Neglected and Humiliated by My Husband (Billionaire Marriage in Crisis #26)

Prologue

Maren

“We’re closed,” I call out, shoving a bucket of dahlias to the left so I can reach the roses behind them.

My aunt would kill me if she saw the state of this cooler.

Everything’s shoved in wrong, stems crushed against the glass, and I’ve been meaning to fix it for three days.

“Hours are on the door. We open at nine tomorrow.”

“I need twelve centerpieces.”

Now I look up.

He’s standing in the middle of my aunt’s shop like he’s not sure how he got there, like maybe the door opened and the universe just deposited him inside.

Tall. Dark hair that’s been pushed back from his face one too many times tonight, based on the way it’s starting to rebel.

Dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, tie loosened, and the kind of exhaustion in his eyes that suggests he’s been running on caffeine and panic for at least twelve hours.

I straighten up slowly, a half-dead peony still in my hand. “I’m sorry, did you say twelve?”

“Twelve centerpieces.” He says it like he’s confirming a dinner reservation, not asking for a miracle. “By tomorrow afternoon.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. It comes out sharp and incredulous, bouncing off the tile floors and the refrigerated cases and the buckets of flowers that line every available surface. “By tomorrow.”

“I’ll pay triple.”

“Money doesn’t make flowers grow faster.” I toss the peony into the compost bin behind me and wipe my hands on my apron. “And it definitely doesn’t give me an extra set of hands or make the next fourteen hours any longer than they already are.”

He doesn’t leave. He should leave, that’s what people do when you tell them no, especially when they’re asking for something impossible, but instead he just stands there, looking at me like I’m a problem he hasn’t figured out how to solve yet.

“My florist backed out,” he says. “Two hours ago. She called me two hours ago to tell me she can’t do it, and I’ve called every other shop in a fifteen-mile radius, and either they’re not answering or they laughed at me the same way you just did.”

“Sounds like you’ve had a rough night.”

“The event is at four o’clock tomorrow.” He takes a step closer, and I notice his hands, the way he’s flexing them at his sides, like he’s trying very hard not to pace or punch something.

“It’s the first major event at my venue.

The first one that actually matters, that has actual guests who could actually book actual future events, and I can’t have empty tables. ”

“Your venue?”

“The Sinclair.” He says it like I should know what that means. “The old Whitmore building? I bought it last year. Renovated it.”

I do know the Whitmore building. Everyone in the neighborhood knows the Whitmore building, it sat empty for eight years after the previous owners went bankrupt, collecting graffiti and broken windows and the occasional concerning news story about teenagers breaking in on dares.

The idea that someone bought it, let alone renovated it into an event venue, is news to me.

“You bought the Whitmore building,” I repeat.

“I bought the Whitmore building.”

“And turned it into a venue.”

“That’s what I said.”

I lean against the cooler and cross my arms, studying him more carefully now.

He’s young, late twenties, maybe, around my age, and there’s a desperation underneath all that forced calm.

Not because he has money to throw at problems, but because he’s bet everything he has on one idea and he’s watching it wobble.

“Show me,” I say.

He blinks. “What?”

“Show me the venue. Pictures. Whatever you have.” I gesture at his pocket. “You have a phone, don’t you?”

He pulls it out slowly, like he’s not sure this is a trap, and scrolls through his photos until he finds what he’s looking for. When he hands the phone to me, our fingers brush, and I ignore the way my stomach does something stupid in response.

The venue is beautiful. That’s the first thing I notice, he took something that was broken and rotting and somehow turned it into something that makes me want to stand in the middle of it and spin around with my arms out.

High ceilings with original molding, restored hardwood floors, tall windows that let in what looks like incredible natural light.

He’s kept the bones of the old building while making it feel new and warm and inviting.

And then I see the floral concept.

“Oh no.”

“What?”

“This is what she was planning?” I’m swiping through photos now, increasingly horrified. “The florist who backed out?”

“Yes?” He sounds worried now, which is appropriate. “Why, what’s wrong with it?”

“What’s wrong with it.” I hand his phone back and shake my head. “Everything. The color palette is fighting with your wood tones, the arrangements are too tall for the table proportions, and she’s using baby’s breath as a focal point, which should be a criminal offense.”

He stares at me. “I don’t know what any of that means.”

“It means your florist did you a favor by backing out.” I push off from the cooler and walk toward the workroom in the back, my brain already spinning with possibilities.

“If she’d followed through with that concept, you’d have spent your entire event watching people peer around giant floral obstructions to talk to each other. ”

“So you’ll help me?”

I stop in the doorway and look back at him. He’s followed me halfway across the shop, still clutching his phone, and there’s something almost hopeful in his expression now. It makes him look younger. It makes him look like someone who really, really needs this to work out.

“I’ll help you,” I say slowly, “but I’m not making what she planned. I’m doing it my way, and you don’t get to argue with me about it.”

“I don’t care what they look like as long as they exist.”

“Famous last words.” I jerk my head toward the workroom. “Come on. If we’re doing this, you’re helping.”

The workroom is a disaster. I should be embarrassed, but I’m too tired and he’s too desperate, so instead I just shove a pile of ribbon scraps off one of the stools and point at it.

“Sit. Don’t touch anything yet.”

He sits. I start pulling flowers from the cooler, mentally calculating what I have enough of to make twelve matching arrangements by tomorrow afternoon.

The dahlias are good, I got a beautiful shipment in two days ago, deep burgundy and soft peach and a sunset orange that would make a Renaissance painter weep.

Roses in cream and blush. Garden spray roses in the palest pink.

Ranunculus in shades of coral and peach, plus a few white ones for contrast.

I pile everything on the main worktable and start sorting, stripping leaves, checking stems for damage. The man, I still don’t know his name, watches me in silence for about three minutes before apparently deciding that’s long enough.

“I’m Rhodes, by the way.”

“Maren.” I don’t look up from the rose I’m de-thorning. “So how did you end up buying the Whitmore building? That place was a wreck.”

“That’s why I could afford it.” There’s a wry humor in his voice that makes me glance up briefly.

He’s leaned back on the stool, arms crossed, watching me work with what looks like genuine interest. “I had just enough money for a down payment on something nobody else wanted, so I found the least wanted building in the city and convinced a bank to let me try.”

“That’s either very brave or very stupid.”

“The jury’s still out.” He smiles, and it changes his whole face, softens it, makes the exhaustion look more like determination. “But it’s mine. For better or worse.”

I file that away and keep working, but the way he said it sticks with me. The pride and the terror all wrapped up together. The sense that he’s building something from nothing and has no idea if it’s going to work.

I know that feeling. I’ve had that feeling since I was sixteen and started helping my aunt in this shop, since I realized that working with flowers made me feel like the best version of myself, since I started secretly sketching designs for a shop of my own someday, bigger than this one, with more cooler space and a dedicated workspace for events and my name on the door instead of my aunt’s.

“Okay.” I set down my clippers and point at a bucket of greenery in the corner. “Go grab that eucalyptus and bring it here. We’re starting with the base.”

Rhodes retrieves the bucket with more enthusiasm than skill, sloshing water on the floor and nearly tripping over a coil of twine.

I hand him a towel without comment, and he mops up his mess while I start arranging the first base layer of greenery in one of the low ceramic vessels I pulled from the shelf.

“Now what?”

“Now you’re going to strip the leaves off the bottom three inches of every eucalyptus stem.” I demonstrate, sliding my fingers down the stem and pulling the leaves away in one smooth motion. “Like that. The leaves can’t be underwater or they’ll rot and make the water gross.”

He picks up a stem and tries to imitate me. The leaves don’t cooperate. He ends up with a mangled stem, crushed leaves, and an expression of deep personal betrayal.

“This is harder than it looks.”

“Most things are.”

He tries again. And again. By the fourth stem, he’s getting the hang of it, sort of, and I go back to my own work, building the shape of the first arrangement while he processes greenery beside me.

“So how’d you end up here?” he asks after a while. “Working in a flower shop at nine o’clock at night?”

“It’s my aunt’s shop. I’ve been helping her since high school.” I reach for a dahlia and study it, turning it in my fingers to find its best angle. “She had a health scare last year and I took over most of the day-to-day operations. She still owns it, but I run it.”

“Do you like it?”

I pause, dahlia still in hand. It’s a simple question, but the way he asks it, like he actually wants to know, makes me answer honestly instead of deflecting.