Chapter 1
I spent seven years standing by my husband Rowan, from the day he founded his tiny startup to the day it went public and made the Fortune 500.
And for those seven years, I crafted custom scents just for him. When he was drowning in depression, crippled by insomnia, and shutting everyone out, I held his hand through every dark moment. The worst year, he collapsed and ended up in the ICU. I stayed by his bedside 24/7 and developed the perfect custom scent to calm his nerves.
What he never knew was that those perfumes had completely rewired his body. It now only responded to me and my signature scent. Seven years of constant exposure had trained his nervous system to crave that exact fragrance down to the last nerve ending. With his condition only half-cured, going without it would send him spiraling—irritable, plagued by splitting headaches, even prone to frantic outbursts.
Rowan fell asleep with that fragrance and pulled himself back from the brink with it. He once looked at me and said, "Lilian, you're my salvation."
He squeezed my hand and swore that for every bottle of perfume I ever made, he would be the first to smell it.
But once he blew up as a hotshot young entrepreneur, he started leaving before dawn and coming home long after midnight—half the time, he didn't come home at all.
I'd set out freshly blended vials for him, hoping he'd take a whiff and smile, telling me what notes he picked up, how it made him feel. But every time, he'd just close his eyes, exhausted, and say, "I'm tired. I can't handle anything that strong right now."
I understood how drained he was. My heart ached for him, so I never brought it up again.
That changed when I got an invitation to a perfume launch.
There, I watched Rowan take a huge bouquet of jasmine from his assistant and breathe it in slowly, savoring it. My chest tightened. Three months earlier, he'd tossed me his clothes covered in jasmine pollen, and I'd had an allergic reaction that lasted two days.
He'd told me he brushed against jasmine by accident.
I'd believed him.
Now I stood there watching him laugh and smile as he followed his assistant around, sniffing bouquet after bouquet, bottle after bottle—he even leaned in to catch the scent of her hair, grinning the whole time.
For four hours, he never left her side, and that warm, easy smile never slipped. It hit me like a punch. He wasn't too tired at all. He just couldn't be bothered to smell my perfume.
I didn't confront him. I left early.
That same night, I accepted an offer from a renowned French perfumery. In five days, I would start as their long-term consultant.
Before I left for the job, I slipped off the wedding ring I'd worn for seven years. If he didn't want to smell my perfumes anymore, it was time I found a new client. And it was time he learned what it felt like to quit a seven-year fragrance addiction cold turkey.
*****
Rowan didn't get home until midnight. He was still wearing the same suit, dusted with jasmine pollen and heavy with a jumble of other scents. I lay in bed, listening to his footsteps get closer.
Right before his usual goodnight kiss, I snapped my eyes open, pulled away, and rolled to the far side of the bed.
He froze for a split second, then smiled casually. "Still awake? Mm." He tried to lean in again, and I shifted farther away.
I covered my nose and frowned. "You smell like jasmine."
Rowan went quiet for two seconds. His gaze landed on the launch invitation on the nightstand. "You went to the launch too?"
"Mm. It was way too crowded. I didn't go inside."
I caught him quietly exhaling in relief. It was obvious he had just confirmed I hadn't seen him at the event.
He tugged off his coat and started toward the bathroom, explaining as he went. "The event had all kinds of scents mixed together, and there were flowers everywhere. I must have picked it up by accident."
I said nothing.
"Oh, right, the perfume in my office ran out again. Can you mix a few more bottles for me to take tomorrow?" he added over his shoulder. "And the bedroom diffuser is due for a refresh too."
Seven years. I'd heard those exact lines more times than I could count. His office, his study, his car—every space he spent time in had my custom blends.
I'd studied psychology and sleep medicine and ran hundreds of trials to perfect them—formulas specifically designed to calm his nerves. I'd tweaked formulas and taken so many notes that every cue for when to switch scents was burned into my brain. A flicker in his expression, one tiny shift in mood, and I knew exactly which fragrance he needed.
But right then, I just stared at his tired face, breathing in that cloying mess of scents clinging to him, and didn't move. He'd spent the entire launch glued to Tonia Jackson, sniffing every bouquet and sample she held out—even her hair—over and over again.
Now he'd walked straight into our bedroom reeking of foreign scents and jasmine pollen I'm allergic to, like it was nothing. And he still had the nerve to ask me to prep his custom scents and swap the diffuser?
I was eerily calm. I almost wanted to laugh. Eight years of knowing each other, seven years of marriage, and he'd finally decided to reach for other scents on his own. But would his overly conditioned nerves be able to handle that?
"I'm tired. You can swap it yourself."
He froze mid-motion, halfway through pulling his shirt off. "What?"
"You know where I keep the scents." I pushed myself off the bed and headed for the door. "If you need to swap scents in the future, just grab them from my perfumery. There's still stock there."
He stared hard, his eyebrows knitted together. "Lilian, what are you mad about? Is it the scent on me?"
I stopped in the doorway and said nothing.
He stepped closer, his voice rough with exhaustion as he tried to soothe me. "You know how insane my schedule is. I'm exhausted. It's just a little scent on my clothes. Do you have to be so unreasonable?"
I lifted my head to meet his gaze. "I just don't want to have an allergic reaction."
He clammed up immediately, like he'd just remembered my severe jasmine allergy. "It won't happen again. Lilian, my schedule's lighter next week. I'll help you mix perfumes, okay?" Guilty, he offered what he clearly thought was a generous peace offering. "I can even go with you to pick out new perfumery supplies."
He was offering to do two things for me. Was I supposed to be thrilled? A few years ago, I would have been over the moon. I would have run into his arms and pressed a giddy kiss to his cheek. I would have cleared my entire schedule to match his, mapped out our route, planned every detail, booked our favorite restaurant, and had everything arranged perfectly. Even if he'd been called away halfway through for work, I would have talked myself down. It's fine, I'd tell myself. He tried his best. That's enough.
But today? I watched him at that launch, glued to Tonia, not looking tired once as he sniffed every bouquet and sample she handed him. He even smiled when he leaned in to catch the scent of her hair. Turns out the one tiny thing I'd begged him for every day, was something he could do without thinking twice, just not for me.
I didn't feel a flicker of excitement. I just stared at him.
Rowan waited a beat.
He must have taken my silence as agreement, because the tension in his face eased. "Don't forget to make a few extra bottles, okay? And make the bedroom scent a little lighter this time." With that, he turned and headed for the bathroom.
The water started running.
I walked over to my vanity. Then I opened my laptop and stared at the consulting offer that had been sitting in my inbox for two days:
Marseille, France.
Long-term consultant. Fully flexible schedule.
Departure in five days.
At the bottom, the blank signature field already had my name typed in.
I curled my fingers around the mouse, hovering over confirm.
Rowan's voice drifted from the bathroom: "Lilian, pick out a suit for me, would you? I need it for the partnership meeting tomorrow."
I kept my eyes on the screen and clicked.
A pop-up flashed.
Five days from now, I will officially start as a long-term consultant in France.
Rowan was still calling me from the bathroom. I closed my laptop, turned, and walked out of the room.
For the first time ever, I didn't answer.
Starting tonight, he would have no choice but to abruptly end a seven-year fixation with perfume.
