She nodded.
“I don’t expect you to.”
“But you told the truth when it mattered.”
Beyond the windows, fireworks illuminated the Chicago skyline.
I had entered my twenty-seventh birthday believing I was a quiet woman trapped inside a disappointing marriage.
By the end of that year, I had lost a husband, found my father, inherited an empire, and uncovered a conspiracy that had shaped nearly every part of my life.
But the hotel was not the greatest gift.
The greatest gift was understanding that I had never been weak.
I had simply spent years surrounded by people who needed me to believe I was.
When the final firework burst above the lake, I signed the last document ending my marriage.
Then I turned toward the ballroom, where hundreds of employees and guests were waiting.
For the first time, the Bennett Grand no longer felt like my grandmother’s legacy or my father’s battlefield.
It felt like mine.
