I felt a twinge of regret. Grace had cared about me.
Stay strong.
I tamped it down.
“Stop trying to play the helpless girl so that you’ll appeal to my sense of protection,” I told her.
“Your sense of protection?” she said incredulously. “I’m not trying to get one over on you, Chris. Good gracious, do you even hear yourself? You sound insane! I’m sorry about the lasagna, okay? I have never made lasagna, and frankly I never will again. But if you think that the worst thing that happened in the relationship was my feeding you frozen lasagna when you were clearly hungry, then you need to take a good long look in the mirror.” Her mouth twisted up. “What you did was way worse.”
She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand.
“You lied to me about liking me, about thinking I was attractive.” She started crying.
I felt the tiniest twinge of regret.
“And what's worse is even after I signed the divorce papers, you kept lying to me. All that bullshit about how you wanted to date me and you wanted to marry me for real.” Grace sniffled. “You were just trying to keep me complacent because you were afraid I was going to turn it into a messy divorce and take your money. Even though all I’ve ever tried to do was look out for you. Even though you don’t deserve it, and even against my better judgment.”
She smiled bitterly. “Against my better judgment, I fell in love with you, Chris. I thought you felt the same. But you were just lying to me. Just like with Freddy. It was just a mean trick.”
“Grace,” I said, “I wasn’t lying about loving you.”
“Fuck you, Chris,” Grace said. She sounded exhausted. “You know what? I am getting my own lawyer.”
My stomach dropped.
“Not,” she clarified, “to take any of your money, but to make sure the divorce paperwork is filed before you receive your inheritance. Your grandfather left you that money because he wanted you to find love. You haven’t. You lied, and you don’t deserve that money. Your dad can have it. I’ll call Ms. Frankel and tell her that her engagement is back on.”
“My father?” I said in horror. “Married?”
Grace nodded. “Yeah, Ms. Frankel said that he promised her that his son’s marriage was going to be broken up. Imagine my surprise when Ms. Frankel showed us your dad’s picture.”
I was reeling.
“What, did you two have some sort of competition going?” she said bitterly.
“No,” I said quietly. “My dad wasn’t going to get married. He doesn’t believe in marriage. He—” My mouth was dry. “He kept trying to convince me to get an annulment, to hurry up with the divorce because you were going to screw me over.”
“I wasn’t,” Grace said softly.
“But he was! He did! He’s behind all of this,” I insisted. “He’s been in my head, feeding me lies about you. Oh my God.”
I ran my hands over my neck and closed my eyes.
When I opened them, Grace was looking at me with sorrow.
“Chris, I’m so sorry.”
“How could he do this to me?” I said in disbelief. “He said he was trying to watch out for me, to protect me. I thought…I know he wasn’t happy when I was born, but I thought he loved me. He’s my dad.”
“Money turns people into roaches,” she said, not unkindly. “There was a lot of money on the line. Maybe he got caught up in the moment.”
“He didn’t,” I said bitterly. “He’s never liked me, let alone loved me. He always said I ruined his life. I thought he was exaggerating, but he was telling me the truth the entire time. I just didn’t want to hear it.”
She gave me a pitying look.
“Grace,” I said helplessly. “I think I made a terrible mistake.”
“Oh, Chris,” she began, but I turned abruptly and left.
