unexpected gift hidden within the worst night of my life.
Not revenge.
Clarity.
Grandmother died the following spring at eighty-nine.
Before her death, I sat beside her bed and apologized for ignoring her warnings about Cole.
She frowned.
“Did you learn?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop wasting the lesson on regret.”
That was Margaret Bennett.
She preferred direct instructions to poetry.
I laughed.
She squeezed my hand.
“Money is useful, Lauren.”
I waited.
She’d spent her life teaching lessons as though every conversation were a board meeting.
“But?”
“But the best thing
