“Come!” she shouted.

Gloria and Jessica entered, followed by several more administrative assistants and interns, all of them carrying vases of flowers. People behind them continued to stream through the door, dropping off vases before rushing out again, seeming terrified of her reaction. She, however, watched this parade happen in stunned silence. Gloria held back, her eyes dark and worried, until the two of them were alone.

The vases were enormous, all tied with large, silk ribbons. Each was filled with different arrangements of roses and hydrangeas, all red, all gaudy. Altogether, the flowers covered nearly every surface of her office, their scent heavy and heady in this small room.

“This card came with the flowers,” Gloria said, handing it to her.

“Thank you. You can leave now.”

Gloria practically fled again, slamming the door.

The card was in a thick, creamy envelope lined with velum—heavy, substantial, and soft. She tended to choose exactly this kind of paper—impressive without being tacky, solid, dignified, but also beautiful. She didn’t even have to open it to know who’d sent it.

Inside was a simple card with bold, thick script.

Please Forgive Me.

Love Stuart

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she shook her head, dismissing them, trying to retain her earlier anger. The flowers were ridiculous. He knew her tastes ran to the simple and elegant, not the ostentatious, and this display was exactly that.

Her hands were shaking again when she picked up her office phone, and she struggled to remember how to use it. She needed to push a number for an outside line and couldn’t recall what it was. Normally, she connected through the front desk, but this was a personal call, and that would be unprofessional.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she said, her hands shaking even harder. She slammed the phone down and jumped up, breathing hard. This emotion was strange, overwhelming. The rage was there again, but it was at war with something else now—sadness, happiness? She couldn’t explain it to herself.

Her personal cell phone was somewhere in this room, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d even used it.

Suddenly her office phone rang. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and picked it up.

“Yes?” She tried to convey every bit of her anger in that one word.

“There’s my beautiful lady,” Stuart replied.

She sighed, sitting down in her chair hard, almost collapsing. She could stay angry at the idea of him, but hearing his voice was something else. Still, that hurt was there.

“You can’t buy me off, Stuart.”

He laughed. “You don’t like the flowers?”

“You know I don’t. You did this to piss me off even more. It worked.”

He laughed again, braying nearly, and she couldn’t help her own amusement. But she wouldn’t let him win—not yet, anyway.