TERMS OF THE HEART
Grace asked, genuinely curious about her perspective.
"I think I misjudged you initially," Denise admitted. "I assumed, given everything I'd read about wealthy families and their institutions, that you'd respond to my letter with lawyers and careful denial. Instead, you actually listened, and actually fixed it, completely."
"I understand why you assumed that," Damien said. "Most institutions probably would have responded exactly the way you expected. I'm genuinely sorry you had to discover otherwise through crisis rather than simply trusting it from the beginning."
"I think that's rather the whole problem, isn't it?" Denise reflected. "Trust has to be earned, repeatedly, through actual demon