“A man pretending doesn’t cry the way you cried that night.”
“Stay,” she whispered. “Please, I don’t want to be alone tonight.” He lay down next to her. In the night, his hand found hers.
Maxwell began coming home earlier. He sat on the floor watching Emma play. One afternoon in the kitchen, Emma’s tiny hand closed around his finger. She looked up and said: “Papa.”
Maxwell shot to his feet, the chair crashing backward. He staggered back. “No,” he whispered. “No, no, no.” He ran to the living room, stopping in front of a photograph of Victoria and Thomas. He broke down in sobbing grief. “I don’t deserve to be called a father. Thomas died because of me.”
Cassidy wrapped her arms around him from behind. “You protected my daughter. To me, to Emma, you deserve to be called a father more than anyone in this world.”
Maxwell turned and held her tightly. Emma crawled over and repeated: “Papa, up.” Maxwell picked her up. “Yes. Papa’s here.”
One month later, Cassidy noticed Maxwell was growing paler. She saw a pill bottle in his study. One night, a crash came from upstairs. Maxwell lay on the study floor, motionless. Isaac and the doctor arrived. Later, Maxwell told her the truth: “I have a brain tumor. Terminal. Closer to 3 months, maybe less. I wanted to die at home. Then you and Emma appeared. I wanted you to remember me as strong, not as a dying man.”
“You’re an idiot. I don’t pity you. I hurt for you because I don’t want to lose you.” She leaned her forehead against his. “You can’t leave us.”
On the afternoon of the fourth day, Maxwell called her into his study. “I have a proposal. I have assets worth billions. When I die, all of it needs an heir. I want to leave everything to you and Emma. Marry me, Cassidy. Become my legal wife. When I am gone, you’ll be the most powerful woman on the East Coast.”
“But this isn’t love. You’re just trying to replace Victoria.”
“No one can replace Victoria. But you aren’t a replacement, Cassidy. You’re you. I want to spend my last days protecting you.”
“If I agree, what happens then?”
“You’ll become Cassidy Thornton. Emma will become Emma Thornton.”
Cassidy agreed on one condition: “No pretending. We are a real family. You live the days you have left as a father, as a husband.”
“I agree,” he whispered. “I’ll truly live for you, for Emma, for this family.”
The wedding took place 2 weeks later in the garden. Cassidy wore an ivory dress. Maxwell looked at her as if she were the sun after a long winter. During the vows, Maxwell said: “Every day I have left belongs to you and Emma. I promise to live, truly live, until I no longer can.”
Cassidy replied: “I promise to be your family. To be the hand you hold when you’re in pain.”
Maxwell lifted Emma into his arms. “Papa’s here. Mama’s here. And now we’re a family. A real family.” That night, they made love for the first time. “I love you, Max.” “I love you, too.”
Three weeks later, Maxwell’s phone vibrated. A German country code. Dr. Weber from the Berlin Hospital was on the line. “Mr. Thornton, there has been a mistake. Your test results were switched with those of another patient. You don’t have a brain tumor. You’re completely healthy.”
The phone slipped from Maxwell’s hand. “I’m not dying.”
Cassidy collapsed into tears of joy. Maxwell laughed, then cried, then laughed again. He crushed her in his arms. “I can stay with you. I can watch Emma grow up. I can live!”
Maxwell sued the hospital to ensure such mistakes never happened again. He began withdrawing from the underworld, turning illegal businesses into legitimate enterprises. “I found two reasons to change,” he told Isaac. Cassidy began her university studies. Maxwell sat beside her while she studied. Life in the mansion was full of laughter. One morning, Cassidy woke with nausea. She took a test. Two clear red lines.
“You’re pregnant,” she whispered. “We’re going to have a baby, Max.” Maxwell broke down and cried. “This time, I’ll be here. I’ll protect them.”
One year later, Emma was nearly two. Maxwell sat on the grass accepting flowers from his daughter. Cassidy sat beside him, four months pregnant. On the table lay the adoption papers: Emma Thornton.
“I still can’t believe our life,” Cassidy whispered.
“I thought I was going to die,” Maxwell replied. “Then you and Emma appeared and everything changed.”
Emma ran back and climbed into Maxwell’s lap. “Papa, Mama, love.” Maxwell wrapped his arms around his wife and daughter. He was no longer the ghost. He was a father, a husband, a man who had finally found the meaning of life. “I love you both. More than anything in this world.”
“We love you, too, forever.” As the sunset bathed the garden in golden light, the three of them remained there, holding one another. Happiness didn’t need to be spoken. It only needed to be lived.
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