“Another gift. I didn’t give it to you at my mother’s because I didn’t want my family to make a big deal of it.”

“What is it?”

He went to the coat closet and got a small velvet box from the pocket of his coat. “Take a look.”

They sat in front of the fire as she opened it. It was a pair of diamond stud earrings that had to be almost a karat each, and she could tell from the box they’d come from a fine-jewelry store. “They’re gorgeous!” she said. “But unless they’re fake I can’t accept them.”

He laughed. “They’re not fake.”

“Then, they must’ve cost a fortune!”

He took them from the box and helped her change from the much cheaper earrings she was wearing now. “I can afford it, and I wanted you to have them.”

Seth was more than generous. She loved that about him. But she wasn’t sure how to interpret this gift. Was it as simple as wanting her to have something he thought was beautiful? Something she might like and would never buy for herself? Or had he bought them out of guilt, because he couldn’t give her what she really wanted?

“Thank you. I wish I had something else for you.”

“I don’t want anything else. You’ve already made this Christmas so much better than it would’ve been,” he said and kissed her.

Her phone rang over on the counter where she’d set it while putting away the leftovers.

“That might be your family,” he said, sounding as hopeful as she immediately felt.

She hurried over to see. “It is them,” she said in relief and answered.

“Tia?”

It had taken her mother years to get used to her new name. It still sounded foreign on her lips, but at least she was trying. “Merry Christmas!” Tia said. “How was your day?”

“We enjoyed it.”

“What’d you do?”

“We had dinner with the Parkers.”

After the day she’d spent at the Turners’, the contrast between her old world and her new one had never seemed greater. “That sounds nice.”

“It was. We are truly blessed.”

“I’m glad you feel that way. I wanted to send gifts to my nieces and nephews, but—”

“It’s better not to get that started,” her mother broke in. “You know your father would not approve.”

Tia didn’t see the harm in sending each of the kids a small present, but she wasn’t willing to put up a fight today. She wanted peace where they were concerned. “Okay.”

“Abram said you thought he called the paparazzi and told them where to find you. I can’t believe you would accuse him of that.”

“I realize now that I was wrong, and I’m sorry. I apologized to him, too. But...who else would do it?”