Chapter 16 - Vanessa's Truth
Vanessa testified before the grand jury.
She spent nearly six hours inside.
When she emerged, she looked ten years older.
“What did they ask?”
“Everything.”
She sat beside me in Rachel's office.
“They asked when the affair started.”
“What did you say?”
“The truth.”
She swallowed.
“I met Grant at a charity dinner.”
“He said you were separated emotionally.”
“He said you refused physical affection.”
“He said your father threatened to ruin him if he divorced you.”
I had heard versions of those lies before.
“What else?”
Vanessa looked at her hands.
“He told me you couldn't have children.”
My breath stopped.
That one hurt.
Grant knew I had suffered a miscarriage three years earlier.
He knew how deeply it affected me.
He had apparently turned my grief into seduction material.
Vanessa saw my face.
“I’m sorry.”
“Keep going.”
“He said you didn't want a family.”
“He said you cared more about your inheritance than him.”
Each sentence removed another layer from the man I once believed existed.
Then Vanessa told me the worst part.
Grant had promised to marry her.
He had shown her a diamond ring.
He had shown her the forged divorce papers.
He had even shown her photographs of a house in Florida.
“He said we'd move there after you signed.”
“What house?”
Rachel immediately asked.
Vanessa gave the address.
Property records revealed a six-million-dollar waterfront home owned by another shell company.
Money from Whitmore Development had purchased it.
The house was not for Grant and Vanessa.
Inside emails discovered later, Grant described it as an “exit property.”
His plan had never been romantic.
If the financial scheme collapsed, he intended to move money offshore and disappear.
Vanessa had not been his future wife.
She had been cover.
A name.
An account holder.
A convenient person to blame.
When she realized it, she broke down.
“He was going to leave me with everything.”
“Yes.”
My voice surprised me with its softness.
“So was I.”
Vanessa looked at me.
For the first time, neither of us saw the other as the woman who had won.
Because there had never been a winner.
May you like
Grant had simply positioned us at different ends of the same trap.
The difference was that now we were both walking out.
