As Sean drove, she leaned back and tried to remember her wedding day. In a rush to elope with Marco, she'd found it difficult to concentrate on the ceremony. She could vaguely remember standing at an altar decorated with white roses listening to the officiant drone on and on.

When it came time for her to speak, her voice cracked as she said, "I do." Then Sean had lifted the veil and planted a very chaste kiss on her lips. She'd hated the kiss most of all—it had left like a betrayal of Marco.

​​

After that, she remembered rushing away, hastily tearing at the small buttons on her dress to get it off and struggling to button it over Madison's larger bust. She had changed into street clothes and raced out of the mansion, trying to meet Marco before Madison had to take her place at the reception.

She raced down the stairs and out onto the lawn. She was on her way to meet Marco when a twinkling, dazzling light on her hand caught her eye—the wedding ring. Disgusted by the huge diamond, she tugged the ring off her finger and threw it among the rose bushes.

She looked at Sean's elegant hand and wondered what had happened to his ring. Had he taken it off in anger? Did he still have it somewhere? Would she be able to find her own ring? Had he noticed that she wasn't wearing it?

Sean parked the car by the front door and went inside. She followed him in and pretended to go to her room. Once his study doors had shut, she slipped out a side door and headed toward the rose garden.

The flowers were in full bloom, and the air smelled sweet and floral in the mid-July heat. Lazy bees buzzed around the flowers, and butterflies flitted between the petals. She bit her lip—the rose garden was a lot bigger than she remembered and the smell cloyed at her. She walked around the garden, wondering where she should start looking.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Blair," a maid said. "We've just made some fresh lemonade, will you come inside and enjoy some?"

"No, thanks," she said. "I'm not thirsty."

"Please, Mrs. Blair," the maid said. "The sunlight is very strong right now. Why don't you rest inside?"

Catherine glared at the maid, "Sean said I have free range of his estate. So if he sent you to babysit me, you can go right back and tell him that I want to be left alone."

The maid paled, "It's not like that."

"Good," Catherine said.

"I'll let you enjoy your walk, but if you need anything else, I'll be under those oak trees over there," the maid said.

"Spying on me," Catherine muttered.

"What's that?" the maid asked.

"Nothing," Catherine said.

She knew it wasn't the maid's fault. She was just obeying Sean's orders. If she ever wanted to have any degree of privacy, she'd have to talk to Sean herself. She stomped around the garden, feeling ridiculous. Her anger seemed absurd on such a beautiful day, but she couldn't stop fuming.

On her third lap around the garden, she began to grow impatient. The diamond was at least several karats, and the July sun was bright. Surely, she should have seen a telltale sparkle. Frustrated, she dropped to her knees and began looking more closely. Slowly, she pushed her way deeper into the rosebeds lifting the thorny stems away from her face.

The longer she looked, the more determined she became. Her neck was cramped with the strain of bending down, and her knees started to ache. The thorns snagged at her hair and sliced at the bare skin on her arms. She needed to find the ring.

Sean had told her he understood about Marco, but she knew it still upset him. He was a jealous man. If she could find the ring and play the role of loyal wife, he might be more willing to give her some freedom.

The sun beat down on her head, and she felt her throat grow dry, but she continued her determined crawl through the roses. A particularly large thorn sliced her arm, and she cursed and tried to wipe at the blood.

The maid's concerned face poked over the roses, "Mrs. Blair, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she snapped. "I'm looking for something I lost."

"I can help," the maid offered. "Why don't you tell me what it is you're looking for, and then I can look instead?"

"I want to find it by myself," she said. "Please leave me alone."

"I can call the gardeners," the worried maid said. "It will only take them a few minutes to find it, I'm sure. And they have the proper protective gear—these bushes will tear you to shreds."

"I really want to do this myself," she said.

The maid nodded and rushed away. Catherine was relieved until she realized the maid was probably going to report her strange behavior to Sean. Worried Sean would soon come, she began to search more quickly and frantically, ignoring the glaring sun and the sharp thorns.

***

Sean scowled at the timid knocking on the door. He was in a video conference, and all of his staff knew better than to disturb him during a meeting. He put the meeting on mute and barked, "What?"

The door creaked open, and a timid, sunburnt looking maid stood in the doorway. She twisted her hands in front of her and stared down at her feet. He recognized her as Geoffrey—an inexperienced new hire with a strange boy's name.

"What?" he asked again.

"Well, you asked me to let you know if Mrs. Blair did anything unusual, and well, uh, she is," Geoffrey said.

"What's she doing?" he asked, feeling his heart rate increase.

"She's crawling around in the rose garden," Geoffrey said. "She says she's looking for something and she's getting all cut up."

"Looking for what?" he asked.

"Uh, she wouldn't say, sir," Geoffrey said. "She acted very secretly about it."

He scowled and waved Levi over to take his place in the meeting. Without another word, he marched down the hall and strode into the rose garden. Catherine was on her hands and knees between two rose bushes, pawing at the dirt. He strode forward, ignoring the way the thorns caught and tugged at his suit and scooped her up.

"What are you doing now?" he asked.

Her face was flushed from the sun, and a streak of dirt was smudged across her left cheek. Thin red scratches criss crossed her hands and arms.

"I knew that maid was going to tattle on me," she said, looking angry. "I thought I had free range here, but apparently, your spies are following me around."

"I'm just worried about you," he said. "You've been unwell the last few days, and now you're out here digging in my roses like a crazy woman."

Her forehead creased, and her lips pouted, "I'm not crazy. I'm looking for something."

"What?" he asked.

"Something very important to me," she said. "I don't want to lose it."

Jealousy and rage flooded his body, "Something from Marco?"

Her eyes widened with genuine surprise, "What? No, of course not. Let me down!"

She struggled weakly, and he relented and put her down, making sure her feet touched the grass as softly as possible. Suddenly she bent over and grabbed at something in the dirt.

"I found it," she crowed.