Chapter 8

Early the next morning, the County Clerk and Recorder’s Office was still closed.

Grant stood beside a stone column in the farthest corner. He hadn’t slept all night, and dark circles

shadowed his eyes.

At 8:50 a.m., a black Maybach eased to the curb.

The door opened, and one slender, pale leg emerged.

Grant’s eyes stung painfully.

He had been right.

She had come.

She couldn’t let go of their eight years together. She had still come to keep their appointment.

Before he could call her name, the door on the other side opened.

Julian stepped out, walked naturally to Claire’s side, and took her hand.

Grant’s feet seemed rooted to the ground.

He watched Claire and Julian climb the steps together and pass directly in front of him.

Claire kept her gaze fixed ahead. She didn’t spare Grant so much as a glance.

From outside, he watched them enter the building.

He watched them sit down at the marriage-services counter as the clerk smiled and slid the paperwork

toward them.

Time seemed to stretch without end.

He had no idea how long he stood there before the glass doors opened again.

“Claire…”

Grant’s voice was painfully hoarse.

Claire stopped.

She looked at his bloodshot eyes.

“Grant.”

His eyes lit up instantly.

Claire tilted her head slightly, the faintest curve touching her lips.

“SULTY.

“I switched grooms

“I was too busy yesterday to tell you.”

All the strength left Grant’s legs. He staggered back two steps and slaramed into the cold stone column

behind him.

He had no idea how he made it back to his downtown apartment.

When he opened the door, soft jazz was playing in the living room.

Serena stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows with a glass of red wine, laughing quietly into her phone.

“Yeah, it worked. You should have seen how guilty Grant looked. Men always fall for the helpless act. Late-stage stomach cancer? All I had to do was pay off a doctor and get a fake medical report. Anyway, once I’ve secured my place as Mrs. Prescott, I’ll make sure you’re rewarded.”

She ended the call.

Serena turned around, and the smile froze on her face the instant she saw Grant.

The wineglass slipped from her hand and shattered on the floor.

“G-Grant? When did you get back?”

She instinctively took a step backward.

Grant walked toward her one slow step at a time, crushing shards of glass beneath his shoes.

His gaze fell on the coffee table.

Several genuine medical reports were still lying there; Serena hadn’t had time to put them away.

Every result was normal.

There was no terminal illness. She wasn’t dying.

It had all been a lie.

“This is the terminal illness you told me about?”

The reports trembled in Grant’s hand.

Serena panicked and lunged forward to grab his arm.

“Grant, let me explain! I only did it because I love you so much. I just wanted to come back to you…”

“Come back to me?”

Grant let out a broken laugh that sounded more painful than a sob.

Because of that ridiculous lie and his own pathetic guilt, he had driven away the woman who had once looked at him as though he were her entire world.

He had done this to himself.

“You lied to me…”

Grant seized Serena by the throat, his eyes bloodshot.

“You used that pathetic excuse to destroy my wedding and what little trust Claire still had left in me!”

He flung her away.

Serena was wearing high heels. The force of the shove knocked her off balance, and she fell backward.

She screamed as she tumbled down the stairs.

Her forehead struck the sharp edge of a step, and blood spread across the floor.

Grant stood at the top of the staircase, staring down at her.

Two weeks later, everything had changed.

Serena survived, but the fall left her disfigured and with a permanent disability in one leg.

She turned on Grant, and he was charged with felony assault.

Prescott Group’s stock plunged. The board united to force him out, leaving his position as CEO hanging by a

thread.

And that was only the beginning.