PART 2:

Somewhere in the building’s 40-year history, on a day that must have felt as gray as this one, her father had made a decision that saved the company. He had written about it once in a letter he never sent, a letter Violet found in his desk drawer the week after his funeral. He had written, “The choice that cost me the most was always the one I avoided the longest.

” She had read that line many times since. She still wasn’t sure she understood it. The flowers were the last thing on her mind when the lobby call came. The Sterling Group lobby was the kind of space that made most people feel smaller than they were. Marble floors, two stories of glass, potted trees that had probably been there longer than some of the staff.

The reception desk was a curved slab of pale stone staffed by two women in matching dark blazers who had mastered the art of looking politely dismissive. Dominic pushed through the revolving door at 8:41 and paused just inside to shake the rain off his jacket with one free hand. He had the bouquet in the other.

Levi came through the door behind him and immediately stepped closer to his father’s side, looking up at the space with wide, careful eyes. The woman at the desk looked up. Her expression was neutral in the way that meant she had already made a judgment. “Can I help you?” “Delivery for Violet Sterling. Prepaid order from Petals and Green.

” “Deliveries go to the mail room on the second floor.” “I have specific instructions that this goes to Miss Sterling directly. It’s a personal item, not a standard order.” The woman at the desk exchanged a brief look with her colleague. It was the kind of look that said they’d seen this before. Men who showed up without appointments, who said things like personal item and specific instructions, who had nice enough faces but wrong-looking shoes.

Mason Reed appeared from the corridor to the left. He was the head of building security, broad across the shoulders, and he moved with the particular ease of a man used to being the largest person in any room. “Sir, do you have a scheduled delivery slot?” “No. I was told this was time-sensitive and needed to reach the CEO before 9:00.

” Mason tilted his head slightly. “Who told you that?” “The flower shop. This is a standing order that was placed in advance by” “I’m going to need you to step back to the door while I check on this.” Levi shifted behind his father. One of the women at the desk whispered something to the other and they both looked at the boy and then at Dominic’s jacket and then at each other again with a very small, shared smile that they didn’t bother to fully hide.

A group of men in expensive suits crossed the lobby without looking in Dominic’s direction. A woman in heels tapped past with a phone pressed to her ear. The revolving door turned behind Dominic and a man in a cashmere coat swept through, was greeted by name, and walked straight to the elevator without breaking stride. Dominic stood where he was and held the flowers and did not move.

Levi heard one of the desk women say something about people who show up expecting to meet the CEO. He heard the word audacious, which he didn’t know, and the word pathetic, which he did. He put his hand in his jacket pocket and held his toy car. The elevator opened and three people came out, Hannah Price walking quickly with a tablet in her hand, Connor Blake in a charcoal suit, and Violet Sterling half a step ahead of both of them with the bearing of someone who had somewhere to be that was more important than wherever she currently was. She saw the flowers

first. Something shifted behind her eyes, a flicker not visible to anyone who wasn’t looking for it. Then she saw the ribbon and the ivory envelope at the center. She kept walking. “Take it to the mail room.” she said, directed at no one and at everyone at the same time. Dominic stepped forward. “Ms.

Sterling, I was asked to deliver this to you personally, and I was told the card should be read before I don’t accept flower deliveries.” Her voice was not unkind. It was simply final. “Whatever the occasion, whatever the sender intended, I don’t accept them. I’m sorry you came all the way here.” Connor Blake glanced at Dominic with faint amusement.

“The CEO’s time is “I know her time is valuable.” Dominic said, still addressing Violet. “I’ll only need a moment. The person who arranged this delivery is someone you knew. The instructions were specific, and they were set up more than a year in advance. I was asked to make sure the card reached you.” Violet turned back. She looked at him.

Really looked this time. The wet jacket, the boy behind him, the bunch of white flowers held with both hands. She looked at his face and whatever she saw there was not what she expected. “Mason.” she said quietly. Mason stepped forward and put a hand on Dominic’s arm. He did it firmly, not roughly, but firmly enough that the flowers shifted.

The ivory envelope slipped from the ribbon, turned once in the air, and landed face up on the marble floor. Levi moved before anyone else. He crouched down and picked it up and straightened, and held it out toward his father, but Violet saw it first. The silver wax seal pressed into a shield shape. Her face went still.

She knew that seal. She had seen it on every piece of correspondence her father had sent to his attorney, on every personal letter she’d found in his desk after he was gone, on the back of cards tucked into gifts he gave her on birthdays. He almost missed, but never quite did. It was his seal. Charles Sterling’s seal.

“Stop.” she said. Mason let go of Dominic’s arm. The lobby had gone quietly alert, the way rooms do when the person in charge of a room changes tone suddenly. The two women at the desk stopped moving. Connor Blake’s expression shifted to something carefully neutral. Hannah stepped slightly forward.

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