Every year on our anniversary, Vincent would send me 999 roses. This year, my four-year-old niece, Lily, was visiting. She was absolutely captivated by the enormous bouquet. Suddenly, she scampered over, tugging on my sleeve. “Auntie Maria,” she chirped, “there are nine hundred and ninety-eight flowers, right?” 1 I paused, then smiled, ruffling her hair. “No, sweetie, you miscounted. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine.” Lily pouted. “Nuh-uh! It’s nine hundred and ninety-eight!” Seeing the determination in her eyes, I knew I couldn’t just dismiss her. You have to show a child, not just tell them. “Alright then,” I said with a playful grin. “How about we count them all again, together? We’ll see who’s right.” Lily nodded eagerly. Twenty minutes later, I stared at the sea of roses spread across the floor. Nine hundred and ninety-eight. I felt a strange blankness. How could one be missing? Lily clapped her hands in triumph. “Auntie was wrong!” Snapping back to the present, I forced a smile. “You’re right, Lily-bug. You’re so smart! As a reward, how about a cookie tart?” She nodded so fast her head bobbed like a little bird. That evening, my sister Sophia came to pick up Lily. As she stood in the doorway, holding her sleeping daughter, she looked at me intently. “Ellie, is something wrong?” I flinched slightly but shook my head. Sophia didn’t press, just told me to call her if I needed anything. After I closed the door, the house fell silent. The last rays of the sunset spilled through the window, painting the floor in gold, but I was in no mood to appreciate it. I just sat on the sofa, lost in thought. It was just one rose. It was probably just a careless mistake at the florist. A simple miscount during packaging. But a knot of unease tightened in my gut. I couldn't shake it. Night had fully fallen when Vincent finally came home. The house was dark. “Maria?” he called out, flipping the light switch. When the room flooded with light, he saw me on the sofa. “Hey, why are you sitting in the dark?” Before I could answer, he noticed the scattered roses on the floor. His brow furrowed in surprise. “What happened here? Did you take them apart?” I stood up, taking his jacket from him. “Lily did. She wanted to count them.” Vincent froze for a second. “Funny thing,” I continued, my voice carefully neutral. “There were only nine hundred and ninety-eight. One was missing.” He was unbuttoning his cuffs, his head bowed, so I couldn't see his expression. After a moment, he looked up, shrugging it off. “The florist must have messed up. I’ll buy you another one tomorrow to make up for it.” He leaned in, kissed my forehead, and headed for the shower. I stood there, rooted to the spot. A scent lingered on him, not his usual cologne, but a pure, complex fragrance—a mix of countless different flowers. My heart clenched. A moment later, I found myself pulling his phone from his jacket pocket. In five years of marriage, I had never once checked Vincent’s phone. I’d always believed that a relationship without basic trust wasn't worth having. This was the first time. I knew myself too well. If I didn't put this doubt to rest, it would fester, becoming an unhealable crack in our marriage. His passcode was my birthday. It had never changed. I opened his messages and quickly found the contact for the florist. The name was "Alicia," with a little hand-drawn sunflower as the profile picture. I tapped open their chat. The conversation was clean—just orders for bouquets, straightforward questions and answers. Nothing overtly flirtatious. But then I scrolled up. And up. My finger froze. He had been ordering from her for the last three years. That, in itself, wasn't the problem. Vincent was a creature of habit; once he found something he liked, he stuck with it. The problem was that he had kept their entire chat history. Three full years of it. Vincent had a quirk: he obsessively deleted his chat logs to keep things tidy. It had once caused him to lose an important file and nearly torpedo a project. After that, he’d tried to be more careful, but he still rarely kept a conversation thread for more than a week. I was the only exception. From our first date to this very day, he had saved every single one of our messages, meticulously backing them up whenever he got a new phone. And now, there was a second exception. My hand started to tremble. Sometimes, a woman's intuition is terrifyingly accurate. Taking a deep breath, I clicked on Alicia’s social media profile. It was mostly ads for her flower shop, but one post stood out. It was a photo of a slender hand holding a single rose. The caption read: Even a sliver of your heart is a precious gift. It was posted on our anniversary. Vincent hadn't replied, but he had liked it. In that instant, a chilling cold seeped into my bones, as if I’d been plunged into a frozen lake. I don’t know how long I stood there. Vincent came out of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry. He saw me with his phone and paused. Then he grinned, a teasing light in his eyes. “Maria, finally getting curious enough to check my phone?” 2 I turned to face him. There wasn’t a shred of guilt on his face, only playful amusement. For a split second, I felt a desperate urge to believe I was overthinking it all. I took a steadying breath, refusing to be pulled into a spiral of suspicion and anxiety. I held up the phone, showing him Alicia's post. “One rose was missing from my bouquet,” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “And this post was made on our anniversary.” I locked eyes with him. “Vincent, I need an explanation.” He looked genuinely surprised. “Honey, it’s just a coincidence.” “You liked her post,” I countered, my voice hardening. “And you’ve saved three years of your chat history with her.” The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating. Finally, he sat down beside me, taking my hand. He sighed. “Maria, it’s not what you think.” “I saved the chat history to track orders,” he explained. “They messed up an order once and wouldn’t admit it, so I started keeping the logs as proof. As for the ‘like,’ it was just a mindless scroll. I probably didn’t even read the caption.” I said nothing. The excuse sounded plausible on the surface. But I knew Vincent. He had a visceral disdain for incompetence. He’d once transferred his own executive assistant for making a single, minor error. For Vincent to break his own rules for someone meant they were special. Seeing my silence, his brow furrowed. “Maria, don’t you have even a little faith in me?” I looked at him, my voice soft but firm. “If that’s the case, then delete her contact. We can find a new florist. That shouldn’t be a problem, right?” His expression shifted. “Maria, you really don’t trust me, do you?” I just stared at him, my silence an unyielding demand. His face contorted with a flicker of emotions before settling into a cold mask. He shot up from the sofa, his voice hard with what sounded like petulance. “Fine! Do whatever you want!” I nodded. Right there, in front of him, I deleted "Alicia" from his contacts. His face grew even darker. “Are you satisfied now?” he snapped. I didn't answer. He snatched the phone back and stormed into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him with a resounding bang. The fight went out of me, and I sank back onto the sofa, only then noticing how violently my hands were shaking. I stared at the closed bedroom door, a bitter smile twisting my lips. Was he angry because I’d overstepped? Or because I’d uncovered a secret he wasn't ready to face? The next few days were a blur of icy silence. We were in a cold war. He didn’t try to coax me out of my anger like he usually would, and I didn’t press him further about Alicia. In my heart, I knew they probably hadn’t crossed a physical line. But they had absolutely shattered the boundaries of a normal professional relationship. On the tenth day of our standoff, I came home from work to find Vincent in the kitchen, wearing an apron. The aroma of cooking filled the air. He heard the door and turned, offering me a small smile as if the past ten days of tension had never happened. “Wash up. Dinner’s almost ready.” I stood there for a moment before turning toward the bathroom. As I passed the dining table, I stopped. There was a new bouquet of flowers, the brand card from a different, well-known florist dangling conspicuously, as if placed there for me to see. It wasn't from Alicia's shop. I understood immediately. This was his peace offering. His way of surrendering. I stood there for a long moment before taking the flowers and arranging them in a vase. When I came out of the bathroom, dinner was on the table. All my favorites. I stared at the spread, a wave of nostalgia washing over me. The last time Vincent had cooked for me was years ago, back when he was just starting his company. We’d poured every penny we had into the business. There was a time we were so broke, we’d stretch a single packet of ramen with plain noodles, just to have enough for two. He would always pick out all the flavored ramen bits and put them in my bowl. I’d been so moved back then. Thinking about it now, it was both pitiful and sweet. Then his company took off. He’d taken me to the finest restaurants, and we never had to huddle over a tiny table sharing a bowl of noodles again. But sometimes, I missed those days. Not the hardship, but the fierce, all-consuming love we had for each other back then. Now, we were on different career paths, shining in our own separate worlds. We had less and less to talk about. Maybe neither of us had noticed, but the moment our conversations started to dwindle, the first cracks in our marriage had already appeared. 3 The cold war between Vincent and me ended unspoken over that dinner. It wasn’t forgiveness. It was the weary compromise of adulthood, the necessity of turning a blind eye. If I were twenty, I would have slapped him across the face and walked out without a backward glance. But I was twenty-nine. The law firm I’d co-founded was in its crucial startup phase. Our partnership with Vincent’s company was a strategic move that maximized our profits. So, as long as he didn’t cross my ultimate line, I wouldn't burn everything to the ground. I thought the incident was behind us. But two weeks later, while reviewing a case with a client, a wave of nausea hit me so hard I had to run to the bathroom, gagging over the toilet. A dreadful premonition washed over me. A trip to the doctor confirmed it. I was pregnant. I sat on the hard bench in the hallway, staring at the ultrasound report with a storm of emotions churning inside me. I was over two months along. The doctor said the baby was healthy. But the timing couldn't have been worse. After a long while, I crumpled the report in my fist and took a deep, steadying breath. This wasn't a decision I could make alone. Vincent was the father. He had a right to know, a right to be part of the choice. As I walked out of the clinic, the sun warm on my shoulders, a sliver of hope flickered within me. Maybe this was the universe giving us a chance to fix what was broken. I drove to his office. The young woman at the front desk recognized me, smiling brightly. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Hamilton.” I nodded, but my eyes were drawn to a long table against the wall. I froze. On the table sat a large cardboard box filled with single-stem roses, individually wrapped. The receptionist, skilled at reading people, noticed my gaze. “Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day,” she explained cheerfully. “Mr. Hamilton ordered a rose for every woman in the company. We just pick one up on our way out.” I barely heard her. My eyes were glued to the familiar, hand-drawn sunflower logo printed on the side of the box. After a moment that felt like an eternity, I managed to tear my gaze away. “Does he do this every year?” I asked, my voice a dry rasp. She thought for a second. “He started about three years ago.” A hammer slammed into my chest, the impact stealing my breath. An indescribable, acidic bitterness flooded my heart. I forced a weak smile and headed for the elevator. I was about to knock on Vincent’s office door when it swung open from the inside. A young, beautiful woman stepped out, a radiant smile on her face that instantly froze when she saw me. Silence. We stared at each other, no words needed. We both knew exactly who the other was. The silence drew Vincent’s attention. When he saw me, his face went pale. He instinctively moved to stand in front of Alicia, shielding her. “Maria, it’s not what you think,” he began, his words tumbling out in a rush. “She was just delivering the flowers. The Valentine’s order was placed ages ago, it couldn’t be canceled…” I held up a hand, cutting him off. “Vincent, stop. The excuses are just making you look pathetic.” His face darkened, as if I’d just insulted his very core. Before he could retort, Alicia stepped forward, her chin held high in defiance. “Ms. Bishop, that’s a horrible thing to say,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “Mr. Hamilton and I have nothing to be ashamed of!” She bit her lip, then turned to look at Vincent with an expression of pure, heartbreaking adoration. “It’s all me. I’m the one who loves him, but he’s never once led me on. His heart belongs only to you! He’s a wonderful man, Ms. Bishop. You should treasure him.”
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