A year later, Christmas Eve looked very different.
The celebration took place at William’s restored seaside estate. No media. No extravagance. Just a long wooden table under the stars, homemade dishes, laughter. Children from Isabella’s former foster home were guests of honor. Former colleagues joined them too.
And there was Ethan.
Ethan wasn’t wealthy. He was the architect renovating part of the estate into a scholarship residence for underprivileged students. He cared that Isabella loved reading poetry aloud and burned her toast every morning. He looked at her with steady warmth.
Standing by the terrace overlooking the ocean, she thought of the woman she had been a year earlier—shaking, signing her own erasure. The inheritance had given her freedom, but she had built happiness herself: reconciling with her mother, supporting children like her, choosing love without fear.
Ethan slipped an arm around her waist. “You okay?”
“More than okay,” she said softly. “Sometimes you have to lose everything to realize it wasn’t worth keeping.”