Not part of Mireille’s design.
My grandmother had stitched them herself.
I leaned closer.
Adrian came beside me.
“What does it say?”
My throat tightened.
I read the words aloud.
“You were always enough.”
I covered my mouth.
And suddenly I was crying.
Not because of Vanessa.
Not because of my mother.
Not because of the millions, the secret affair, the DNA report, or the wedding dress that had nearly become a weapon.
I cried because somewhere, long before I understood how badly I would need to hear it, my grandmother had known the exact lie my mother had spent a lifetime teaching me.
That love had to be earned.
That attention had to be competed for.
That another woman’s beauty diminished mine.
That being chosen required somebody else to lose.
Grandmother had known better.
She had stitched the truth into the one thing my mother and sister could never steal.
Adrian slipped his hand into mine.
Outside, bells from the estate chapel began ringing across the lake.
I looked through the windows at the gardens glowing beneath the morning sun.
Bellmont was mine.
My life was mine.
My marriage was mine.
And for the first time, the past no longer felt like something chasing me.
It felt like something behind me.
I touched the lace one last time.
Then I smiled.
Because my sister had stolen my wedding dress hoping to prove she could take anything from me.
Instead, she helped uncover the truth my grandmother had protected for years.
The dress was never my inheritance.
The money was never my inheritance.
Bellmont was never my inheritance.
My grandmother’s real gift had been simpler.
She had made sure that when the people who loved control finally tried to break me,
I would discover that I had already become someone they could no longer control.
And that was the one thing they could never steal.
