Blurb：
Seven years after divorce, Jenna Chen accidentally reunites with her ex-husband Liam Sullivan in a flower shop during a rainstorm. Liam Sullivan, now a famous physics prodigy and astrophysicist, is buying flowers for his pregnant wife Nora. Their polite exchange masks deeper emotions as Jenna Chen realizes she’s finally moved on from their painful past.
Discover the emotional journey of Jenna Chen and Liam Sullivan – from childhood neighbors in Chicago to marriage, divorce, and unexpected reunion. This second chance romance explores themes of healing, moving on, and the scars left by bitter divorces. When Jenna Chen opens a mysterious gift box from Liam Sullivan years later, she must confront memories of their complicated history and the truth about why their marriage ended.
Perfect for readers who love emotional contemporary romance, ex-husband reunions, and stories about strong female protagonists overcoming past trauma. Follow Jenna Chen’s journey of self-discovery as she finally lets go of Liam Sullivan and finds peace after their divorce.
Content：
Seven years after my divorce from Liam Sullivan.
We ran into each other by chance in a flower shop.
He was there buying flowers for his pregnant wife. I’d ducked inside to escape the sudden dowmpour.
After a moment of stiff silence, we exchanged polite hellos.
Liam asked, with formal courtesy, how I’d been all these years.
I replied, with equal courtesy, that I was doing well.
As we prepared to go our separate ways, he suddenly said,
“Jenna Chen, you seem… different now.”
I simply smiled and didn’t reply.
The truth was, nothing was different.
I just didn’t love him anymore.
…
A damp, chilly wind whistled through the doorframe. The only other sound was the rain tapping steadily against the window ledge.
The awkward silence was finally broken when the shopkeeper appeared with a bouquet of irises.
“Mr. Sullivan, you and your wife must be very close.”
“Braving this weather just to buy her flowers.”
Liam took the flowers, his gaze unconsciously drifting towards me.
He offered a habitual, slightly awkward explanation.
“Nora gets a little emotional during her pregnancy… Flowers usually lift her spirits.”
I nodded, offering a few polite words in response.
Seeing the rain begin to let up, I picked up my bag to leave.
At the doorway, Liam suddenly reached out and caught my wrist.
“Where do you headed? Let me give you a ride.”
“No need, thank you.”
I stepped back, putting a clear distance between us.
My voice was calm and final.
“I wouldn’t want your wife to get the wrong idea.”
As I turned to leave, Liam seemed to say something else, but the wind snatched his words away.
The paper bag containing my breakfast was soaked through.
A pity.
I tossed it into a nearby trash bin.
A gust of wind tugged at my sleeve, revealing the raised, pale lines of old scars – tangible souvenirs from a much darker chapter of my life.
I paused for a moment, suddenly realizing.
It had been seven year since my divorce from Liam Sullivan.
And it was the third year since I’d truly, completely let him go.
There was no lingering sorrow, no trace of the hysterical grief that had consumed me right after the split.
I felt a profound calm, as if looking at a stranger.
The rain stopped, and the sky began to clear.
I tugged my sleeve back into place and walked towards the café.
Lily, who was helping out, greeted me with her usual bright smile.
“Jenna! There you are. I found this while cleaning up earlier.” she said, holding out a dust-covered box.
“See if you want it? If not, I’ll toss it. We need the space for the new granular grinder.”
I brushed the dust from the cardboard.
Written across the top in Liam’s unmistakably flamboyant script were the words,
“For Jenna Chen.”
Lily’s eyes lit up with playful curiosity.
“Ooh, who’s this?” she teased. “A secret admirer?”
“It’s wrapped so carefully. Someone really went to some trouble.”
She eagerly looked for the sender’s name on the bottom of the box.
The moment she saw the handwriting, she froze.
Her voice faltered.
“Liam Sullivan?”
“The legendary physics prodigy?”
“That super handsome astrophysics who discovered that asteroid and got published internationally?!”
Lily looked at me with stunned, newfound awe.
“Jenna… who are you?”
I opened the gift box, my voice perfectly level.
“I was Liam Sullivan’s ex-wife.”
The paranoid, unstable one.
The one who was institutionalized for her delusions.
The ex-wife he the greatest shame of his life.
Under the weight of Lily’s questions, I sat down and told her about Liam and me.
When I first met Liam Sullivan, he wasn’t some legendary genius.
He was just that strange, solitary kid the neighbors whispered about.
He had no friends. No real family to speak of.
His parents, locked in a bitter divorce, used him as a pawn, batting him back and forth like a tennis ball.
Chicago winters have a way of biting right through you.
I found Liam one evening, shivering on the cold concrete landing of the stairwell, wearing nothing but a thin long-sleeve shirt.
My heart went out to him, so I brought him home.
It was during a casual board game that my dad accidentally stumbled upon his astonishing gift for numbers.
From that moment, Liam was transformed.
He won the Math Olympiad at ten, got into MIT at fourteen.
By sixteen, his research papers were gaining international attention, and the awards started piling up.
The parents who hadn’t wanted him suddenly launched a vicious custody battle.
Instead of choosing either of them, Liam knelt in front of my dad and bowed his head.
“I know who treated me with kindness. Who truly cared for me.”
“From now on, you are my real family.”
“I will honor you and I will always look after Jenna.”
He was true to his word. As Liam soared, he never left me behind.
When he was accepted to MIT, he insisted they find a way tobring me along, even if they had to lower their standards.
When he stayed on as faculty, he demanded they create a special liaison position for me, as his family.
I worried I couldn’t keep up, that I was holding him back.
But Liam just looked at me and said,
“When I was eight, after my parents split, neither of them wanted me.”
“I sat on that stairwell from dusk till dawn, until you found me.”
“In that moment, I swore to myself I’d never leave you.”
“Jenna Chen, without you, there is no me. No matter how high I fly, I won’t leave you behind.”
That was Liam. Stubborn to a fault.
Once he set his mind on something, he never let go.
Whether it was an impossible research problem.
Or pursuing me.
Or even later, when his heart changed and he strayed.
“He cheated on you?”
Lily’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“But you grew up together! With all that history… he still cheated?”
“Who was she? Some oil tycoon’s daughter? A supermodel?”
“One of those scheming, venomous femme fatales from the movies?”
No.
The woman Liam had an affair with…
…was a thin, plain-looking girl who worked at the local florist.
By twenty-seven, Liam had achieved extraordinary success.
He stopped chasing public acclaim and poured his energy into private passions.
He didn’t care for stocks, or fishing, or rare teas.
He suddenly developed a deep obsession with flowers.
Imported, cheap, common, rare—Liam bought them all, transforming his small private garden.
His favorite? The simple irises I’d given him for his birthday onne year.
“It was this flower that sparked my interest in all of them.”
“Such an unremarkable little seed, yet with the right care, it can become something so beautiful.”
“The process of nurturing it… it’s the most fascinating part.”
He said he loved the flowers.
But more than that, he loved the process of making them bloom.
In that small, walled garden, he was the god who controlled everything.
Budding, blooming, wilting, flourishing—all of it happened under his command.
I never really understood Liam’s philosophical talks about flowers.
To me, flowers just were. They bloomed when it was their time, and fell when they were ready.
Why overthink it?
But one day, while helping him re-pot some plants, the girl from the florist—Nora—looked up and said,
“Professor Sullivan is right. I love that feeling too.”
“A flower’s potential is entirely dependent on the gardener’s care.”
“Look how magnificent these irises are. That’s all the result of my careful tending.”
And in an autumn when those very irises were in full, glorious bloom,
Their connection began.
Because of the flowers.
And, in a way I could never have anticipated, because of me.
After that, Liam began ordering flowers from Nora regularly.
Roses, lilacs, magnolias—our home slowly transformed into a veritable greenhous.
Their relationship deepened alongside the growing collection of flora.
Then one day, Liam announced he wanted to sponsor Nora’s education.
“She’s only in her teens, sharp and driven. It’s a waste for her to spend her life in a flower shop,” he insisted.
Nora stood by, nervously picking at the thick calluses on her hands.
Her thin face wore an expression of anxious deference.
“Jenna, I’ll study hard, I promise,” she said, her voice earnest. “I had good grades before. I only dropped out because my mom was in a bad accident, and I had to support us.”
“Please, just give me this chance, I won’t let you down!”
Her youthful face was etched with lines of weariness that didn’t belong there.
Looking into those pleading eyes, I remembered—eight-year-old Liam, lost and alone on that stairwell.
My heart softened once more.
For a long time after that, I treated Nora like a younger sister.
I bought her clothes, taught her about skincare, showed her how to navigate the world she was so desperate to join.
She called me “sis,” claiming I was the best person she’d ever known.
She promised she’d repay my kindness onr day.
And she didn’t disappoint—in the worst way imaginable.
She gained admission to the university where Liam and I worked.
And on the very night she received her acceptance letter, she climbed into Liam’s bed.
I’d left work early that day, planning to prepare a celebratory dinner.
I came home to find them.
Clothes strewn about, limbs entangled on our marital bed.
In that moment, something in me shattered.
I hurled the birthday cake I’d brought home at them.
I smashed every vase, every potted plant in the house.
Liam shielded Nora with his body, watching my outburst with cold detachment.
“Jenna, shut the door on your way out when you’re done making a spectacle of yourself.”
“Have some dignity. Nora still has hers.”
Faced with a choice between me and Nora, he chose the other woman without hesitation.
I couldn’t accept it. I demanded an explanation from Liam.
He frowned at me, impatient.
“Jenna, you are still my wife. As long as you behave appropriately, Nora will never threaten your position.”
Nora threw herself at my feet, sobbing.
“Jenna, I know I’ve wronged you, but Liam and I… we have a connection I can’t explain.”
“We understand each other on a level no one else does.”
“Please don’t worry, I’ll never forget your kindness.”
“I don’t want your title. I won’t fight you for anything. I just want to be with Liam!”
I was only in my twenties then.
Young, proud, and utterly incapable of tolerating such a profound betrayal.
I filed a formal complaint with the university administration.
I was determined to expose their sordid, immoral affair.
But reality quickly taught me a harsh lesson.
The university had no intention of expelling their star academic, the renowned Liam Sullivan.
Instead, to appease him, they made me the problem.
Liam even issued a public statement, asking his colleagues and mentors to “look after” Nora.
“This is my student. She’s bright, diligent, hardworking.”
“I ask you all, as a personal favor, not to make things difficult for her.”
“She’s come a long way from selling flowers on the street. She’s endured more than most.”
“Nora might not be the most naturally brilliant, but to me, she’s special. My greatest pride.”
Liam even admitted he’d pulled strings to secure Nora’s admission to the prestigious university.
He knew it was unethical.
He simply didn’t care.
He just wanted to give Nora the future he believed she deserved.
And me?
What was I in all of this?
A pathietic joke?
I hid at home, crying night after night.
Tossing and turning, haunted by imagined sneers and mocking faces I was sure were directed at me.
Liam, meanwhile, continued tending to his irises as if nothing had happened.
“Jenna, haven’t you realized it yet?” he said calmly one evening.
“Your job, your reputation, your social standing… everything you have is because of me.”
“Without me, you are nothing.”
“I told you, Nora won’t affect your position. Be sensible. Can’t we just live peacefully?”
No.
I couldn’t bear sharing a home, a life, with a husband whose heart belonged to another woman every waking moment.
I became hysterical. Unhinged.
I tried desperately to punish them both.
During Liam’s lectures, I swapped his presentation slides for explicit photos of him and Nora.
When they gave joint interviews, I rushed the stage to expose their “dirty secret”.
I wrote countless complaint letters.
Filmed countless exposés videos.
But all I earned in return was a psychiatric diagnosis.
Liam was too clever.
He provoked my breakdown, then used videos of my deteriorating mental state as evidence of my instability.
His intellect, his status, his intimate knowledge of my vulnerabilities—he used it all to crush me effortlessly.
In the end,
I was fired. My hard-earned degree was revoked.
And Liam Sullivan himself had me committed to a psychiatric institution.
I recounted all of this this calmly, but Lily’s eyes were rimmed with red.
She choked out, “What happened next?”
What happened next was that, in the psychiatric institution, they discovered I was nearly five months pregnant.
And Liam, upon learning this, took me back home.
The baby’s impending arrival forced Liam to compromise.
He brought me back to the house, his expression a mask of weary obligation as he took my hand.
“Jenna, I made a mistake, but your reaction was… unacceptable.”
“Your parents have aged ten years because of you.They can barely show their faces in town.”
“You’re not a child anymore. Stop thinking only of yourself.”
He pressed my palm against the swell of my belly.
“Think of our baby. Think about your family.”
Tears fell hot onto the back of my own hand.
This time, I surrendered.
The fight had hollowed me out.
I was a ghost drifting through rooms overflowing with his other woman’s flowers, my spirit broken.
Liam’s week was meticulously divided,
Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays – dutiful prenatal appointments with me.
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays – stolen hours of passion with Nora.
He ignored his chronic stomach problems, indulging Nora’s cravings for trendy junk food she desired.
Bubble tea, iced coffee, scorching hot pot, rich gelato.
Whatever Nora wanted, Liam consumed it all without complaint.
The man who once considered ten unproductive minutes a mortal sin,
Now sat through mind-numbingly trite romantic comedies just to hold her hand.
The man who valued his career above all,
Now played foolish mobile games for her amusement.
He let Nora co-author papers far outside her expertise, inflating her academic profile.
He skipped pivotal conference lectures to engage in childish pranks with her, all for a laugh.
He had trampled my dignity.
And stomped all over professional ethics and basic decency.
But the final, shattering blow was Liam’s meticulously planned proposal to Nora.
That was the year, Liam had discovered an asteroid, a achievement that catapulted him to international fame.
His face graced the covers of scientific journals and mainstream magazines alike.
At the very peak of his acclaim,
Liam chose to share the spotlight with Nora.
He named the asteroid “Mountain Promise.”
A promise as enduring as mountains – Liam Sullivan and Nora, forever bound.
On the night of the award ceremony, in the romantic planetarium, under the projected glow of “Mountain Promise,”
He held a small, private wedding ceremony for her.
Watching Nora walk towards him in her wedding gown,
Seeing them exchange vows of eternal love beneath the artificial stars,
Something inside me broke all over again.
Liam and I had never had a wedding.
No matter how much I had hinted or begged, his answer was always the same,
“Jenna, you know I find such ceremonies superficial.”
“Our time is better spent on work that matters. I have research to conduct..”
Because I loved him, I’d accepted it.
And because I loved him, I’d lost everything.
The dam of my control finally burst.
I rushed forward in front of all the guests, tore the veil from Nora’s head, and slapped her hard across the face with all my strength.
Liam threw a glass of ice water in my face, his voice dangerously cold.
“Jenna, you have gone too far.”
He demanded a divorce. He said he was taking Nora and leaving.
I refused.
I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t let go.
Sobbing, I screamed at Liam through tears,
“If you walk out that door today, I’ll jump, and I’m taking this baby with me!”
Liam didn’t leave.
He pushed me.
Perhaps he only meant to push me back, to shock me into silence.
But I fell.
And I lost the baby I had so desperately wanted.
I was readmitted to the psychiatric hospital.
This time, the diagnosis was severe prenatal and postpartum depression.
I paused in my telling, offering Lily a small, detached smile.
“During my second year in the hospital, Liam filed for divorce.”
“I fought it until the very end, but all I had to show for it was this box of junk.”
“The first year after the divorce, I was… not well. I was lost in a fog of grief and anger, harming myself, consumed by madness.”
“My state was so bad, I couldn’t hold down a job.”
“My parents worried themselves sick. I could see their health declining before my eyes.”
“Not wanting to be a further burden, I started helping here, at their café. And strangely, slowly, my mind began to find a fragile peace.”
“Now, I run this place. Life is… peaceful.”
My tone was flat, the emotion long since bled out.
Lily wept openly.
“Jenna, your life… it’s been so cruel.”
“Liam Sullivan is a monster. If I ever see him, I’ll spit in him for you!”
As the words left her mouth,
The heavy curtain over the café door was pushed aside.
Liam Sullivan stood there.
Through the steam rising from the espresso machine, his face was blurred.
But in that moment, I suddenly recalled the words he’d murmured as we parted at the flower shop.
I think he’d said…
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