CHAPTER 7. White Orchids
816 Words
Inside lay a single stem of white orchids. Not a bouquet. Not an extravagant arrangement. Just one perfect stem, long and elegant, wrapped in smoke-colored tissue. Beneath it, a card.
Elena stared without touching it. Marissa made an impatient sound.
“Well?”
Elena picked up the card. The handwriting was precise, controlled.
For your table. Since I interrupted your flowers. — N.O.
Silence.
“Oh, that bastard is good,” Marissa whispered, reverent.
Elena kept staring. Not because the message was sweeping—it wasn’t. No apology dressed as charm, no florid explanation. That was what made it dangerous. Thoughtful. Restrained. He had noticed the flowers. Remembered them. Sent something elegant enough to feel accidental if she wanted to lie. Which she did not.
Marissa reached for the card. Elena snatched it back.
“That tells me everything I need to know,” Marissa said.
“It tells you nothing.”
“It tells me he was thinking about you after he left.”
“That is not nothing,” Elena muttered.
She carried the orchid to the counter, setting it beside the vase of ranunculus she’d bought herself two days earlier. The white bloom changed the whole arrangement without trying.
“So. What now?” Marissa asked, coffee in hand.
“Nothing now.”
“That sounds fake.”
“It isn’t. I’m not doing anything.”
“Are you going to thank him?”
Elena hesitated. “I don’t have his number.”
Marissa’s expression turned smug. “Ah. So if you did—”
“No.”
“That was fast.”
“It was honest.”
Elena picked up the card again. For your table. Not for the conversation. Not for upsetting you. For your table.
The phrasing bothered her. It was deliberate. Domestic. Private. A thing she might like in a room no one else saw. Far more intimate than apology.
“You’re doing the thing,” Marissa said.
“What thing?”
“Staring at a flower like it contains classified information.”
“It might.”
Marissa laughed. The sound pulled something loose in Elena’s chest. Beneath it, the morning felt tilted, as if last night had opened a door she was not prepared to walk through—and this orchid was him quietly setting a hand against the frame. Not pushing. Just reminding her it was there.
Her phone buzzed. Both women looked.
Marissa gasped. “If that’s him, I’m staying.”
“It’s not him.”
Unknown number. Elena opened it:
I’m told flowers should not arrive without context. The orchids were not an apology. They were acknowledgment. — N.
Elena stared. Marissa nearly dropped her mug.
“You are being unbearable,” Elena said.
“No, I’m correct,” Marissa said, leaning across the table. “Read it again.”
Elena refused. The message was worse. Or better. They were not an apology. They were acknowledgment.
Acknowledgment meant: I know what happened. I know you saw something. I know I left. I know this still exists. Her pulse turned slow and unhelpful.
Marissa grinned. “So he found your number.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“No, but it is hot.”
Elena set the phone down and walked to the window. Rain blurred the street below. The city went on as if nothing had shifted. But something had.
“What are you thinking?” Marissa asked.
“This is a terrible idea.”
“Probably.”
“Men like him don’t send things like this unless something got under their skin.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s not necessarily a good thing.”
“That too.”
Marissa softened. “Do you want my real opinion?”
“No, but you’ll give it anyway.”
“I will. Be careful. And I think you already know that. But you haven’t looked this awake in months.”
Awake. Not happiness. Not safety. Awareness, restless and alive. A man had unsettled her in a way threaded with recognition instead of dread.
Her phone buzzed again.
You don’t need to answer. I’m aware that makes this inconveniently one-sided. — N.
Elena laughed before she could stop.
“He’s impossible,” she said.
Marissa straightened. “Read it.”
Elena did. Marissa put a hand over her heart. “Oh, he’s worse than I thought.”
“Worse?”
“Competent.”
Marissa grabbed her bag. “Text him or don’t. But stop pretending you’re unaffected. It insults us both.”
The door shut.
Elena looked at the orchid. Then the card. Then the phone. Slowly, she typed:
Acknowledgment received. The flower is beautiful. Thank you.
She stared at the words three seconds before hitting send. Then she stood very still, listening to the rain and her heartbeat. Because now the silence between her and Nikolai Orlov was no longer empty. Now it was waiting.
- Writer
