Chapter 15

• In the greenhouse, Amanda was listening to one of her favorite pieces of music while watering the injured roses and hoping they would grow. Suddenly, she noticed a blur of a red automobile turning off the road and making its way up the gravel path to her house through the greenhouse's fiberglass panels.
• She said, "What now?" Ernest had gone behind her back to give Elena a deal to help her out, on top of the insurance, and she'd spent the previous week stewing and fending off his presents and apologies. Despite Elena's assurances that it was a substantial sum, he insisted on a stake in her flower farm and the last say in her business decisions. The only thing she had planned was to sell the shares she still had to her long-term clientele because of her father's reputation.
• As she screamed, she ruined the peaceful moment she had with the plants and music. Why am I being asked to do something that I don't want to do? She rose to her feet and shook her head in disbelief. She would have screamed if Ernest had sent her anything different! Her life had been turned upside down and inside out by that naive man. Even if Elena hadn't warned her that the proposal wasn't worth the paper it was written on, she was still enraged at him for making it.