The Color of Broken — Amelia Grace

Yolande Lawrence-Harrison was a fake. A fake florist hiding a dark secret about that terrible day of the scars. She had been called from her career as an aeronautical engineer back to her hometown of Tarrin, to help her Gram in Flowers for Fleur. And now she had to learn the science of flower art while her grandmother struggled with the incurable Meniere's disease.

As Yolande fussed with the blooms outside the store, trying to stop the flowers from dying from her kiss of death, she discovered a note pushed into the pale pink roses that adorned the basket of her grandmother's 1950s Schwinn Cruiser bicycle--an unsigned note:

Dear Flowers for Fleur,

How much is the bicycle?

I would like to acquire it.

Yolande fumed at the pitiful manners and the pure arrogance of it all, and after numerous notes, she became irritated with the persistent, annoying, pig-headed, obstinate human being who wouldn't take no for an answer.

But when Alexander Parker finally walked into the store, her thoughts scattered. However, she refused to inhale the luring potion he offered. She could see that he too, wore a mask to hide something. She could see through his perfect facade. She knew that perfection was always achieved by the practised art of hiding something, so it became the unseen.

She wondered, if she could see through his pretence, could he see through hers?

Could he see that she was damaged, scarred and unlovable, hiding a past that ate away at her core allowing the darkness to engulf what was left of her inner light. Could he see that she was the color of broken?

Yolande wished she could run, back to the safety of her other life, away from the flowers. Away from Tarrin. Away from Alexander Parker. But she couldn't. Her grandmother's life was fading, and to save her, Yolande must choose to fight her past, ultimately exposing her inner demons and the need to forgive herself, in order to save herself from the same fate.