My Love Until the Last Goodbye (Mary and Maximus) novel Chapter 993

As Maximus spoke with Serenity, an idea suddenly came to him.

"Alright, I don’t want to overwhelm you with my problems anymore. I want to take you somewhere," he said, standing up from the bench.

"Where?" Serenity asked, intrigued.

"My old house."

"The one you lived in before everything with Leonardo…?"

"Exactly! There’s something there I want to give you."

"To me? Why?" Serenity asked, confused.

"For your wedding. There are a few things in that house that I’d like you to have."

"Wow… You really don’t have to! Having you there that day is more than enough."

"Come on! Let’s go. These are things I want you to have—things for you, Laura, and the girls."

"Well, if that’s what you want, then sure. But… shouldn’t Laura be here for this?"

"Mmm… She’s a little busy right now, but I know she’d be happy for you to have some of these things."

"Alright then. If she’s okay with it, I don’t see a problem."

-

A few minutes later, they arrived at Maximus’s old mansion. To him, the property looked neglected, as if time had stood still.

Inside, the furniture was covered with white sheets. Nostalgia hit him hard—this was the house where his mother and his supposed father had lived. The house where he had lived with Mary. Where he had lived with Alexia.

A house where he had once dreamed of building a family. A house where he had once imagined having the pets he had always talked about as a child.

"This way," Maximus said, leading Serenity toward a specific room.

"This room belonged to Catherine. She used it whenever she visited. There are several things here that I want you, Laura, and Adele to have. Some I’ll be giving to Peter for his daughters as well. But there’s something in particular that I want you to have."

He walked over to a hidden safe in the room and opened it.

"What is it?" Serenity asked, curiosity growing.

From the safe, Maximus pulled out a large box—a jewelry case. He carried it to the bed and opened it.

"Did you know that, for generations, there were no women born into this family?"

Serenity shook her head, still overwhelmed.

"No girls were born after Catherine. It was all men. There was one, but she didn’t make it—she would have been my sister, but she never had the chance to be born."

"Then you came. Then Laura. And now, with Peter’s daughters—even if only recently—we finally have women in this family. It’s as if fate decided it was time for a change. Time for you to take the reins of the family business."

"For the last remaining Palmers, like your little one on the way, whom I also have to consider for this treasure, it’s time to look ahead. To see what the next generations will bring. Don’t you think?" Maximus said confidently.

"I know you never got to meet Catherine. But no matter what happened, I know she would have been an amazing grandmother. We all have our pasts, our sins. But I have no doubt that she would have been proud—so proud—to see how this family is now filled with daughters."

"That’s why I want you to keep these. It’s a piece of her. A piece of the Palmers. Even if we aren’t Palmers anymore, we grew up as such. And you—my girls—are the ones who finally broke that awful curse."

Serenity raised an eyebrow. "What curse?"

Maximus smirked.

"The one where we kept bringing idiots into the world. If you think about it, after Catherine, everything went downhill. You don’t have to be a genius to realize that the men in this family have never been good at running a business."