Julian leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to my lips, and then another to our son’s forehead.

“Welcome to the world, Noah Mercer,” he whispered.

And as the afternoon sun broke through the windows, casting a warm golden glow over our new family, I knew that my son would never spend a single day of his life wondering whether he belonged.

That certainty, more than the fortune, more than the vindication, more than the collapse of my family’s empire, was the thing I held onto most fiercely in that hospital bed, because it was the thing I was giving my son that I myself had never once had.

I had spent my entire childhood, and much of my adult life, wondering whether I belonged.