Chapter 14 - ONE YEAR LATER
Leo Sterling's first birthday looked nothing like his one-month celebration.
No reporters.
No ballroom.
No champagne tower.
No three-hundred-person guest list.
Just a long table in the garden.
Family.
Friends.
Children running across the grass.
A chocolate cake Leo was far more interested in destroying than eating.
Avery sat barefoot beneath the oak tree.
Liam approached carrying two glasses of lemonade.
“Your son just put frosting in Thomas's hair.”
Avery laughed.
“Your son.”
“He becomes mine again when he's behaving.”
Thomas sat nearby with blue frosting on one side of his gray hair.
His Parkinson's had progressed slightly.
But he came every Sunday.
He never asked Liam to call him Dad.
Liam eventually did anyway.
Not always.
But sometimes.
Daniel remained Dad too.
There was room for both.
Richard Sterling had been charged with corporate fraud and evidence tampering.
His attorneys negotiated for months.
The Sterling board survived.
The stock recovered.
And, to everyone's surprise, Avery joined the ethics and governance committee.
She didn't control Leo's billions.
Independent trustees did.
But she made sure the company could never again use family power the way it had been used against Thomas.
Victoria spent eight months in Europe.
She returned quietly.
No announcement.
No demands.
Therapy had not magically changed her.
Nothing did.
But boundaries had.
She visited Leo twice a month.
Only when invited.
She never entered Avery and Liam's home without calling.
She never criticized Avery's clothes.
Or parenting.
Or family.
The first time she almost did, Avery simply looked at her.
Victoria stopped herself.
Progress.
Not perfection.
That afternoon, Victoria arrived carrying one small gift.
A wooden box.
“No diamonds?” Liam teased.
Victoria rolled her eyes.
“I am capable of learning.”
Inside was a restored cassette player.
And Daniel's tape.
Liam stared at it.
Victoria looked at him.
“I thought you should have the original.”
He nodded.
“Thank you.”
She turned toward Avery.
“And this is yours.”
Avery frowned.
Victoria handed her an envelope.
Inside was a photograph from Leo's one-month celebration.
Avery stood in the ballroom holding Leo.
She looked beautiful.
But tense.
Afraid.
On the back, Victoria had written one sentence.
I am sorry I made you feel like a guest in your own family.
Avery read it twice.
Then she looked at Victoria.
“Thank you.”
Victoria nodded.
She didn't ask whether she was forgiven.
Avery appreciated that.
Some wounds healed slowly.
Some relationships had to be rebuilt one ordinary day at a time.
Leo screamed happily from the lawn.
Everyone turned.
He had planted both hands directly into his cake.
Thomas laughed.
Liam groaned.
Avery grabbed her phone.
“Don't clean him yet.”
Leo lifted two frosting-covered hands.
Victoria laughed.
A real laugh.
No photographers captured it.
No newspaper printed it.
And somehow that made the moment more valuable.
Later, after everyone left, Avery and Liam sat beneath the oak tree.
Leo slept against Liam's chest.
Liam looked toward the house.
“Do you ever miss it?”
“What?”
“The way things were before all of this?”
Avery thought about it.
“No.”
“Not even a little?”
“No.”
She leaned against him.
“Because they weren't actually good.”
“They just looked good.”
Liam smiled.
“That sounds like something my father would've said.”
“Which one?”
Liam looked down at Leo.
May you like
Then he smiled.
“Exactly.”
