The first time another woman told me my husband still belonged to her, she was wearing a necklace worth more than my flower shop.

The bell above the door of Wild June had a high, silver ring that sounded like a bicycle bell in an old French film.

It was eleven in the morning, and the shop was a riot of damp stems, crushed eucalyptus leaves, and the sweet, heavy perfume of gardenias resting in zinc buckets near the back cooler. Light poured through the high, arched windows on Mercer Street, catching the motes of dust and pollen dancing in the cool, humid air.

"He sent them again," Mia announced, emerging from the cold room with an armful of white hydrangeas that looked like cumulus clouds.

"Sent what?" I asked without looking up from the shears in my hand. I was stripping the lower foliage from two dozen pale peach Juliet roses, my thumbs green-stained and smelling of chlorophyll.

"The pastries," Mia said, dropping the hydrangeas into a ceramic tub with a wet thud. She pointed with her chin toward the small zinc counter near the register.

There, sitting in an immaculate white box tied with a thin, unbleached linen string, were four almond croissants from Balthazar. Next to the box was a small, heavy white card with no name, only three words typed in ten-point font: Eat the protein.

"He considers almond paste a protein source," I muttered, shaking my head. "He’s functionally insane."

"He’s a billionaire who remembers you skip breakfast when you have large orders," Mia countered, leaning her hip against the wooden workbench. She crossed her arms, her dark eyes narrowed behind her tortoiseshell glasses. "Claire, you look like you haven't slept since Tuesday. Did you two finally do the thing?"

"What thing?"

"You know what thing. The thing people who are legally married and share an eight-hundred-square-foot master suite usually do after three glasses of pinot noir."

"We have separate rooms, Mia. As per Article Four of the domestic agreement."

"Article Four is a war crime," Mia said flatly. She reached out and snatched a croissant from the box, tearing off the flaky end. "You've been pining after this man since we were juniors at Westchester Prep. You have his high school graduation program hidden in the bottom of your underwear drawer. Now you are literally his wife, he looks like an Italian marble statue that came to life and learned how to trade derivatives, and you're treating him like a roommate who owes you for the wifi."

"He doesn't love me, Mia," I said. My voice was quiet, stripped of the defensive irony I usually wore like armor.

The shears snapped through a thick rose stem with a sharp, clean sound.

"He married me because his father was trying to sell Whitmore Capital to a private equity firm that would have gutted the operational staff," I continued, setting the rose down into the display vase. "He needed the voting shares from his grandfather’s trust. The trust stipulated that he had to be married by thirty-five or wait until forty. I was available. I was familiar. I wasn't going to sue him for half his assets because we signed a prenuptial agreement that could survive an artillery strike."

"And what about Victoria?"

The name hung in the damp air of the flower shop like a drop of ink in clean water.

Mia wiped her fingers on her apron, her expression turning serious. "She was at the Carlyle yesterday having lunch with Beatrice Van der Bilt. My sister’s cousin works the reservation desk. She told three people at the table that Ethan was just going through a 'domestic phase' because his grandfather’s death upset him, and that the marriage wouldn't survive the spring."

"She's probably right," I whispered.

"Claire, look at me." Mia stepped around the counter, grabbing both my wrists, forcing me to drop the pruning shears onto the zinc table. "The man sends breakfast every morning at ten. He had the entire drainage system of this building overhauled two weeks ago because you mentioned the basement smelled damp after heavy rains. Do you think a man who views you as a 'strategic asset' calls the city sewer authority at six in the morning to threaten their regional manager with an injunction?"

"He likes systems to function efficiently," I said, looking at the green stains on my thumbs. "He hates leaks."

"He loves you, you idiot."

Before I could answer, the silver bell above the front door rang.

A courier in a dark blue uniform stepped into the shop, holding a low, broad parcel wrapped in heavy black paper and tied with a wide silver ribbon.

"Claire Summers?" the courier asked, glancing at his handheld terminal.

"Yes."

"Delivery from Calder House. Sign on the line, please."

I signed the screen with a trembling finger. The courier set the parcel on the wooden table, tipped his cap, and stepped back out into the Mercer Street foot traffic.

Mia leaned in, her eyes wide. "That’s Calder House stationery. That’s the gala tonight."

I carefully untied the silver ribbon. The heavy black paper fell away to reveal a rigid white box lined with grey tissue. Inside, resting against the silk, was an evening dress of deep, midnight-blue silk velvet. It had a square neckline, long, tapered sleeves, and a skirt that felt like liquid weight between my fingers.

Beneath the dress was a handwritten card on heavy cream cardstock.

This time, the writing wasn't from a typewriter. It was Ethan’s sharp, decisive hand:

The society committee sent the seating charts this morning. Victoria is at Table Four. We are at Table One.