Chapter 15 - The Roses He Finally Wanted
Vincent moved in front of Maggie.
“No.”
She sighed.
“We have discussed this.”
“There may be someone behind that door.”
“Yes. Which is why standing here arguing is inefficient.”
“Maggie.”
She looked at him.
He recognized the expression.
Three months of peace had apparently done nothing to improve her survival instincts.
Vincent opened the door.
A narrow passage led into the neighboring building.
At the end stood a man.
Old.
Thin.
Holding a cardboard box.
Vincent stopped.
Maggie peeked around him.
The man raised both hands.
“Please don't shoot me.”
“I’m considering it,” Vincent said.
“Vincent.”
“Fine.”
The old man introduced himself as Henry Sullivan.
Maggie’s uncle.
Her father’s younger brother.
She had not seen him since childhood.
“What are you doing here?”
Henry looked at the courtyard.
“I owned the building next door.”
“Owned?”
“I transferred it to you this morning.”
Maggie stared.
“What?”
Henry explained that Maggie’s father had helped him buy it decades earlier.
When her father died, Henry promised to preserve it in case Maggie ever needed room to expand.
He had heard about the fire.
About the rebuilding.
And about the engagement.
“So you broke into my engagement ring?”
Henry looked confused.
“What ring?”
Maggie held up the note.
Henry laughed.
“No. I gave the address to your employee and told her to make sure you found it.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
Maggie began laughing.
After months of murder conspiracies, kidnappings, secret ledgers, and coded messages, the mysterious note was about real estate.
Vincent looked personally offended.
“People should stop putting notes in jewelry boxes.”
“I strongly agree.”
Henry gave Maggie the box.
Inside were photographs.
Her father standing in Sullivan’s Flowers decades earlier.
Her mother arranging roses.
Maggie as a little girl asleep beneath the counter.
She covered her mouth.
“I thought these were lost.”
“Your father gave them to me.”
Maggie cried.
Vincent held her.
The neighboring building became Sullivan’s Floral School six months later.
Maggie began teaching young florists.
Anthony invested in a legitimate shipping company and discovered, to everyone’s amusement, that he liked quiet suburban life.
Luca opened a restaurant.
Marco became head of security for Vincent’s remaining companies but was forbidden from intimidating flower customers.
Elena entered counseling and rebuilt relationships with both sons.
The legal investigation into the old Moretti organization continued, but Vincent cooperated fully.
Some inherited businesses were sold.
Others survived.
What remained was smaller.
Cleaner.
Vincent slept better.
He eventually stopped checking beneath his own car.
Not immediately.
But eventually.
The wedding took place one year after the night Sullivan’s Flowers burned.
Maggie refused a hotel ballroom.
She wanted the shop.
So Vincent married her beneath the greenhouse lights.
Sunday wore a bow tie.
Marco’s bow was somehow worse.
Anthony stood beside Vincent.
Elena sat in the front row.
The women from St. Catherine’s occupied an entire section and loudly discussed whether Vincent looked more handsome now than on the day he had delivered roses after being dumped.
He heard every word.
Maggie found this delightful.
When she reached him, Vincent whispered, “They're ruthless.”
“You survived organized crime.”
“Barely.”
“You’ll survive senior citizens.”
“Unclear.”
The ceremony was small.
Warm.
Ordinary.
Exactly what Vincent had once described across a restaurant table before a brick shattered the window.
When the officiant pronounced them husband and wife, Vincent kissed Maggie while everyone applauded.
Then Sunday barked.
Everyone laughed.
At the reception, Maggie noticed something unusual.
Thirty-six red roses sat on the original wooden counter.
The counter had survived the fire only because firefighters had removed it during cleanup.
Maggie approached.
Vincent stood beside the bouquet.
She crossed her arms.
“Who dumped you?”
“No one.”
“Then why thirty-six roses?”
He smiled.
“The first thirty-six were for the wrong woman.”
Maggie touched one bloom.
“And these?”
“The woman I actually wanted.”
“That took you long enough.”
“I was distracted.”
“By being dumped?”
“By an extremely aggressive florist demanding six hundred eighty-four dollars and seventy-two cents.”
Maggie laughed.
“You remember the cents?”
“I remember everything.”
He handed her an envelope.
She immediately narrowed her eyes.
“Should I expect kidnapping coordinates?”
“No.”
“A secret ledger?”
“No.”
“A mysterious relative?”
“Maggie.”
She opened it.
Inside was the original receipt.
Thirty-six red roses.
$684.72.
Maggie stared.
“You kept this?”
“It was the most expensive breakup of my life.”
“You're ridiculous.”
“It was also the best purchase I ever made.”
She leaned against him.
Outside the windows, evening settled over the street.
People laughed inside the shop.
Anthony was attempting to teach Sunday not to steal appetizers.
Marco was losing an argument with three elderly women.
Elena was dancing.
Nobody was watching the door.
Nobody was carrying coded messages.
Nobody was waiting for headlights.
For Vincent, that was perhaps the strangest thing of all.
Peace had once seemed suspicious to him.
Now it felt like home.
Months later, Sunday mornings developed their own routine.
Maggie woke first.
Vincent cooked breakfast badly.
Sunday begged beneath the table.
Sometimes Anthony came over.
Sometimes Elena did.
Sometimes nobody did.
Those mornings were Vincent’s favorite.
One Sunday, Maggie found him standing in the greenhouse staring at the climbing roses.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
He smiled.
She slipped her arms around him.
“What about?”
“The first day.”
“When your girlfriend dumped you?”
“You enjoy that part too much.”
“Immensely.”
Vincent turned.
“I thought losing her was the worst thing that happened to me that week.”
“And?”
“It was the luckiest.”
Maggie kissed him.
Then she pulled away.
“Breakfast.”
“I made pancakes.”
Her expression changed.
“How badly?”
“That's insulting.”
“Vincent.”
“One pan may be permanently damaged.”
She sighed.
“You can run corporations but can't make pancakes.”
“I have people for that.”
“Not anymore.”
He followed her toward the kitchen.
At the doorway, Vincent stopped.
“Maggie?”
She turned.
“What?”
“I love you.”
She smiled.
“I know.”
“That's all?”
“You want a receipt?”
He laughed.
Maggie walked back and kissed him.
“I love you too.”
Sunday barked from the kitchen.
Something crashed.
Maggie closed her eyes.
“My vase.”
Vincent looked toward the noise.
“I’ll buy another.”
“You still have to pay for the roses.”
He stared at her.
Then they both laughed.
Later that afternoon, Maggie placed a fresh bouquet on the counter.
Thirty-six red roses.
Not because someone had apologized.
Not because someone had been abandoned.
Not because somebody needed forgiveness.
Simply because they were beautiful.
Vincent came behind the counter and wrapped his arms around her.
The shop was crowded.
Sunlight spilled through the windows.
The greenhouse was alive with flowers.
Their dog slept beneath the register.
Their wedding photograph stood beside the original receipt.
Maggie rested her head against Vincent’s shoulder.
Once, thirty-six roses had represented the end of something.
Now they marked everything that had begun afterward.
Vincent had spent most of his life believing power meant making people afraid to leave.
Maggie had taught him something simpler.
May you like
The people who mattered stayed because they were free to go.
And Vincent Moretti, who had once walked into a flower shop carrying roses meant for somebody else, finally understood what it meant to bring flowers home.
