The Quiet He Broke

He told me to show up at ten.
I was thirty minutes late, covered in mud, and my dog jumped out of the car before I could grab the leash.

Beck Wilder is a billionaire architect with no tolerance for mess—and I’ve been hired to redesign the gardens on the estate he’s rebuilding from the ground up.

He’s quiet. Precise. Cold as the marble floors he walks on.
I talk too much, break his rules, and restore an abandoned greenhouse he didn’t ask me to touch.

I thought he’d fire me.

Instead, I found a new set of tools waiting outside the next morning.

We’re opposites in every way.
But in the quiet spaces—late-night kitchens, candlelit storms, the touch of his hand over mine—we stop pretending we’re just a project and a paycheck.

Until one morning, I wake up alone.
And his assistant tells me the job is over early.
No reason. No goodbye.

I left without crying.
But I left behind a letter I never meant for him to read.

“You don’t have to speak to love someone.
But you do have to stay.”