"Some things bloom best in the dark."
Everyone in the village whispered about Mrs. Blackwood.
She wasn't just a widow, she was the widow.
Rumors swirled like perfume around her estate. That she'd buried three husbands and never shed a tear. That her garden grew better than any other because she watered it with secrets. That anyone who entered her greenhouse came out different. Changed.
Lena was warned. Repeatedly.
But warnings had always sounded like invitations to her.
Lena was twenty-three, fresh out of university and full of soft rebellion. She came to the countryside to escape her mother's expectations and a fiancé she didn't love. She took a summer job cataloging rare plants and when she heard that the infamous widow was hiring, she applied immediately.
Mrs. Blackwood answered the door in a silk robe and boots.
Her hair was pinned up, neck bare, lips painted deep wine. She looked older, sure but not tired. No, she wore her years like velvet. Like every wrinkle and line had been earned during a slow, pleasurable burn.
"You're late," she said.
"I'm here now," Lena replied, defiant.
The widow smiled. "Let's see if you're worth the soil."
The estate was dripping in ivy and quiet danger. But it was the greenhouse that took Lena's breath away.
It wasn't just a garden it was an altar.
Orchids sprawled like open mouths. Vines coiled around marble statues of naked women mid-embrace. The air smelled of heat, jasmine, and something feral.
Mrs. Blackwood watched Lena closely as she moved through the space, fingers brushing petals, lips parted with awe.
"You've never been in a place like this, have you?" the widow asked.
"No," Lena whispered. "It feels... alive."
"Oh, it is," she said, stepping behind her. "And it's always hungry for beauty."
For days, Lena returned cataloging, pruning, sometimes just watching. And every day, Mrs. Blackwood touched her just a little more.
A brush of fingers on her neck as she handed her pruning shears.
A palm on her lower back guiding her toward the hanging gardens.
A voice like velvet whispering, "You don't know how wild you are yet, do you?"
Lena didn't answer. But she stayed.
One rainy evening, after the village had gone quiet, Lena found herself back in the greenhouse long after sunset.
Mrs. Blackwood was already there barefoot, robe loosely tied, pouring wine from a crystal decanter.
Lena didn't ask questions. She stepped closer.
"You water them every night?" she asked, her voice low.
"Only the ones that still bloom."
Mrs. Blackwood reached for her hand, pulled her gently toward the center of the greenhouse, where moonlight spilled through glass and vines framed the space like a cathedral.
"Do you want to know why everything grows for me?" she asked.
Lena nodded, her breath catching.
"Because I give them what they crave. Heat. Attention. A little bit of sin."
The first kiss was unexpected but not unwelcome. It was the kind of kiss that made the air tremble, that made Lena feel like roots were twisting beneath her feet.
Hands wandered.
Breaths tangled.
Clothes were shed like old skin.
And when Lena looked up, flushed and shaken, she didn't see a widow or an employer.
She saw a woman who had rewritten the rules and was about to rewrite her.