Following the divorce, Nathaniel Cross invited me to dinner and revealed that he had actually been high school lab partners with my late twin sister Hannah. He shared beautiful memories of my sister that I had not heard in seventeen years, explaining that he had always admired me from afar but was too shy to say anything back then. We slowly began spending time together, and his genuine kindness toward Sadie and his absolute respect for my independence eventually helped me lower my emotional walls. A year later, Nathaniel proposed to me on a quiet beach, but our happiness was abruptly shattered when a terminally ill woman named Rebecca Dorsey called to accuse Nathaniel of ruining her late husband. Panicked and terrified of being betrayed by another man, I canceled the wedding and fled with Sadie to a rented cabin until I could uncover the truth. Twelve days later, Miles contacted me to reveal that Grant had paid Rebecca seventy-five thousand dollars to fabricate the story and destroy my new relationship. Rebecca had confessed everything in a sworn statement right before passing away, and I immediately rushed back to Portland to apologize to Nathaniel and finally marry him.
Three years after marrying Nathaniel, I attended a charity gala sponsored by the new investment firm I had founded to support women in technology. While walking down a quiet hallway, a waitress deliberately bumped into me and spilled champagne all over my expensive gown. I immediately recognized the woman as Brielle, who had recently finished serving her prison sentence for concealing Grant’s unauthorized corporate payments and was now begging me for money to make her problems disappear. Security footage proved she had staged the accident, and I looked at her with pure pity, explaining that Nathaniel had not saved me with his wealth because I had already secured my own massive fortune long before we started dating. A month later, I agreed to meet Grant at a local diner following his release from his three-year prison sentence. He was a broken and aged man who tried to offer me eight hundred dollars for Sadie, but I slid the envelope back, explaining that our daughter needed honesty and consistency rather than his money. Returning to Nathaniel and Sadie that afternoon, I realized my husband’s betrayal had actually freed me to build a magnificent and deeply authentic life.