When the Billionaire Begs novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Ask Her About the Lilies

My mother's things had been in a storage unit on Delancey Road for three years.

I had paid the fee every month and never gone inside.

Stellan drove me there that same afternoon, and he cut the padlock off when my key would not turn.

Cardboard boxes stood in rows, labeled in my own handwriting: kitchen, coats, books.

At the back sat a small tin trunk with a brass catch that I did not remember packing.

"That one's hers," I said. "She never let me open it."

"Do you want me to wait outside?"

"Stay."

I lifted the lid.

On top lay a folded church program and a pair of reading glasses.

Under them were cards.

Dozens of small cream florist's cards, tied in bundles with kitchen string, each in the same upright silver ink.

I pulled the first bundle loose.

Every card was signed V.K.

The oldest was dated eleven years ago in May.

I was eighteen that spring.

The card said: Thinking of you, as always.

The next one, a month later, said the same.

Then I turned over a card from the autumn of that year and read it twice.

It said: Whatever he gave you, I will have back.

My hands went numb.

"Claire," Stellan said.

I gave it to him without a word.

He read it and went very still.

"Eleven years of those," I said, and my voice sounded far away. "Every month. And she kept all of them."

"Why would she keep them?"

"So she'd remember what she owed."

"Owed to whom?"

I looked at the initials.

I knew only one V.K.

"Veronica sent flowers to my mother for eight years before I ever met Carlton," I said. "She chose me."

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