Page 116 of Best Kept Vows

That evening, I joined some of the Savannah Lace team for drinks at The Grey. We were celebrating Lia signing her first job contract.

“I still can’t believe I did that,” Lia chirped as we walked home. “I didn’t throw up. Or faint. Or forget what I was saying mid-sentence.

“You crushed it.” I slid an arm around her.

She looked up at me. “And I got a job.”

“You certainly did.”

She was giddy with excitement. “I can’t believe it!”

“Baby, you’re a rockstar.”

She rested her head on my shoulder as we walked slowly. “You came.”

“I did.” I stilled for a moment. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t the last time.”

She went on tiptoe and kissed my lips. “You showed up today.”

“I will show up tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that.”

Her brown eyes looked into mine. “I have no doubt,” she said confidently.

CHAPTER 40

Ophelia

When they said that was the last straw, how many others had fallen before it? Could you count them? Did they even matter when the final one struck?

I had asked myself these questions countless times in the past few years.

When I walked away from Sebastian, I wasn’t just leaving our marriage behind—I was shedding the part of me that had been content to wait for my dreams to find me. But that was the past. In the present, I knew one thing with absolute certainty: I wasn’t waiting anymore. I was choosing.

Now, standing in Forsyth Park in the golden late afternoon light, I was surrounded by the people who had shaped ournewlives—who had helped me grow to be a woman who felt she had the right and the ability to choose.

The park itself seemed to whisper farewell to what had been, and welcomed the promise of what was to come.

Towering oaks and weeping magnolias embraced the clearing, their leaves stirring gently in the cool breeze.

Every rustle of the branches and every filtered beam of sunlight locked onto the faces of our closest friends and family, who gathered not in grand spectacle but in intimate solidarity.

The delicate perfume of flowers mingled with the earthy scent of the park while Spanish moss danced in the breeze, casting bittersweet shadows over our small yet significant gathering.

Sebastian and I hadn’t come to recapture echoes of our past—we were here to forge a new future. He stood a few paces away, his eyes full of devotion and love.

There were no extravagances—just our children, our dearest friends like Lev, Luna, Nina, and Diego, and some familiar faces from Sebastian's old team, Marek and Stacy.

Betsy and Atticus Rhodes stood with their son, Gabriel, and his wife, my friend Aurora.

These were the souls who had supported us, and as the soft murmurs of encouragement bubbled around us, it was clear: there was no room for extras like Dolly or Coco; this vow renewal was a sacred tribute to those who truly mattered.

Sebastian cleared his throat and took my hands in his.

"Lia," he began, his blue eyes capturing mine, "I once believed love was about holding on, about being unyieldingly strong. But I have learned that true love...the kind that endures, is about relinquishing ego and expectations—it’s about choosing one another, day in and day out."

A lump rose in my throat as I blinked through tears.

"I never chose you enough," he confessed, his voice raw with regret and hope. "I assumed you would always be waiting, and in my blindness, I nearly lost you."