The next morning, Matthias walked into his company’s boardroom. The executives and his father waited. He spoke calmly, every word steady. “If kindness costs me my position, then I’ll gladly pay it.”
His father stared, speechless. For the first time, Matthias saw the old man look small.
When the meeting ended, he left without looking back. The world outside felt sharp and clean, the cold air almost freeing.
That evening, he returned to Glenwood Street. Ana opened the door, her eyes uncertain.
He lifted the small wooden house. “If the offer still stands,” he said softly, “I’d like to come home.”
She stepped aside without a word.
Lucia stirred on the sofa and smiled sleepily. “You came back.”
He knelt beside her. “I did.”
They ate leftovers, laughed over nothing, and fell into the kind of peace money could never buy.
A year later, the crooked angel still leaned over Ana’s tree. The house smelled of cinnamon and candle wax. Matthias hung the little wooden ornament near the top, its word catching the glow of the lights.
Welcome.
He finally understood what it meant. Because that Christmas, in a crowded house on a quiet street in Edinburgh, Matthias Kerr didn’t just find company—he found belonging.
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