“His own attorneys, I am told, advised him plainly that if he tried a fourth time, Nora’s private journals would be entered into the open record.

That was the end of it.

He had no answer to that.”

Sarah let out a soft, satisfied laugh.

“You should have seen his face in the clerk’s office, Julian.

I happened to be there.

He looked like a man who had just been handed the bill for a lifetime of bad choices, all at once, with no way left to dispute the total.” I sat with it for a moment, the knowledge that the last threat was gone, that no court would ever take back what Nora had given, that her final wish stood complete and unassailable in the eyes of the law.

She had not only loved me.