“Because he recognized me,” she said. “Because he never forgot.”
Victoria’s flawless composure fractured. “This is insane,” she said weakly. “You can’t be considering this.”
Jonathan looked at his son—no longer silent, no longer distant—holding tightly to the woman who smelled of soap and effort and something deeply familiar.
The quiet that had haunted his home for two years had not been emptiness.
It had been absence.
And now the truth stood in the center of his perfect ballroom, impossible to ignore.
There would be explanations. Consequences. Headlines, perhaps.
But in that moment, none of it mattered.
His son had spoken.
And the first word had been love.
