Garrett had always preferred the second kind.
By the time I reached my office that evening, he had been waiting almost forty minutes.
Jenna texted me twice while I was driving.
The first message was practical.
Garrett is here. He says he needs to speak with you.
The second arrived eight minutes later.
He won’t leave. I told security.
Then, just before I turned into the underground garage:
He brought flowers.
I stared at those three words at a red light.
Of course he had.
Flowers were Garrett’s favorite shortcut through a locked door.
He sent them when he missed dinners.
He sent them after saying something cruel in front of friends.
He sent them after an argument where he had spoken over me for forty minutes and then accused me of being unwilling to communicate.
He sent them once after telling a junior designer on my team that her presentation voice sounded “provincial.”
When I confronted him, he insisted he had been helping her.
The next morning, three dozen white roses appeared at my office.
Not for the young designer.
For me.
The card read:
I hate fighting with you.
That was Garrett’s version of remorse for years.
Not:
I was wrong.
Not:
I hurt someone.
Not:
I will change.
I hate that my behavior has produced unpleasant consequences for me.
At the time, I called it complicated.
I parked.
For several minutes, I stayed inside the car.
My hands rested on the steering wheel.
The garage was quiet except for the distant mechanical hum of ventilation.
I could go upstairs.
I could leave.
I could call my attorney and have security remove him.
All three options belonged to me.
That realization still felt new.
For eight years, every problem with Garrett had begun with a different question.
What response would make him least angry?
Not what did I want.
Not what was safe.
Not what was fair.
What would reduce the temperature?
My marriage had trained me into emotional fire prevention.
Garrett’s anger entered a room and everyone started moving furniture away from it.
Including me.
Especially me.
I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror.
No makeup left around my eyes.
Hair pulled back carelessly.
The woman staring at me looked older than she had two nights earlier.
Or maybe less edited.
I thought of Miriam upstairs in my guest room that morning, her leg dark with bruising.
I thought of Garrett outside the gate saying:
I barely touched her.
Then Evelyn in my sitting room.
He asked me to put your mother in her place.
Then:
I wanted you to stop disappearing inside it.
I still hated her for that sentence.
Not because it was false.
Because it was partly true, and she had purchased the truth with my mother’s humiliation.
I opened the car door.
Upstairs, my office occupied the top two floors of a renovated warehouse I had bought six years earlier when my firm outgrew our original space.
The lobby smelled faintly of wood, coffee, and the lilies Jenna insisted on ordering every Monday.
Glass walls separated meeting rooms.
Fabric samples covered one side of the design library.
Scale models of finished projects lined the corridor.
This place had existed before Garrett became part of my company’s social orbit.
That mattered now.
I had built something he had never owned.
The elevator opened.
Jenna was standing behind the reception desk with her coat still on.
Garrett sat in one of the low leather chairs.
A bouquet of white roses lay across his knees.
White roses.
My favorite when we were dating.
I had stopped loving them years ago.
Not because anything dramatic happened.
I simply changed.
At thirty-four, I discovered peonies at a florist in Santa Barbara while visiting a client.
Huge, ridiculous flowers.
Soft pink.
Almost too full to hold themselves together.
I told Garrett that night over dinner.
“New favorite,” I said.
He nodded while checking an email.
Every anniversary after that, he sent white roses.
May you like
At first I thought it was sentimental.
Later I realized he had stopped updating me.
Garrett was beautiful.
That sounds strange to admit after everything.
But cruelty does not rearrange a man’s face into something easier to hate.
He still had the same dark hair.
Same gray eyes.
Same controlled mouth that could produce a smile at exactly the right moment.
Same shoulders beneath an expensive navy suit.
Same hands I had watched button shirts, cut pancakes, tie luggage tags, stroke my back when I was sick.
Truth does not conveniently erase attraction.
Sometimes the body recognizes a person long after the mind has decided he is no longer safe.
Jenna stood.
“Alessia.”
“It’s okay.”
Her eyes moved toward Garrett.
“No, it isn’t.”
For some reason, that nearly made me cry.
Not the threat.
Not the flowers.
Jenna’s refusal to call something okay just because I wanted to manage it.
I touched her arm.
“Go home.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Security knows he’s here.”
“I know.”
“They’re downstairs.”
“Good.”
Garrett’s jaw moved slightly.
He hated that conversation.
Not enough to interrupt.
He knew there was a camera.
He knew this was my office.
He knew there were people downstairs.
Consequences mattered.
Jenna collected her bag.
At the elevator, she looked back.
“If you need me, call.”
“I will.”
The doors closed.
Silence.
Garrett rose.
He held out the flowers.
“I thought we’d talk.”
I looked at them.
Then at him.
“Why are you here?”
“Because you’re not answering me.”
“That should tell you something.”
“Alessia.”
“Don’t.”
His mouth tightened.
Then relaxed.
I watched the transition happen.
Anger hidden.
Concern activated.
The public Garrett returning.
“I was terrified last night.”
I almost admired the nerve.
“You were terrified?”
“I have never seen you like that.”
“You saw me after you kicked my mother.”
His face hardened.
“I did not kick her.”
I said nothing.
For years, I would have argued.
Now silence did the work.
He corrected himself.
“I didn’t intentionally kick her.”
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