Only One Flower Remains In The End

The night of the World Cup final, my fianc suddenly turned to me with a wager.

If France wins, I will add ten beachfront estates to your bridal gift. His eyes gleamed with a reckless amusement. But if they lose, Harper gets to wear the dress and walk down the aisle in your place in three days. Deal?

I barely had time to furrow my brow before Silas's groomsmen started hyping him up. They laughed, calling him utterly whipped, joking that this was just another extravagant way to spice up our seven-year romance.

After all, everyone in our circle firmly believed France was guaranteed to win.

The smile on Silas's lips did not waver. "So? Do we have a bet?"

He had no idea that just ten minutes ago, I had accidentally overheard a private conversation between him and his best friend on the balcony.

"Come on, man," Carter had laughed, handing him a drink. "Even if you supposedly time-traveled from three years in the future, are you seriously that sure France is gonna choke?"

Silas had simply exhaled a thick cloud of cigar smoke, his tone absolute. "Relax. I know exactly how this plays out."

He had paused, his voice softening into something nostalgic. "Bonnie gets the marriage license, but Harper gets the ceremony. It is the only way to make up for the biggest regret of my past life."

Hearing his voice pull me back to the present, asking for the third time, I finally looked up.

"Deal." My voice was quiet, almost airy.

It did not matter anyway. I was already planning to change the groom.

Hearing my definitive answer, a visible wave of relief washed over Silas's face.

Right at that moment, the sharp click of a key turning in the front door echoed through the penthouse.

I did not need to guess who had a spare key to our home.

It was Harper.

She was the executive assistant who had been by Silas's side the longest. And, according to his balcony confession, the ultimate regret he was determined to fix in this second life.

The second she walked in, the guys immediately started teasing her about the ridiculous bet.

The young girl's cheeks flushed a brilliant crimson. "Come on, guys. Please stop messing with me."

Despite her shy words, the way she looked at Silas was entirely transparent. Her eyes were bright, soft, and entirely devoted.

Silas instinctively shot a nervous glance my way, checking my reaction.

If this were the past, my temper would have flared. Hearing a joke with zero boundaries like that would have made my face drop instantly, and I would have demanded everyone leave.

But tonight, I just quietly took a sip of my sparkling water. I did not even blink.

A tiny, almost imperceptible frown formed between Silas's brows.

Then, the referee's whistle blew on the massive screen. The match had begun.

For the next two hours, the room was consumed by the game. When the final whistle blew, the room went dead silent.

Silas was right. France lost. The Netherlands pulled off a massive upset.

The result was enough to shatter every sports analyst's prediction, but no one in this living room seemed genuinely shocked.

His friends exchanged knowing, exaggerated looks, flashing Silas discreet thumbs-ups.

Silas wore a look of smug satisfaction, though he quickly masked it with a sigh of mock disappointment. He turned to me.

"Well, Bonnie. You lost."

Before I could even open my mouth, Carter jumped in from the sofa.

"Don't tell me the bride is a sore loser now? You guys picked a vintage cathedral veil anyway. Once that thick lace drops over her face, nobody in the pews will even know who the bride is. Right, Bonnie?"

I looked away from them, my eyes landing on the massive engagement portrait of Silas and me hanging on the wall. Suddenly, the vibrant colors of the photo just looked incredibly cheap.

"You are right. I lost."

Every single person in the room smiled, except me.

They immediately turned to Harper, their tones dripping with teasing ambiguity, telling her she better go home and get her beauty sleep so she could be a beautiful bride.

Silas did not correct them. He did not defend me. He just smiled and walked them out to the elevator.

When he came back, he naturally closed the distance between us, reaching out out of habit to pull me into his chest.

I took a smooth step back, avoiding his touch entirely.

"Are you mad?" He let out an amused breath. "You are going to be Mrs. Montgomery. You have to learn how to lose gracefully. Why are you throwing a child's tantrum over a game?"

He tilted his head, his tone softening into a coaxing purr. "Tell you what. I will personally cook your favorite truffle pasta tonight to make it up to you. Sound good?"

Before I could answer, his phone buzzed twice in his pocket.

Silas stood up instantly, his entire demeanor shifting. "Harper cannot get a cab. It is pouring out there, and it is not safe for a young girl to be alone this late. I am going to drop her off."

My throat felt tight, lined with sandpaper.

I could not hold it in anymore. "Silas. Did you already know the outcome of that match before you made the bet?"

His footsteps stopped dead. When he turned back around, his face was flushed with defensive anger.

"I am not a psychic! How the hell could I have predicted an upset like that?"

"I genuinely wanted to give you those estates. You just have terrible luck. You cannot blame anyone else for that!"

He was always like this. Whenever he felt guilty, he overcompensated with volume and aggression.

He slammed the door behind him.

Perhaps he thought a loud exit would drown out the deafening guilt radiating off him.

The impact rattled the walls, and our framed engagement photo slipped from its hook, crashing onto the hardwood floor with a sharp crack of shattered glass.

I calmly walked over, picked up a pair of shears from the floral arrangement on the coffee table, and snipped my half of the photo right down the middle.

With my free hand, I dialed my father's number.

"Dad. The corporate alliance is still on. But I need you to find me a different groom."

Years ago, Silas was just one of three potential heirs my father had selected for an arranged marriage.

Back then, I believed love was more toxic than poison.

I had personally watched my mother catch my father in bed with his secretary. I watched her deteriorate from an elegant, soft-spoken socialite into a hysterical, broken shell of a woman.

And then, I watched my father ruthlessly commit her to a psychiatric facility to protect his public image.

I had built a fortress of solid concrete around my heart. But a younger, relentless Silas had forcefully torn a hole through it with his blatant, undeniable favoritism.

He gave me his phone passwords without me asking. He reported his whereabouts constantly. He held my hand at every elite gala, proudly declaring to the world that I was his.

He was incredibly wealthy and striking. Naturally, countless women tried to take a shortcut to the top through him. To give me total security, he had fired seventeen different executive assistants.

So, I let myself fall. I watched myself sink into the illusion, entirely sober but willing.

Everything changed exactly a year ago.

My father demanded we finally set a wedding date. But Silas pushed back, claiming he needed to secure his absolute authority on the board of directors first.

At first, I genuinely believed him.

Until I walked into his office and saw his new assistant. Harper. My internal alarms started screaming instantly.

With a single glance, I knew the dynamic between them was tainted.

It was not a blatant, messy affair. It was a subtle, suffocating undercurrent of unspoken intimacy.

When the three of us were in a room, his eyes would instinctively dart to her first. I caught the fleeting, panicked guilt in his gaze whenever I walked in unannounced.

Harper wore a pair of diamond earrings that matched the exact designer collection Silas had bought for my anniversary necklace.

Lately, the sickly sweet scent of her vanilla perfume always lingered on his suit jackets.

One evening, I finally broke. I tried to gently express how uncomfortable their dynamic made me feel.

That was the very first time he looked at me with sheer exhaustion and disdain.

"Do you have any idea how many assistants I have fired because of your toxic paranoia?" he had snapped.

"Seventeen. Seventeen women."

"Not a single one has lasted more than six months because you see ghosts everywhere. The entire corporate floor is whispering that my fiance has persecution paranoia."

He rubbed his temples, his voice dripping with pity. "Bonnie, I seriously think you need to see a psychiatrist. Medically speaking, severe mental illness is hereditary..."

I stood frozen in the middle of our living room, staring at the man I loved with absolute horror.

"Is that... is that really how you see me?"

Realizing he had gone too far, Silas let out a heavy sigh, running a hand through his hair.

"Bonnie, look. If a wedding ring is the only thing that will finally cure your insecurity, then fine. Let's just get married."

He made it sound like proposing to me was a charitable concession. An exhausted compromise to calm down a lunatic.

I sat by the fireplace, methodically cutting up every single photograph of us.

The first time we watched the sunrise on his yacht. The birthday he rented out Central Park for a private firework show. The time he tried to learn how to cook for me and nearly burned the kitchen down.

When my hand started to cramp, I gathered the mountain of shredded memories and tossed them straight into the blazing fireplace. I watched them burn to ash.

My phone rang violently. It was Silas's personal driver.

"Miss Astor! Mr. Montgomery got into a physical altercation at a bar. We are at the ER. Please come quickly!"

By the time I arrived at the private hospital suite, Silas's right arm was already encased in a plaster cast. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at Harper, who was sobbing by his knees.

The young girl's eyes were red and swollen. "Mr. Montgomery, this is all my fault. You would not have gotten hurt if you were not protecting me from those drunks."

"I was so terrified. What would I do without you?"

Silas lifted his uninjured left hand and gently, almost reverently, stroked her hair.

"It is not your fault." His voice was a velvet whisper. "Stop crying. Be good."

Because of his movements, the collar of his hospital gown slipped open.

Exposed on his chest was a faded, jagged scar. It was less than an inch from his heart.

He got that scar years ago when a rival syndicate kidnapped me for ransom. Silas took a blade to the chest to shield me.

Outside the ICU that night, covered in his blood, I swore to whatever God was listening that if he surBonnieed, I would love him unconditionally, just as fiercely as he loved me.

Standing in the doorway now, a bitter laugh bubbled up in my throat.

After all these years, he really had not changed.

When he loves a woman, he is perfectly willing to throw his life away for her. It just was not me anymore.

I took a deep breath and turned to leave.

But the fabric of my silk coat caught on the metal door handle, making a loud, abrupt clicking sound.

Both of their heads snapped toward me. The sheer panic that flashed across both of their faces was perfectly synchronized.

Silas recovered first. He cleared his throat, nodding briskly at Harper, his tone shifting to formal authority.

"You should head home and get some rest. We have a busy week ahead."

Harper nodded obediently, her cheeks flushed, a secret thrill dancing in her eyes.

I had zero interest in spying on their twisted little romance.

After she scurried out, the VIP suite fell into a suffocating, awkward silence.

I stared at the scar on his chest. It looked so foreign now.

"Silas. We are done. I am breaking off the engagement."

He froze. The silence stretched for two agonizing seconds before he let out a dry, exasperated chuckle.

"Look at you. You are getting paranoid again. Are you really using a breakup to threaten me?"

"Alright, fine. I will throw you a massive, private vow renewal the day we sign the marriage papers. Does that make you happy?"

I opened my mouth, ready to explain that I was entirely serious.

He cut me off, his voice dripping with impatient finality. "The bet stands, Bonnie. You agreed to it in front of all the guys. You need to learn how to lose gracefully, otherwise you are going to make us both look like fools."

I swallowed the heavy truth I was about to give him.

"Okay. I accept the loss."

Since the groom was changing, I needed a new fitting for the wedding dress.

As I sat in the VIP lounge of the bridal boutique, a painfully familiar voice drifted through the velvet curtains of the adjacent dressing room.

"Silly girl, what is the rush? Once the seamstress takes in the waist on the ceremony gown, I will take you to shoot the bridal portraits."

"We will just shoot you from the back. We can display it at the entrance of the ballroom. How does that sound?"

It was Silas. And Harper.

So this was their unspoken, thrilling little secret from last night.

They were going through the exhausting effort of altering my custom couture gown and shooting fake bridal portraits just to fully erase me from my own wedding day.

Suddenly, a careless boutique assistant yanked open the velvet curtain dividing the suites.

Silas turned and saw me standing on the pedestal, fully zipped into a breathtaking lace gown.

He froze.

A second later, a cold, mocking smirk spread across his face.

"Bonnie, is this your new strategy? Are you planning to crash the venue in that dress just to humiliate Harper?"

"Have you lost your mind? If two brides show up on that stage, the Montgomery and Astor families will become the laughingstock of the entire city!"

If this had happened a month ago, his cruel words would have shattered me. I would have screamed, cried, and torn the place apart.

But right now, I just felt a crushing wave of fatigue.

"Relax. I am not wearing this dress for you."

Silas narrowed his eyes. "What exactly does that mean?"

Before I could even reply, Harper started violently weeping into her hands.

"Mr. Montgomery, Bonnie is furious with me! Is she going to force you to fire me? I cannot lose this job. My family needs the money. I... I should not take the bridal portraits anymore."

Silas did not even bother pressing me for an answer. He immediately wrapped an arm around Harper's waist, pulling her toward the exit.

"She lost the bet. Throwing a tantrum will not change anything. We will go find a different designer for your dress."

Right before he walked out the glass doors, he stopped and threw a dark warning over his shoulder.

"If you keep acting like a psychotic child, I am going to delay signing our marriage license."

Once they were gone, I turned back to the towering three-way mirror.

It was strange. The woman staring back at me had red, swollen eyes, but the smile on her face looked infinitely more tragic than if she were sobbing.

The next afternoon, a phone call hit me like a physical blow.

"Miss Astor! Your mother is having a severe violent episode. We need you at the facility immediately!"

My fingers clamped around my phone, my whole body shaking.

"How is that possible? Her doctors said she has been incredibly stable for months."

The head nurse hesitated for a few seconds. When she finally spoke, her tone was heavy with confusion.

"A young woman came to visit your mother this morning. She brought a framed wedding photograph and showed it to her."

"She told your mother that for the last year, you have been maliciously sleeping with her fianc and trying to destroy their marriage."

When I sprinted into the psychiatric wing, my mother was standing aggressively by the reinforced window. In her trembling hand, she clutched a massive, jagged shard of broken glass.

Scattered across the linoleum floor were the shattered remains of a heavy wooden picture frame.

I looked down. It was a bridal portrait. Silas and Harper.

When my mother's wild eyes locked onto me, they filled with the kind of pure, visceral hatred usually reserved for murderers.

"You knew! You knew exactly what adultery did to me, and you still chose to be a filthy homewrecker!"

"Why are you so utterly worthless?! I never gave birth to a cheap, shameless whore! Drop dead!"

She lunged forward, wildly slashing the glass shard through the air.

I could not dodge in time. The jagged edge sliced deep into my forearm, ripping open a massive six-inch gash.

Flesh tore. Blood immediately poured down my wrist, dripping onto the pristine white floor.

The orderlies rushed in, tackling her to the bed and securing the leather restraints. Even strapped down, she thrashed violently, her vocal cords tearing as she screamed at me.

She used the most vile, venomous words imaginable to curse my existence, calling me an animal, a plague.

After a nurse hastily wrapped my bleeding arm in thick gauze, I wiped the cold tears off my face. I bent down, picked up the torn wedding portrait from the glass-covered floor, and walked straight out the door. I drove directly to Silas's corporate headquarters.

When I pushed open the double doors of the executive floor, a crowd of employees was gathered around Harper's desk. They were laughing, eating imported chocolates from a lavish pink box.

"Congratulations on the wedding, Harper! Guess we have to start calling you the boss's wife now!"

"Obviously! She is the one walking down the aisle. As for that other woman, Mr. Montgomery is completely sick of her. Who could possibly tolerate a woman with severe mental illness?"

"Right? The boss literally told security to stop letting her up here because she is bad for the company image."

Someone near the edge of the crowd finally noticed me.

The group scattered like roaches when the lights turn on.

Harper, completely unfazed, strutted toward me in her designer heels, her chin tilted in sheer arrogance.

"What brings you to the office, Bonnie? Want me to see if Silas has time in his schedule for you?"

She glanced at my pale face and the blood seeping through my sleeve. "You look terrible. A little mentally unstable, actually. I hear there is an empty padded room right next to your mother's. Want me to make a reservation for you?"

The image of my mother screaming in restraints flashed in my mind.

I raised my uninjured arm and swung my hand back, aiming a lethal slap directly at her smug face.

But a split second before my palm made contact, a massive hand clamped down on my wrist and violently shoved me backward.

"Bonnie! Have you completely lost your mind?!"

Silas's grip was brutal. The violent jerk ripped my fresh stitches open.

Thick, dark blood immediately bloomed through the white bandages, dripping onto the carpet.

Silas froze, his eyes dropping to my bleeding arm. He instantly stepped forward, reaching for me. "How did you get hurt?"

I forcefully slapped his hand away.

I threw their crumpled wedding portrait squarely at his leather shoes.

"Happy wedding, Mr. Montgomery. But I suggest you put your bride on a leash."

Without waiting for his response, I turned on my heel and walked toward the elevators.

Silas instinctively took a step to chase after me, but Harper immediately grabbed his arm, burying her face in his shoulder.

"Silas, she scared me so much."

The panic in Silas's eyes was instantly replaced by protective anger.

He wrapped his arm around Harper's waist and guided her safely into his private office.

Early the next morning, Silas's groomsmen suited up in sharp black tuxedos and accompanied him to the luxury hotel suite to pick up the bride.

They laughed and joked, drinking champagne as they went through the traditional morning routines. The atmosphere was electric and celebratory.

The only anomaly was Bonnie. No one could reach her phone.

Jax nudged Silas in the ribs. "Hey man, do you think Bonnie is actually pissed? What if she genuinely breaks up with you over this?"

Silas let out a confident, mocking scoff.

"Not a chance. That woman dreams of marrying me every time she closes her eyes."

Suddenly, a thought crossed his mind. What if she really did pull a stunt? Feeling a spike of paranoia, he quickly lifted the heavy vintage veil covering the bride's face.

It was Harper.

For some inexplicable reason, a fleeting memory flashed through Silas's mind. A memory from his past life. Bonnie, sitting on a bed in a white dress, looking up at him with shy, glowing eyes under this exact veil.

He shook the ghost from his head and let out an exaggerated laugh.

"Thank God. The bride has not been swapped. With how completely obsessed Bonnie is, I half expected her to sneak under Harper's veil just to get to the altar."

The groomsmen erupted into roaring laughter.

But right as the laughter peaked, a shocked voice echoed from the end of the grand hallway.

"Holy shit. The Kensington heir is getting married today too? Look at this setup, it is insane!"

"Wait a second... look at the bride on this poster..."