The Rose He Showed Off Is Putting Down Roots in a Garden of Her Own novel Chapter 4

The following morning, Elara made another unsettling discovery: a second shirt in the laundry with its spare button still firmly attached to the inner seam.

As Julian stepped out of the en-suite bathroom, toweling off his hair, he caught her staring blankly at the fabric in her hands.-

Julian's eyes flashed with something unreadable. He casually tossed the damp towel onto a nearby chair.

"Find me a fresh suit, would you?"

Elara instantly dropped the shirt and moved to the closet, retrieving a crisp, freshly pressed dress shirt. Before handing it to him, she discreetly checked the inner hem. The spare button had been snipped off this one.

Guessing the direction of her thoughts, Julian offered an offhand explanation as he shrugged into the sleeves. "I had my assistant order a few backup shirts to keep at the office. I finally remembered to bring them home so the staff could wash them."

The casual, perfectly plausible excuse immediately extinguished Elara's suspicions.

"Right, of course," she murmured.

She felt a sickening wave of guilt for being so paranoid. Just because their marriage had hit a rough patch didn't mean he was having an affair. Theirs wasn't a cold corporate merger; they had married out of genuine, passionate love. She firmly believed fidelity was the absolute baseline of human decency, and despite everything, she trusted him to honor that.

As winter thawed into a vibrant spring, the Sterling estate went into overdrive preparing for the Sterling family patriarch's milestone birthday gala.

As the eldest daughter-in-law, Elara barely had a moment to breathe.

Sienna was largely satisfied with Elara's performance. Elara had been raised with impeccable high-society grace and managed the event flawlessly. The Vance Group's rapid decline was certainly an embarrassing blemish, but Sienna knew better than to expect absolute perfection from the universe.

"Elara is working herself to the bone for this," Sienna murmured to her son as the guests began arriving. "You need to show her some appreciation. Just because she doesn't complain doesn't mean you shouldn't step up."

Julian adjusted his silk tie, his attention clearly elsewhere. "I know, Mom. It's time. Let's head out to greet the guests."

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