One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 64: Chapter 64

The morning sun streamed through the tall windows of the Westwood estate’s drawing room. Arielle sat in an antique armchair, an untouched cup of tea in her lap. The conversation from last night still echoed in her mind.
“You belong here. It’s your right,” Josephine had said firmly.
Julian had nodded, quiet but supportive. Even Lena, cautiously hopeful, had encouraged her.
But Arielle didn’t feel like an heiress.
She felt like a guest in someone else’s fairy tale.
The next morning, a family meeting was called. Josephine, Julian, Lena, and even two distant cousins showed up. All seated in a semicircle, eyes fixed on Arielle.
“We want to transfer the Westwood holdings back into your name,” Josephine said.
“You’re the blood heir,” one cousin added. “It’s symbolic. But important.”
“Would you run it?” another asked. “Be the new matriarch?”
The words hit like bricks.
Arielle shook her head. “I have a life. A husband. Children. A bakery. I can’t just... abandon all of that.”
“You wouldn’t be abandoning anything,” Julian said gently. “You’d be expanding.”
“I don’t want to be a symbol,” she replied. “I just want to bake bread and tuck my kids in at night.”
After the meeting, Lena followed her outside.
“They mean well,” her mother said.
“I know,” Arielle whispered.
“But you don’t owe anyone a legacy you never asked for.”
Arielle looked at the vineyards stretching into the horizon. “Isn’t that what blood means? That you carry it whether you want to or not?”
“No,” Lena said. “Blood may be destiny, but boundaries are your birthright too.”
That night, Damien video-called.
“How’s the wine dynasty?” he teased.
Arielle laughed, a touch too bitter. “They want me to rule the empire.”
“And what do you want?”
She hesitated. “To understand what I’ve inherited. But not to be swallowed by it.”
“Then don’t. Visit. Learn. Then come home.”
Home.
Later, she wandered into the estate library. Pulled out dusty ledgers, letters, maps.
She wanted to know. To read the chapters that came before her.
But not to rewrite them.
The next morning, she sat the family down.
“I’m not taking control. Not now. Maybe not ever.”
A pause. Some tension. Then Julian stood.
“Then let us honor what you are ready to give. Even if it’s just your story.”
She smiled. “That I can do.”
As she packed to return home, Josephine handed her one last envelope.
“The original deed. Just in case the wind ever changes.”
Arielle placed it gently into her suitcase.
Not as an obligation.
As an option.