Chapter 37
LIV
The elevator doors open on the fourth floor, and I step into the hallway juggling my coffee, laptop bag, and the dry cleaning I picked up on the way.
It's Monday morning, which means I'm mentally running through this week's schedule.
I have an engagement party on Wednesday, final venue walk-through for a wedding on Thursday, and seventeen vendor calls that need to happen before—
I push open the office door and stop dead.
Red roses. Everywhere.
Glass vases cover every available surface. They’re on the conference table, the filing cabinets, the windowsills, the desks, even the floor. They're clustered so densely I can barely see my team behind them.
My office isn't large—we don't need it to be.
Only six people work here full-time: me, Sophie, two junior event coordinators, an accountant, and our social media manager.
Most of the people I employ are freelancers with their own workspaces—florists, photographers, musicians, caterers.
I meet clients in their homes to discuss wedding plans, so we only need a home base for practical reasons.
Storage for samples, a place to make calls, somewhere to handle the administrative side of running a business.
The space itself is simple and functional. White walls, concrete floors, a conference table that doubles as a workspace. Everything is organized and minimal. There’s nothing romantic about it.
Or at least, it wasn’t until someone turned it into a botanical garden.
"Okay." I set my coffee down on the only clear corner of my desk I can find, nearly knocking over a vase in the process.
"What's going on? Who caught their partner cheating?
Husband? Boyfriend? Girlfriend?" I look around at my staff, who are all watching me with varying expressions of amusement.
"Because someone is clearly very, very sorry about something they did.
Which, for the record, doesn't make it okay.
Whoever it is—" I gesture vaguely at the sea of roses, "—dump them.
Immediately. They cheat once, they'll do it again.
They lie once, they'll lie again. That's just human nature. "
Sophie stands up from behind a massive arrangement on her desk. "They're not for any of us, Liv. They're for you."
My stomach drops. "What?"
"You," Sophie repeats. "All of these are for you."
“No... They can’t be. Who would do that?”
But even as I'm saying it, I know exactly who would do something this excessive, this dramatic, this completely over the top. There's only one person who would buy out multiple florists' entire stock of red roses and have them delivered to my office.
Blair.
"The delivery guys showed up at seven-thirty this morning," Jennifer, one of our coordinators, says. "Twelve different florists. It took them forty-five minutes to bring everything up."
"Twelve different florists?" I repeat weakly.
"Apparently one couldn't fill the entire order," Sophie explains. "They apologized. The delivery guys said they’d never seen anything like it. There were supposed to be a thousand stems here but five are missing so..." She shrugs. “Do the math.”
"Jesus Christ," I mutter.
"The building manager called," Sophie adds. "He wanted to know if someone died."
"Only my patience," I say under my breath.
"There's more in the restroom. We couldn’t fit them all in the office." Sophie’s clearly trying hard not to laugh. "It's kind of romantic, though." She sighs dramatically. "In an overwhelming, slightly unhinged kind of way. It definitely makes a statement."
I don't answer, so Sophie continues.
"There’s a card on your desk," she says. "Under that vase to the left of your computer."
I find it—a small white card tucked beneath a vase.
"It’s from Sailor," Jennifer says. "That's what the delivery guys said when they were bringing everything up. 'Delivery for Liv from Sailor.'"
Part of me wants to laugh at the absurdity of it as I pick up the card.
Please call me. I know I don't deserve it, but please.
"Fuck," I say, setting the card back down on my desk. Blair Davis, billionaire entrepreneur who can buy anything she wants, is begging. But she can’t buy me.
"Get rid of them," I say to no one in particular.
The room goes silent. My entire team stares at me like I've gone mad.
"Wait," Amanda, our social media manager, holds up her hand. "Can I at least get a few shots first? This is incredible content."
"No," I say. The last thing I need is Blair seeing photos of her grand gesture on our Instagram, thinking it worked, thinking I'm touched or flattered or whatever reaction she's hoping for. "No photos. Just get rid of them."
"But Liv—" Amanda starts.
"No photos," I repeat firmly.
Then I realize what I've just asked them to do. It's going to take them a while to clear this many roses, and we have a Monday morning meeting in fifteen minutes.
"Actually," I say, scrolling through my phone.
"This isn’t your problem. I'll call the building manager.
He can send someone up to clear them out.
Have them put the vases on the sidewalk.
I'm sure people walking by would be thrilled to pick up free roses. And keep as many as you want for yourselves, as long as they’re not in the way. "