Her Parents Gave Her Away Like She Was Worthless

Three months later.

The early spring sun rose over the jagged snow-capped peaks of the Coast Mountains in a breathtaking, cinematic explosion of burning violet, deep copper, and brilliant, honey-colored gold that turned the waters of Burrard Inlet into fields of liquid fire.

The air on the high stone terrace of the Point Grey estate was crisp, vast, and smelling of sweet cedar woodsmoke, clean ocean salt, and the rich, invigorating chill of the northern sea.

The historic redoubt had undergone a total, magnificent resurrection.

The locked doors of the third floor had been thrown wide open to the morning light; the cold, institutional silence that had haunted the seventy rooms was gone forever, replaced by the thrumming, joyful music of four children running through the halls.

Down on the private pebble beach below the ninety-foot cliffs, twelve-year-old Thomas Novak—his skin healthy, his face completely unscarred—was skipping flat granite stones across the calm water, laughing as five-year-old Leo bounded through the shallow surf with his repaired wooden boat clutched in his hands.

Beside them, eight-year-old Maya sat on a drift log, her sketchbook open across her knees, drawing the bald eagles that were circling the towering Douglas firs on the point.

Up on the wide cedar terrace, leaning against the warm basalt balustrade with two steaming ceramic mugs of fresh-brewed dark roast coffee, stood Seraphine.

She wore an unadorned, oversized cream cable-knit fisherman’s sweater over dark denim trousers, her dark hair falling softly around her shoulders, her twenty-six-year-old frame feeling lighter, stronger, and more whole than it had in her entire life.

Beside her on the stone table lay her newly issued diploma from the University of British Columbia’s School of Nursing:

SERAPHINE NOVAK, BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN NURSING GRADUATED FIRST CLASS HONORS – PEDIATRIC TRAUMA SPECIALIZATION.

A soft, familiar step sounded on the flagstones behind her.

Christian Duras walked up the terrace steps, wearing an unbuttoned black wool coat over an open-collared linen shirt, holding an unlit cigar in his hand and a flat priority mail envelope stamped with the gold seal of the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

He stopped beside her at the balustrade, leaning his broad shoulder lightly against hers, looking out over the children playing on the beach below.

"The federal court in Victoria finalized the asset liquidations forty minutes ago, Seraphine," Christian said softly, his deep baritone carrying over the sound of the ocean swells.

Seraphine took a slow, thoughtful sip of her coffee, looking up into his clear slate-gray eyes. "What did Judge Harrison give them?"

"Vanessa Sterling received eighteen years at the Fraser Valley Institution for Women," Christian replied, his voice steady as granite. "Her private real estate holdings were seized by the federal receivers to satisfy forty-two million dollars in restitution to the children's trust."

He paused, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked out toward the western horizon.

"And Bogdan?" she asked softly.

"Bogdan’s trial concluded yesterday afternoon," Christian said. "He entered an open guilty plea to aggravated arson and corporate fraud. He was sentenced to twenty-six years at Kent Institution. No eligibility for statutory parole until 2042."

Seraphine took a deep, uninhibited breath of the cold salt air, feeling the clean oxygen fill her lungs to the very brim.

She did not flinch.

She did not smile.

The memory of the kitchen fire, the smell of the chemical naphtha, the cold hospital corridor where her father had calculated her worth—all of it felt like an ancient, dead nightmare that had belonged to another lifetime.

She reached up with her left hand, her fingertips lightly, gently tracing the pale, raised ridge of the scar along her cheekbone.

It didn't throb anymore. It didn't burn when the winter wind came off the water.

It was just an old weld on an iron hull that had held its course through the storm.

Christian reached out, his large, calloused fingers gently covering hers on the stone balustrade, his thumb sliding over the back of her hand with an ancient, sovereign tenderness.

"Julian asked me a question this morning in the library, Seraphine," Christian murmured, his eyes holding hers with an intensity that took the breath from her chest.

"What did he ask, Christian?"

"He asked if you were going to move back to the city now that your hospital rotations are finished."

Seraphine turned her head, looking at the little boy holding his wooden boat on the beach, then at the towering cedar house that had become her sanctuary, and finally into the dark, steady eyes of the only man who had ever looked at her whole soul.

She smiled—a wide, unreserved, radiant expression that illuminated her entire face, turning the scar on her cheek into a badge of sovereign beauty.

"Tell Julian," Seraphine whispered softly into the sweet spring wind, "that the nurse has signed a permanent contract."

Christian laughed—a deep, booming, unreserved sound of pure, unadulterated joy that echoed off the basalt cliffs like a bronze bell—and pulled her against his chest, his arms wrapping around her waist with gentle, unyielding permanence.

He leaned down, pressing his lips against her temple, right where the scar tissue softened into smooth, living skin.