Chapter 14 - THE BIRTHDAY I FINALLY CELEBRATED
My thirtieth birthday was quiet.
No investors.
No champagne tower.
No carefully staged speeches.
Just dinner at my mother's house.
My best friend Tessa brought a cake.
Miriam brought flowers.
Danielle brought a bottle of wine.
And Julian arrived carrying a small wooden box.
I laughed.
“Another box?”
He smiled.
“I promise this one's less dramatic.”
Inside was a miniature chair.
A perfect scale model of the Marigold.
I stared.
“Julian.”
He shrugged.
“I asked one of your apprentices to help.”
I turned it over.
Beneath the seat, someone had engraved:
THE FIRST THING YOU BUILT WAS YOURSELF.
My eyes filled.
“That's not true,” I whispered.
Julian looked at me.
“What isn't?”
“I didn't build myself first.”
I looked around the room.
At the people who had stayed.
At the people who had helped.
At the people who loved me without needing me to disappear.
“I had help.”
He smiled.
“Then maybe that's what makes it beautiful.”
Later that evening, we walked through my mother's garden.
Julian stopped beside a rosebush.
“Serena.”
I looked up.
“Yes?”
“Can I ask you something?”
I smiled.
“You usually do.”
He laughed.
“Would you have dinner with me next week?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“We've had dinner together before.”
“Not like this.”
My heart skipped.
I studied him.
“Are you asking me on a date?”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
I smiled.
“Then yes.”
May you like
His expression softened.
And for the first time in a long time, I felt excited about a future I hadn't planned.
