Page 90 of The Billionaire's Accidental Legacy

“I don’t think I understand that.”

Jessie laughed. “I don’t think I do, either.”

Maren had gone to a meeting about the acquisition of her new property, and Jessie was still lying on a chaise longue next to a window in the estate when she saw the sleek white plane begin its descent.

Her heart leaped.

“No,” she whispered. “Don’t do that. Don’t hope.”

No. Hope. Because you can. She stood up, and she found herself walking out the door, and then running.

Running up over the grassy hills that led to the landing strip.

And then she saw him. Just on the other side. Barefoot. And running toward her.

“At him,” she whispered.

And as much as she could, she ran toward him.

And when she reached him, he pulled her into his embrace, and simply held her.

“I love you,” he said, his whisper fierce and hard.

“I love you, too.”

She couldn’t wait to hear his explanation. All the things that had shifted and changed inside him. But she didn’t need them to know that she loved him.

She didn’t need them for this moment.

“I’m sorry that I was afraid.”

“Life gave you a lot of reasons to be afraid.”

“I could never believe in fate. I thought it seemed cruel. But right now it doesn’t. I thought that I needed to destroy myself to destroy my father. But there are more ways to break a cycle than I believed. We can break it now. By being different. By choosing love. By choosing that over power. Over all else.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“I love you, Jessie. More than I’m afraid of losing you. More than I’m afraid of pain. I love you more than all the pain and suffering and glory on this earth. And I always will.”

“I love you, too.”

Jessie Hargreave had been raised to believe that there were two kinds of people. The frightened and the frightening. She had believed the only way to beat that system was to be a con artist. Someone who wove her way through the margins of fear. But now she realized that none of that was true at all.

Because there was love.

And it changed people. It changed them from frightened creatures, it changed them from con artists, into something wholly beautiful, wholly wonderful. And entirely worthy.

And from their love they would grow enough good, big, beautiful memories to make the darkness seem small.

She knew without a doubt, that what she would teach her child was that in the end, the greatest thing of all was love.

EPILOGUE

EWANDIDN’TBREATHEthe entire time Jessie was in labor. He had chosen love, but it didn’t mean that his bad memories didn’t still exist inside him.

Part of embracing the truth of himself had been grieving. His father had cut his grieving short, and then after that he’d cut off his own grief so he could embrace his chosen persona.

So now he felt sad sometimes when he thought of his mother. Anger when he thought of his father. A peculiar sense of missing something when he thought of the baby brother he’d never had a chance to know.

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