I have thought a great deal about how to pass that forward to Isla — not the money, which is only the instrument, but the thing itself: the certainty of her own standing.

It is the truest inheritance there is, and it is the one I intend her to grow up never doubting she has.

Chapter 14 — Complete on Her Own

That autumn, the storm had finally cleared, and it left behind a foundation steadier than anything I had ever stood on.

I did not stay in the Draycotts’ city.

I moved home, near Brigid, to Savannah, and I appointed an independent chair to run Draycott Holdings so that I could put the whole apparatus at arm’s length and turn my attention where I actually wanted it.

People assumed, when the dust settled and the extent of the equity became known, that I would step into the company — take the controlling seat, run the thing, remake it in my own image.