---- Chapter 20 Bennett was unceremoniously deposited on the Parisian sidewalk. He watched, numb with disbelief, as Kelsey walked away, her arm linked with that other man's. She didn't look back. He sat on the curb, the sounds of the city a dull roar in his ears, until a police officer told him to move along. He spent the next few days in a haze, wandering the streets, haunting the cafes near her gallery, hoping for another glimpse of her. He saw her a few times. Always with him. Judd. They would walk, their heads close together, laughing. They looked easy, comfortable, happy. Everything he and Kelsey had not been for years. Defeated, he flew back to New York. The first thing he did was formally renounce his inheritance. He walked into his father's office, signed the papers, and walked out without a word. He didn't want the Randolph money, the Randolph name, the Randolph legacy. It had cost him everything that mattered. He sold the penthouse, the cars, the stocks. He gave most of the money to charity, keeping only enough to live a simple life. He moved into a small, anonymous apartment downtown. He tried to rebuild his life, but he was a ghost. A man defined by what he had lost. The regret was a constant companion, a ---- cold weight in his chest that never eased. One evening, months later, he was sitting in a dimly lit bar, staring into a glass of whiskey, when a familiar voice cut through the haze. "| thought | might find you here." It was Judd. Alone. Bennett stared at him, his heart pounding. "What do you want?" "Kelsey sent me," Judd said, sitting down opposite him. "She wanted you to have this." He slid a small, velvet box across the table. Bennett opened it. Inside was the Randolph family heirloom necklace, the one he had given Kelsey on their wedding day. "She sold it to a collector," Judd explained. "She found out he was an old friend of your grandmother's. She bought it back. She said... it belongs with your family." + Bennett stared at the diamonds, glittering under the dim bar lights. It was an act of grace. Of closure. It was a final goodbye. "She's happy," Judd said, his voice soft but firm. "She's thriving. She has a life that is full, and real. And it doesn't include you." "| know," Bennett whispered, his voice hoarse. ---- "She wanted me to tell you to stop looking for her," Judd continued. "To stop haunting her. She's moved on, Bennett. It's time you did the same." Judd stood up to leave. "Do you love her?" Bennett asked, the words tearing from his throat. Judd paused, his back to him. "| respect her," he said, without turning around. "| admire her. | make her laugh. And for a woman like Kelsey, who has been through what she has been through... that's more important than love." He walked out of the bar, leaving Bennett alone with the ghosts of his past and the heavy weight of a forgiveness he had never earned and didn't deserve.