Chapter 15
The east wing was never renovated.
Not the way Ainsley and Nolan planned.
Galen did make changes.
That surprised Teresa.
He did not turn the estate into a museum for Sofia.
Eira’s therapist had never recommended that either.
Together, Galen and Eira went through Sofia’s belongings slowly.
Some photographs returned to the walls.
The music box went back beside Eira’s bed.
The blue scarf stayed in a drawer where she could reach it.
Other things were packed carefully because Eira no longer cared about them.
For the first time, the decisions belonged to the people actually grieving.
Nolan spent the next year dealing with the financial consequences of the abandoned renovation.
His company survived, but smaller.
He no longer worked inside Moretti family businesses.
Ainsley moved into a condominium in Streeterville and returned to her career in nonprofit event planning outside the Moretti circle.
She did not lose everything.
She lost the thing she had tried hardest to secure.
A place inside Galen’s home.
The legal issue from the rehearsal did not disappear either.
Galen acknowledged striking Ainsley after removing her hand from Eira.
Through counsel, the matter was resolved without Galen using family influence to silence witnesses or pressure Ainsley.
He also began working privately with a therapist of his own.
Not because he suddenly became gentle.
Because he had finally understood that control and protection were not the same thing.
Six months after the canceled wedding, Galen took Eira back into the ballroom.
The flowers were gone.
The ribbon station was gone.
The room had returned to ordinary family events.
Eira wore Sofia’s locket.
In her hands was the repaired sash.
“What do you want to do with it?” Galen asked.
She thought for a while.
“Can we put it with Mommy’s dress?”
“Sure.”
They carried it upstairs together.
At Sofia’s old room, Eira stopped.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“If you get married someday, do I have to take Mommy off?”
Galen looked at the locket.
“No.”
“What if she doesn’t like it?”
“Then she won’t be marrying me.”
Eira smiled.
That answer was easy now.
The harder question came a few seconds later.
“Do you think somebody will?”
Galen looked down the hallway.
For almost two years after Sofia died, he had been terrified that loving again meant leaving her behind.
Ainsley had turned that fear into something uglier.
Now, for the first time, Galen understood that the next person would not be asked to replace Sofia.
She would have to live honestly beside the fact that Sofia had existed.
He opened the wardrobe and helped Eira place the sash beside her mother’s dress.
May you like
Then Eira took his hand and led him back downstairs.
Galen left the wardrobe door open.
