Rising from the Ashes The Heiress They Tried to Erase Novel

Chapter 564: After all, he believed that Maia's boyfriend was Melanie's dad, Hurst! Hurst was way older than Maia - nothing like what Kathie probably expected. This kind of situation might be hard for Kathie to accept at first. But Ethan saw it another way. He'd read somewhere that older men tended to be more caring with women. As long as the guy truly cared for his sister Maia, Ethan figured there was no problem at all.

With that in mind, he quickly jumped in, saying, "Maia, I got you a birthday present too." Ethan's cheeks turned red, and he looked shy, managing to pull Kathie's focus away. Kathie looked at Ethan but spoke to Maia. "Ethan went out of his way to find this gift for you. He spent the whole day on it." Maia's eyes lit up with excitement. "What kind of gift?" Ethan stood up, empty-handed, scratching the back of his head. "I wasn't sure when you'd get back, so I hid it away first. Give me a moment." Then he turned and headed to his bedroom.

Before long, he came back, holding a wooden box carefully with both hands. The box looked pretty heavy, and Maia quickly stood up to lend a hand. When the box was opened, Maia's face froze for a brief moment. A flicker of doubt gripped her chest tightly. Her eyes flicked between Ethan and the gift. "Ethan, is this...?" gⲁν.0, Inside was a clay sculpture of a family. It showed two adults holding hands with two kids. One kid was a boy with short hair; the other was a girl whose long hair fell over her shoulders. The sculpture was so lifelike that Maia raised it to her eye level.

She was certain that the girl represented her, and the boy beside her was Ethan. "It's a family portrait of the four of us," Ethan said softly as Maia's hand rested on the tall man's head. "That's our dad, and the other is our mom." His hand shifted to the woman's figure. "Mom always loved wearing dresses. I asked the sculptor to make it just like she looked." Earlier, when Maia had blown out the candles with Ethan and Kathie, she had wished for their family to stay happy together. As she looked at the sculpture of the four holding hands, her usually steady heart fluttered with feeling.

Emotions bubbled up inside her. In her dreams, her parents' faces had always been blurry, but now they looked so clear. Without realizing it, tears rolled down her cheeks. Ethan was taken aback. Seeing his sister cry for the first time, he asked, "Maia, why are you crying? Don't you like my gift?" "I truly love this gift." Tears gathered in Maia's eyes as she glanced at Ethan, gratitude softening her features. "For so long, I regretted never seeing my birth parents, not even knowing what they looked like. Today, I finally got to see them...

Thank you, Ethan." Kathie, with a look of apology, shifted between Ethan and Maia. "This is my fault, Maia. I wasn't able to save a single photo of your parents. That's why Ethan, to make up for it, stayed up all night sketching their faces from memory before giving the sketches to the sculptor." She moved to a cabinet and pulled out a stack of pencil drawings. "Ethan told me to throw these away, but I couldn't do it. Here are all the drafts he worked on, staying up late for days." Maia took the sketches, her eyes studying every detail.

Her father, with bold features and strong lines, looked every bit as striking as she had imagined - thick eyebrows, big eyes, and a quiet smile. Her mother, with her flowing hair and delicate expression, radiated a quiet beauty and a gentle strength that even hardship couldn't erase. Ethan had turned a dream of family into something real, filling a void Maia had carried for years. She reached for Ethan and wrapped him in a hug, smoothing his hair with her hand. Her voice trembled as she spoke. "This is the greatest gift I've ever received. Will you tell me more about them?" . . .