Page 107 of The Floral Arrangement

Roz groaned, writhing under me, and a rush of exhilaration washed over me.What a high.Her walls clenched around my thumb and then spasmed. It took all my concentration to keep my fingers moving and the candle still.

“That’s enough! Moo!” She laughed, twisting her hips to extricate them from my hand.

I pulled my hand away, blowing out the candle and placing it on the side table. Then I knelt beside her, running my hand over her back, which was now covered in white bumps. Her cheeks were pink, her breathing heavy.

Roz smiled up at me. “That was amazing, Liv.”

I grinned, lowering my head to kiss her on the back of her neck. “It’s not over yet. Now I get to peel it all off,” I murmured in her ear.

I kissed her neck again, and then slowly worked my way down her back, carefully peeling off the white wax and placing it in a small pile. It was surprisingly satisfying, and gave me yet another excuse to drink in Roz’s body.

Once it was all gone, I rubbed my hands up and down her back a few more times, then lowered myself next to her, looking forward to snuggling into her warm body.

Cold wet sheets met my skin. I bolted upright. “Shit! Your bed is soaked.”

Roz pushed her body up and stared at the large wet patch on the sheet next to her. She laughed. “Whoops. I really should have put a towel down. Things I didn’t think of.” She shuffled over to the other side of the bed and patted the sheet where she’d been lying. “Just come over here for now. I’ve got a mattress protector on so at least it’s not soaking into the mattress. We can change the sheets later.”

I complied, lying down in the spot that had been pre-warmed by Roz’s body, pulling over the duvet and wrapping my arm around Roz’s waist. I gazed into her eyes and smiled. “Well, that was fun.”

“It was more than fun.” Roz ran her fingers through my hair.

We lay there for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth of each other’s bodies.

“Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, why were you so reluctant to ask your parents for the loan?” I asked softly, trailing my fingers over Roz’s smooth stomach. “I get that it’s not always a great idea to do business with family. Is that what was going on, or was it something else?”

Roz sighed, staring up at the flowers arching above us. “There’s a bit of history there. Do you remember the college admissions scandal?” She rolled on her side so that she faced me.

My eyes widened. “Um yes, but no offense, wasn’t that quite a bit after your time at college?”

Roz let out a small puff of air. “The one that got discovered was. My parents tried to do something similar for me and Matt, but they didn’t get caught—at least, not by the authorities. Just by me.”

“Oh shit!” I stared at Roz. “So did they bribe someone or have someone take your tests or something?”

“Bribe,” Roz said, her voice flat. “I used to meet Mom at her office after school sometimes. One day, I arrived early and overheard Mom on the phone saying she’d donate a whole lot of money to a very prestigious college in return for me getting a place there. It was to a college she really wanted me to get into—not my first choice, mind you. And the stupid thing was that I was just fine on my own—I ended up getting offers from a couple of Ivy League colleges on my own merit. But Mom had been worried that I might not get in, so she did what she always did—tried to pull strings.”

I grimaced. “What did you do?”

Roz frowned. “We had a massive falling out. I was furious. It was the final straw in a long history of them trying to use their money and influence to get me and Matt ahead. They’d been doing it on a smaller scale my entire life—expensive presents to my teachers, a sizable donation to build a new library at my high school. I didn’t catch on initially, but some kids at my school did. They used to tease me that my straight As might have more to do with my parents’ money than my academic abilities. I brushed it off as my parents just being generous… until I overheard that call. It made me question whether anything I’d achieved was legitimate, or if it was all just an outcome of my parents’ money. A whole lot of my identity was tied up in my academic success, and it felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me.”

I wrapped my arm around Roz’s waist and gave her a squeeze. “I’m sorry. That must have been really tough.” It explained a lot. With Roz’s parents bribing people behind her back and Sadie love-bombing her, it wasn’t surprising she’d put up walls to protect herself from further hurt.

“Yeah.” Roz let out a breath. “Needless to say, I turned down the place I’d been offered at the college Mom bribed and went to another college that I’d been accepted at without their assistance. I refused to accept any more of my parents’ money. I wasn’t eligible for scholarships because of their wealth, so I took out loans and I got a job to pay my living expenses. While I’d considered becoming a lawyer, I decided to go into management consulting instead to make sure my parents’ names wouldn’t help me get ahead. One of the reasons I was so driven in my job was to prove I could do it without them, as well as make sure I’d never need their help.”

I rubbed her back. “You definitely proved that. Putting yourself through college, working your way up the corporate ladder, being in a position where you could quit and buy a farm...”

Roz gave me a small smile. “Thanks. But I’ll never be able to escape that a lot of my success is still attributable to them, no matter how hard I work. They sent me to the best schools, got me the best tutors when I was struggling, and funded all those extracurricular activities that looked so good on my college applications.”

“It’s good you can acknowledge that, but that’s not your fault. You can’t help what family you’re born into.”

“I know.” Roz brushed my hair from my cheek. “I didn’t speak to my parents for a couple of years, but we eventually reconnected. I know deep down that they were motivated by wanting to do what was best for me, but they just went about it in the completely wrong way. But accepting any form of help from them is still very hard for me.”

“Well, thank you for asking them then.” Given what I’d just heard, it must have taken a lot for Roz to reach out to her parents for the loan.

“I heard what you said. If it had just been my livelihood and money on the line I wouldn’t have done it, but in the end I realized I was putting my pride before you, Dana, Ronnie, and all my other employees, not to mention Lottie and all those other kids and their families who love the farm, and you are all way more important.”

I smiled. “Thank god Fred pulled through.”

“All thanks to you,” Roz murmured, gazing into my eyes. “How are you feeling about telling everyone about us—assuming you want to? It’s okay if you want to keep things quiet for a while.”

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