Five years later, Italy had become home in the strangest, sweetest way.
Ashley Reynolds once thought peace would bore her.
Instead, it healed her.
The villa she shared with Chris stood on the hills outside Milan, wrapped in vineyards, sunlight, and the kind of silence money could buy but only love could soften. Tall windows overlooked the city in the distance. Olive trees lined the private road. Marble floors gleamed under warm light. Fresh flowers were always arranged somewhere because Ashley insisted beauty should be casual.
And Chris insisted she was the most expensive thing in the house.
They had been married for three years.
The wedding had been lavish, emotional, and loud. Ashley cried before walking down the aisle. Chris cried when she reached him and denied it for months.
Her father, smiling with pride and age finally softening his sharpness, handed over the family company as a wedding gift.
"Take it," he told them both. "Build it better than I did."
