They had dug a grave for me and fallen into it themselves.

As for me — I thrived. On the day I was named a partner at the firm, my mother flew out to San Diego and sat in the front row of the gala, weeping happy tears through my acceptance speech.

Later that evening, as the sun dropped below the Pacific and lit the sky violet and gold, James asked me to walk the shoreline. The breeze tangled my hair as we went barefoot through the surf.

He stopped, turned to me, twilight in his eyes, and took a small velvet box from his blazer.

“Sarah,” he said, his voice rough. “I can’t rewrite your past, and I don’t want to. The fires you walked through made the formidable woman standing in front of me.

But I can promise this: if you let me walk beside you into the future, I’ll do it with complete honesty, fierce loyalty, and a love that never asks you to make yourself smaller.”