Fifty years old, yet time hadn't left a single mark on her.
Nothing like our aunt back home, who looked every bit her age.
I gave a timid nod. The expensive carpet beneath my feet might as well have been lined with needles, each step stinging.
"My grandma asked me to bring these local specialties. Let me just—"
I crouched down and began pulling items out one by one, just as Grandma had instructed. Winona bent beside me, passing each gift along.
But when I looked up, I was met with near-identical expressions of disgust.
They covered their mouths. They wrinkled their noses. As if what lay before them was something filthy.
My heart went cold.
Winona saw their faces and snapped, "Someone come take these. Now."
No one dared defy the family's little princess. At her command, several people scrambled forward and carried everything away.
Winona pulled me to my feet, her expression hard, and introduced me to the room with unmistakable finality.
"This is my boyfriend. Dominic."
"He is my future husband. If any of you can't accept him, then you don't accept me."
The vast living room fell so silent you could hear a pin drop.
No one dared speak. The atmosphere was suffocating.
Then a quiet sigh rose from somewhere in the crowd, and a path parted on its own.
I followed the sound and found a man in a tailored suit watching Winona and me in silence.
"Winona. You said he's your future husband."
"Then what am I?"
The first time I laid eyes on Grant Heath, I understood that a man could be that impossibly refined, that devastatingly handsome.
He looked like a movie star who'd stepped right off the screen—radiant, magnetic, impossible to ignore.
It was also the moment I learned that he and Winona had grown up together, childhood sweethearts since they were small.
Their bond ran so deep that even after Winona vanished for five years—her fate unknown, her life uncertain—Grant had stayed exactly where he was, waiting.
"Winona, I waited five years for you. Do you have any idea what those five years were like for me?"
"Winona, how could you forget me?"
"And how could you fall in love with a man like him?"
Winona's hand slipped from mine without her seeming to realize it.
That was the first time I ever saw conflict on her face.
Winona settled me into a villa just one street over from the Delgado house.
That night, she held me tight as we lay in bed, painting pictures of the future.
"Dominic, this is going to be our home from now on. Don't worry—I'll make things right. I promise."
"I told you. You're the only one for me."
Those words were an anchor, steadying the restless sea inside my chest.
Winona hadn't recovered her memories, but the instincts for running her company were still there. She fell back into work seamlessly—home, office, home—a clean three-point routine. I barely heard her mention Grant at all.
Worried I'd be lonely, she brought my grandma to Ashford.
Every day, Grandma and I cooked up something new for Winona—her favorite dishes, little surprises. She always ate with the happiest smile on her face.
After dinner, the three of us would go up to the rooftop and watch the sunset.
Back home, our favorite spot had been the hill behind the farm. She'd told me once that she wanted to watch sunsets with me for the rest of our lives.
Those few months were the happiest I'd ever known.
We no longer worried about money. We were finally living the life we'd always dreamed of.
But then Winona's work grew busier and busier. Days would pass—sometimes several in a row—without Grandma or me seeing her at all.
On the rare occasions she did come by, she'd stay only a little while before leaving again.
The sunsets became something I watched alone.
Some nights I'd sit on that rooftop staring at nothing until the sky turned black, still waiting for Winona to come watch the sunset with me.
She never came.
Then Winona's birthday arrived. She said she wanted to bring me back to the Delgado house, and once again I stepped through the doors of that terrifyingly enormous mansion.
I wore a suit that didn't fit right on my body. Around me, eyes raked over me with undisguised contempt.
I gripped Winona's arm.
But this time, she didn't say, "Don't be scared. I'm right here."
