Chapter 37
Donovan
They lower her father first.
The pulleys squeak—too loud in the silence—as the casket begins to sink into the ground. Pine wood and gold, polished like a mirror. It catches the sunlight as it goes under.
Stella doesn’t move.
Her hand is clenched around mine so tightly I think I’ll bruise, but I don’t let go.
She hasn’t said a word since the service. She didn’t cry when she spoke. Not only that, but she didn’t cry when the music ended. And she doesn’t cry now.
Her mother’s casket follows. White lacquer. Silver accents. The one she designed herself—I remember Stella telling me that once, like it was funny. “Who plans their own casket five years in advance?”
Apparently, people who know what legacy means.
People like the Carringtons.
The wind shifts. A few flower petals lift from the arrangement and scatter through the air like snow.
Stella doesn’t flinch.
She just watches.
Her whole body is tight—like she’s made of marble. Like if she lets one thing slip, she’ll come apart at the seams and never find all the pieces.
I wish I could take it from her—all of it. I’d bury myself if it meant she didn’t have to feel this.
But grief doesn’t work like that.
This part—the dirt, the silence, the finality—this part is hers alone.
Ansel is on her other side. Blythe stands behind them, one hand resting gently on Stella’s shoulder. Preston Langford says a final prayer. The workers nod and start shoveling.
And still—she doesn’t cry.
She just stands there, her spine straight, her heels sinking slightly into the soft earth, watching the only two people who ever made her feel safe disappear into the ground.
God, she looks beautiful. And absolutely wrecked.
I glance down at her hand, still gripping mine.
Her fingernails are painted merlot—the same color as the polish she wore the night we were married. She hasn’t changed colors since.
I kiss the back of her hand. It trembles slightly, but she doesn’t pull away.
She doesn’t look at me.
She doesn’t look at anything but the grave.
The house is full of murmurs and casseroles. People she barely remembers are hugging her like they’ve earned the right.
“We're so sorry.”
“They loved you so much.”
“If you need anything…”
The same sentences over and over—grief rehearsed, packaged, and passed around like polite hors d'oeuvres (appetizers).
The only reprieve she gets is when Preston kindly asks everyone to leave. Once the last car disappears down her winding driveway, Preston makes his way back to the family room.
Stella is sitting on the couch, a whiskey neat, her father’s favorite brand, in the only whiskey glass he drinks from. She is sitting poised, her heel-clad feet delicately crossed at the ankle. Every inch the goddess she is.
He walks in, carrying the same leather envelope, and sits in the high-backed chair opposite Stella. I sit next to her, my fingers lacing with hers.
Preston clears his throat and begins. “First, here is a letter your father wrote. There were extremely specific circumstances for you to receive this letter. I have not read it, nor has he told me the contents of the letter. Just everything will make sense after you read it.” He hands her the cream envelope, with Vince Carrington's name embossed across it in gold inlay.
Now, to the family assets. He opens his folder and scans the paper, clearing his throat.
“Your parents indicated you are the only person to inherit their legacy. Because no one else could hold it the way you do.” He closes his folder and stands.
“Stella, everything. The cars, the house, the money, the legacy. Everything is yours to do with as you want.” He pulls me into a hug.
“I am here for you, whenever you need anything. Your father was my best friend.” He turns to leave, his hand twisting the doorknob.
Before the door opens, he turns to say, “Stella, your father has also prepaid me for ANY legal matters you might need.”
She doesn’t speak.
Just stands. Smooths the front of her dress like she’s fixing something that isn’t broken.
And then she walks. Out of the room. Down the hall. Past the kitchen, where the smell of someone else’s lasagna still lingers.
I wait a beat, then follow—but I don’t call her name.
I already know where she’s going.
I give her time to breathe, to feel.
The art studio door is already open when I get there. The overhead light is off. Sunlight spills through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting everything in gold and shadow.
Her dress is on the floor. Pooled like a crime scene.
She’s standing in a camisole now, barefoot, hair still perfectly twisted back—as if grief hasn’t dared to touch her crown.
But it’s in her hands.
A brush in one. A palette knife in the other.
And a canvas already smeared with blood-red strokes that look like they were carved, not painted.
She doesn’t turn when I enter. Doesn’t speak.
The only sound is her heavy breathing and the sound of her paintbrush sweeping across the canvas.
I take a step closer.
“Stella…” The palette knife hits the wall before I finish her name.
She spins towards me, her eyes glassy and her voice shaking.
“Every child ends up burying the people who love them most, and we call that normal. How the fuck does anyone choose to bring a child into that? Into a world where they get bullied at eight, heartbroken at sixteen, and then—then they have to stand over a grave and figure out how to keep breathing.”
She gestures wildly to the air—to the empty space, the pain, the silence. “How am I supposed to carry someone, knowing that one day they’ll have to bury us? And we won’t be there to fix it. We won’t be there at all.”
“This is a cruel fucking world, Donovan. Kids are mean. Grief is a thief. And love—”Her voice cracks. Her lip trembles before she clamps her mouth shut and shakes her head. “I can’t do that to someone else. I won’t.”
I don’t move at first. Not because I’m afraid of her—but because I’m afraid of breaking her. The silence she leaves behind is heavier than her words. Like the grief itself is pressing against the walls, waiting to swallow her whole.
“You’re right,” I say quietly. My voice comes out rough, like I’ve been holding it in my throat too long. “It is cruel, unfair, messy, and fucking terrifying.”
I take a step forward. “But what if, in the middle of all that pain, they got you?”
She doesn’t look at me, but I see her fingers twitch—like part of her wants to hurl something else, and part of her just wants to be held.
I take another step, slow and sure. “What if they got a mother who painted her grief in color? A mother who didn’t lie about life being easy but taught them how to survive it anyway?”
My hand finds the edge of the paint-smeared table. “What if they got us, Stella?”
Her shoulders tremble. She still won’t look at me.
So I give her the last of it—the part I’ve never said out loud.
“You think I give a fuck about having kids?” My voice breaks before it builds—rough, guttural, and wrecked. “You think I’m standing here grieving some maybe-baby future?”
I step forward, chest heaving, fists clenched at my sides. “I'd burn down every version of that life for you.”
She flinches—just barely—but doesn’t look away.
“You don’t want kids? Fine.” I'm close enough now to feel the heat coming off her skin—rage, grief, all of it. “Then we don’t fucking have them. I don’t need a legacy. I don’t need some sweet little nursery with pastel walls and rocking chairs.”
I gesture to the paint-stained floor, the cracked canvas, and her trembling shoulders. “This is the life. You are the fucking life, Stella.”
I swallow hard, and my voice drops to something lower. Something dangerous. “You are the only fucking thing I need. Do you understand me?”
I take her face in my hands, careful like I’m holding something sacred. “Not a child. Not a family. Not a future we built when we were too young to know what this world takes from you.”
I lean in, forehead pressed to hers, breathing her in like she’s the last air I’ll ever get. “If all I get is this—your fury, your grief, your fire—then that’s what I want. That’s what I’ll crawl through hell for.”
My lips brush against hers, barely. “I'll carry the weight of never being a father if it means I get to love you this hard.”