Where the Blooms End, Spring Returns

The year I turned seven, a single woman took me home from the orphanage. From the time I was small, my adoptive mother taught me one thing: "When you're with a rich man, the worst mistake you can make is falling for real." "While he loves you, he'll talk feelings. It's only when he stops loving you that he'll talk money." The year I turned twenty-three, I went out to the Hillcrest Estates to deliver flowers. That was when I saw Oliver Stephens climb out of his Maybach and crouch by the roadside in the rain, feeding a stray cat.