“I told you,” my father said. “I told you that you needed to get an annulment when you had the chance. Now she’s going to clean you out in the divorce.”
“Damn it,” Josh swore.
“You two,” my father barked at the Svenssons while my vision swam. “You need to file this divorce paperwork immediately. And I will notify your grandfather’s law firm, Chris, not to give you the ten billion dollars. If Grace is going to clean you out, you’ll need that to fall back on.”
“Right,” I said faintly. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”
My father patted me on the shoulder. “Chin up. I’ll look out for you, Chris. Don’t I always?”
“We’ll make sure Grace gets as little as possible,” Eric assured me.
“I’m calling my brothers who are in finance right now. Hopefully, you only lose a few hundred million,” Josh added. “You guys weren’t married all that long after all.”
Everything. She was going to take everything. All my hard work, everything I had built. And it wasn’t even about the money.
I thought she loved me…
“That fucking bitch!” I roared, jumping up. “She’s going to pay for this.”
“Chris, no!” Josh yelled trying to grab me.
But I shook him off, storming out of the office to go find Grace.
56
Grace
“Maybe I should write my article about interesting ways to do creative bridal portraits?” I mused, staring dejectedly at my blank Word document.
“Not interesting enough,” Amy said. “Maybe write about most humiliating wedding experiences. You could even just make them up.”
“I’m not a fiction writer,” I complained.
I needed to finish this article. Victoria at the publishing house had been emailing me about it.
“Too bad Chris does actually want to keep dating me,” I said with a laugh. “I could do an article about finding a mail-order husband.”
“Ooh, I saw that show,” Amy said. “You’re better off adopting a cat.”
Ding!chimed the elevator.
“Ms. Frankel must be early,” Ivy remarked as we all jumped up. “Elsie, can you put tea on? She likes that moon blend. Oh hi, Chris. Never mind Elsie, though you can have some tea if you want, Chris!”
“No, thank you,” he said, the corners of his mouth downturned.
“This is a surprise!” I exclaimed, jumping up from my laptop.
“Fuck you,” he said coldly.
“What the hell?” I said, taken aback.
“You seriously thought I wasn’t going to find out?” he demanded in a clipped tone. “You thought I was stupid, that I wouldn’t notice? Did you forget I didn’t inherit my money like that idiot Freddy McDonough the Fifth? That I actually built my empire from the dregs of whatever cash I could scrounge?”
Fuck.
“How did you find out about Freddy?” I asked warily.
“Addison and Linneah told me,” he said meanly. “They even brought a scrapbook made by you.” He took several pages out of his breast pocket and unfolded them.
