Chapter 3: Cracks Beneath the Ice
Days turned into weeks.
Their marriage became the city's favorite fairy tale.
Magazine covers praised them as the perfect billionaire couple.
Elegant.
Powerful.
Untouchable.
Only they knew...
They barely exchanged ten words a day.
One rainy afternoon...
Elena wandered through the mansion's forgotten greenhouse.
Dust covered abandoned flowerbeds.
Dead vines clung to cracked stone walls.
She smiled sadly.
It reminded her of home.
Without asking permission...
She rolled up her sleeves.
She cleaned.
Pruned.
Watered.
Replanted every flower she could find.
Hours passed unnoticed.
For the first time since the wedding...
She felt alive.
That evening...
Ricardo unexpectedly returned early.
He followed the scent before he saw it.
Fresh jasmine.
His mother's favorite flower.
He stepped into the greenhouse.
Stopped.
Every neglected corner had transformed.
Life had returned.
In the center...
Elena carefully tied a climbing rose to an old wooden trellis.
She hadn't heard him arrive.
Ricardo watched silently.
His face remained unreadable.
Yet his breathing slowed.
Almost peacefully.
Finally...
He spoke.
"You shouldn't be here."
Elena turned.
"I know."
A pause.
"But the flowers were dying."
Silence.
Then she quietly added,
"I couldn't leave them that way."
Ricardo looked around the greenhouse.
For a moment...
The cold billionaire disappeared.
A memory crossed his face.
"My mother planted these."
Elena lowered her voice.
"I know."
"She loved white jasmine."
Ricardo looked at her sharply.
"How do you know that?"
She smiled faintly.
"The gardeners still talk about her."
Another silence.
Longer this time.
When Ricardo finally walked away...
He stopped at the doorway.
Without looking back...
"You may keep the greenhouse."
It was the first gift he had ever given her.
That night...
May you like
Neither of them realized...
The walls around Ricardo's heart had developed their first crack.
