went dark in an instant.

"Don't put it so crudely."

"Why be afraid of crude, if it's the truth?"

"Michelle knows about you."

"Wow."

I couldn't help clapping.

"How very big of her."

"Tilda."

There was already a warning in his tone.

I picked up my wineglass and took a sip.

"Then let's break up."

Oliver didn't move.

Several seconds passed before he asked, "What did you say?"

"I said, let's break up."

"Because I'm getting married?"

"Or should it be because you've been losing hair lately?"

His jaw snapped tight.

"I already told you, the marriage won't affect you."

"It will, though."

I looked at him.

"It'll affect me finding the next one."

He stared at me for a long time, then let out a cold laugh.

"The next one? Decided that fast, did you?"

Heavy on the sour. Anyone who didn't know better would think I was the one getting married.

"A person has to look forward."

Oliver slammed his glass down on the table.

Wine splashed across my hand.

When he saw it, he pulled out a napkin on reflex to wipe it for me.

The motion was as careful as ever, but his voice was cold as death.

"Fine. You want out, you can have it. What do you want?"

My eyes lit up at once. Here it came.

This was the line I'd been waiting for.

I quickly opened the notes app on my phone.

"The greenhouse up on the hillside."

Oliver looked up.

"And?"

"Thirty million."

His hand went still.

"Tilda."

"Mm?"

"When did you get so vulgar?"

I blinked.

"I've always been vulgar. Your love filter was just too thick."

Oliver didn't agree. He didn't refuse either.

Before he left, he draped his suit jacket over my shoulders and tossed out one line: "We'll talk tomorrow."

Thirty million was a big sum. He probably did need to sleep on it.

But the next day, the money didn't come. Cora Stephens's call came first.

"Sis, save me!"

"It's my birthday tonight, and the florist my brother hired got hospitalized at the last minute. Come cover for me, would you?"

There was a time when Cora calling me family could keep me happy half the day.

Now hearing it just felt like bad luck.

"Your future sister-in-law won't mind?"

The line went quiet for a moment.

"You know?"

"The whole internet knows."

In the end, I went anyway.

Not for Oliver.

Cora was paying. A hundred and twenty thousand.

Enough to cover two months of payroll at my studio.

I worked until eight in the evening. I'd just tucked in the last stem when there was a stir at the door.

Cora came running in with her skirt gathered in one hand, a full emerald set draped around her neck, so green it hurt my eyes.

I asked, "Your brother gave you that?"

She grinned so wide her eyes disappeared.

"Mm! He ordered it from the auction house half a year ahead of time."

"How much?"

"Not that much."

"Tell me."

"Over seventeen."

"Million?"

"Mm."

I closed my eyes for a moment. The world could be absurd sometimes.

My boyfriend gave his own sister seventeen million in jewelry.

The birthday gift he gave me was a garden trowel he'd filed down himself, cutting his hand doing it.

I'd lost a whole night's sleep back then, aching for him.

Now, thinking about it, I should have ached for myself.

"Sis!"

Cora suddenly waved at someone behind me.

"Oliver!"

I turned.

Oliver came over, a paper bag in his hand.

Not Herms.

Not Chanel.

I was already braced for it.

Sure enough, he took a wooden box out of it.

"For you."

I opened it.

A garden spade lay inside.

Two crooked characters were carved into the handle.

Tilda Henson.

I said nothing.

Cora let out an exaggerated "Wow."

"Did you make this yourself?"

"Mm."

She looked at me with envy.

"Tilda, my brother's so good to you!"

I lifted my head and looked at Oliver.

There was a faint smugness in his eyes, like he was waiting for me to be moved.

Before yesterday, I would have been.

Now I only wanted to ask him one thing.

So, Oliver, is the greenhouse mine or not?

I closed the box.

"Thank you."

Oliver's brow drew together slightly.

"That's it?"

"What else?"

"You used to hug me when you got these."

"Oh."

I opened my arms and gave him a half-hearted little hug.

"Good enough?"

His body went rigid.

The next second, he hooked an arm around my waist so I couldn't pull back.

"Still sulking?"

"I'm not."

"Then come home with me tonight."

"That's not convenient."

"What's not convenient about it?"

I looked at him.

"You're about to have a fiance."

The line choked him, and his expression turned ugly.

Right then the ballroom fell quiet, and a woman walked in.

White gown, long black hair, beautiful in a very proper way.

Cora's smile froze.

"What's Michelle Swanson doing here?"

I followed her gaze downward.

When I saw the sapphire brooch on the woman's chest, I finally understood why no one was speaking.

I'd seen that brooch before. It was left by the Stephens grandmother.

Oliver once said he'd give it to his future wife.

Michelle came to stand in front of us.

She glanced at me first.

Then she slid her arm through Oliver's.

"Oliver, your grandfather sent me to collect you."

Oliver didn't pull free.

He only glanced at me on reflex, and I gave him a small smile.

That night, Oliver didn't leave with Michelle.

He chased me down to the parking lot and cornered me against my car door.

"Why won't you take it?"

"Too heavy."

"A garden trowel is heavy?"

"Yes."

"Tilda."

He caught my wrist.

"What is it you actually want?"

The question left me blank.

He was the one getting married, and somehow he'd twisted it around like I was the one cheating in a marriage.

"Oliver."

I told him, dead serious.

"I'm the one breaking up with you."

"I never agreed to it."

"Since when does dating need both parties to sign off before it ends?"

"You could at least not walk out without explaining."

"Then what do you want?"

He was quiet for a long moment.

Then, out of nowhere: "Is thirty million really that important?"

"It is."

"More important than me?"

There it was.

The classic no-win question every rich man loves to ask.

If I said the money mattered more, he'd decide four years of feeling had been thrown to the dogs.

If I said he mattered more, he'd never bring himself to hand over the money.

I thought it over for three seconds.

"Why do you and the money have to be an either-or?"

Oliver let out a furious laugh.

"Well. You're not greedy, at least."

I nodded, in complete earnest.

After that he didn't want to say another word.

The next day, I started packing.

The apartment I lived in was Oliver's.

When we first got together he'd wanted me to move in, and to keep up the act, I turned him down a full four times.

I only moved in on the fifth.

Looking back now, I was young.

If I'd known, I'd have asked four years ago whether he could just sign the deed over.

I was halfway through packing when the call came from the studio.

The landlord said he wasn't renting the building out anymore. I had one week to clear out.

I froze.

I'd rented that old mansion for five years, and there were still two years left on the lease.

"Why?"

The landlord hemmed and hawed, and finally told me.

"The building's been bought."

"By who?"

"The Stephens family."

I was silent for a few seconds, then called Oliver directly.

He picked up fast.

"So you finally deigned to reach out to me?"

There was something almost pleased in his voice.

I didn't bother with it.

"You bought the building my studio's in?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Michelle likes it."

My grip on the phone tightened.

Oliver didn't notice.

"She's planning a private art gallery. That whole row of buildings is getting redone together."

"So you'll relocate."

"I'll find you a place."

It came back to me all at once, three years ago, when the studio had just opened and he came for the first time.

Back then I'd painted the walls myself, my hands smeared with white paint.

He stood in the doorway, frowning.

Said a place like that leaked drafts in winter and rain in summer.

I snapped at him.

"Don't you dare look down on it. This is the first place in my whole life that's mine."

After that he really did stop looking down on it. He even nailed together the flower stand in the back garden with his own hands.

Now he said it so lightly.

Relocate.

I asked, "When did you decide to buy it?"

"Last month."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You've never liked getting involved in my business, have you?"

The moment it was out, he must have realized how it sounded.

He paused.

"Tilda, it's just a studio."

Just a studio.

"Fine. How much are you paying me for it?"

Oliver went completely silent.

A few seconds later, his voice turned cold.

"When you talk to me now, is there ever anything but money?"

"There is."

"Then when does it hit my account?"

He hung up.

But at ten that night he showed up, carrying a bowl of the soup I liked.

His face was black as thunder.

I took it.

"Thanks."

"I've found a good spot for the new studio. It's twice the size of the old one."

"No need."

"What are you kicking up a fuss about now?"

"I'm planning to close the studio."

His expression changed in an instant.

"Why?"

I took a sip of the soup.

"I'm tired."

"Five years of it, and you'll just quit like that?"

I looked up at him.

"Four years together, and you'll just get married like that, won't you?"

Oliver's voice cut off all at once.

In the end, I didn't close the studio.

My adoptive mother used to say it.

You can trade in a man, but you never throw away your rice bowl.

It took me three days to find a new place.

Rent was double, the location half as good, but at least I no longer had to answer to the Stephens family.

The day I moved, Michelle came.

No driver, no bodyguards.

She stood at the door alone, a bunch of white tulips in her arms.

"Can we talk?"

I glanced at her bag.

Limited edition. Over three million.

Very pretty.

I made her a cup of nine-ninety-nine instant coffee.

To my surprise, Michelle didn't turn her nose up at it.

"I know things between you and Oliver aren't finished."

"Let me correct that. He's the one who won't let it finish."

She smiled.

"I believe it."

That threw me.

"You don't mind?" I asked.

"Why would I mind? Marrying him was a decision made by both families."

She picked up the paper cup.

"He has someone he loves. So do I."

I nearly choked on my coffee. So marriages of convenience really were this civilized.

"Then what do you want from me?"

Michelle laid a check on the table.

"Fifty million."

I looked down, counting the zeros to make sure I hadn't imagined one.

My heartbeat doubled in an instant. If my adoptive mother were still alive.

She'd have come to me in a dream by now, telling me to take it.

I dragged my eyes off the check with real effort.

"What does this mean?"

"Leave him for good."

"Why?"

"I don't mind that he has someone in his heart. But I do mind my husband keeping an open lover after the wedding."

Michelle's tone stayed even.

"I have my pride too."

Fair enough.

I reached out, touched the check, then drew my hand back.

"I can't take this money."

She looked surprised.

"Not enough?"

"No."

I meant it, completely.

"You don't owe me anything."

"Whoever owes me, I'll go to them for it."

Michelle studied me for a long moment, then suddenly laughed.

"Tilda, you're not quite what I expected."

"What did Oliver say about me?"

She didn't answer. Instead she asked, "Do you know why he never bought you anything expensive in four years?"

My fingers went still.

"He's cheap?"

Michelle laughed out loud.

"No. Because from day one he knew you'd approached him on purpose."

The smile drained off my face, bit by bit.

"What do you mean?"

"Four years ago, the first time you turned up at the Hillcrest Estates, he had you looked into."

"Including how you changed your flower delivery route at the last minute. Including how you fed the same litter of cats for three months straight."

"Including how your adoptive mother once taught you how to date rich men."

The chill spread slowly down my back.

Michelle watched me.

"He knew all of it."

Footsteps sounded at the door. There was no telling how much Oliver had heard.

I looked at him.

"Is it true?"

Michelle read the room and left.

On her way out, she left that fifty-million check on the table.

Oliver's eyes swept over it and his face went cold at once.

"She gave you that? You took it?"

"No."

His expression eased a little.

"At least you still know where the line is."

I suddenly wanted to laugh.

"So you knew all along?"

He didn't play dumb.

"I knew."

"Since when?"

"Before I ever asked for your number."

I stared at him.

"Then why did you get involved with me at all?"

Oliver was quiet for a moment.

"Thought it was interesting."

Something jabbed at my chest.

"And after that?"

"After that I decided you weren't in it for the money."

He looked at me.

"You never once asked me for anything luxury."

"The card I gave you, you barely used."

"Every time I gave you something worthless, you were happy."

I finally understood.

So in those four years, every time I was moved because he'd made something with his own hands.

In his eyes, it was all proof I'd passed the test.

My throat went dry, but I still smiled.

"So what about that clay cup?"

"You did that on purpose?"

Oliver frowned.

"On purpose how?"

"For my birthday, your sister got over ten million in jewelry."

"I got a cup that had cracked three times. Were you waiting to see whether I'd turn my nose up at it?"

He didn't answer, but the silence was answer enough.

"And the canvas bag?"

"Tilda."

"Answer me."

He finally lost his patience.

"Yes."

"Wesley Monroe told me at the time that you'd stared at that bag for a long while."

"I just wanted to know whether you liked the bag, or liked me."

The air went still. My eyes stung fiercely, but not a single tear came.

Oliver must have sensed something was wrong. He reached out to pull me toward him.

"It was all so long ago. Why are you dredging this up now?"

I dodged his hand.

"Oliver, do you feel like you've won?"

His brows knit hard.

"The Tilda from four years ago who wanted to hook a rich man never got a cent out of you. She actually fell for you instead."

"Doesn't that make you feel so accomplished?"

"I never thought that."

"But that's exactly what you did."

I picked up the fifty-million check off the table and tore it in two right in front of him.

Oliver froze.

Then I opened the drawer and pulled the clay cup, the one that had cracked three times, from the very back.

A piece had chipped off the rim.

I'd taught myself kintsugi and mended it, bit by bit.

There was the one-sixty-eight canvas bag too.

The handle had snapped once; I'd sewn it back myself. One by one, I placed them into his arms.

Last, I took the little brass flower off my neck.

Nineteen in materials, and two days he'd spent filing it by hand.

I'd worn it for three years.

"I'm returning these."

Oliver's face finally went white.

"Tilda."

I didn't let him finish.

"I don't want the thirty million. I don't want the greenhouse either."

His pupils shrank sharply.

I looked at him and said it word by word:

"Oliver, haven't you always wanted to prove I didn't love you for the money?"

"Congratulations. Proof successful."

I gave him a small smile.

"This love, now I'm giving that back to you too."

I pulled the door open. For the first time, I didn't wait for him to catch up.

Right before the elevator doors closed, I saw Oliver still standing where he was.

Holding that broken cup I'd used for four years, like he was holding something that had suddenly shattered.