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“I told you I’m fine,” she grumbled.
“You’ve lost too much weight. You’ve been sick, and you refuse to eat. You’re going, woman. End of discussion.”
I turned my eyes away when he bent his head to brush his lips across hers again. That kiss said everything that no words had the ability to. It said that Gracie was his light on cold, dark days. That she was everything sweet and good in his world, and that he would kill anyone or anything that ever tried to take her away from him. It was the kind of kiss Matt had given me countless times, and it broke my heart a little more to see someone else experience it now.
“Fine,” Gracie said with a breathless sigh. “I’ll be ready, but I’m telling you it’s just stress.”
“Love you,” he called as he got onto his hog.
She waved. “I love you too.”
Turning back to me, her smile still in place, she motioned me into the lawyer’s office building. “Jenkins told me he was putting everything together for you this morning so it would be ready. I think it’s all set to be signed. Can I get you anything? Something to drink?”
I shook my head and clasped my hands together to hide the fact that my fingers were trembling. Now that I was away from my father, the nervousness had faded, but I was still coming down from the adrenaline I’d been feeling during our meeting. I felt weak now, my legs barely holding me up. I hated how helpless I felt, how my father was making me feel.
And I fucking I hated that now I doubted Matt. That all I could see when I closed my eyes was him with Steph, doing all the things he did to me in bed.
“Okay then, let’s go into my office.” She stopped long enough to let the receptionist know what she was doing and then led the way into her office.
Gracie moved to take the seat behind her desk, shifting a few heavy files out of her way as she dug out the documents needed. “Jenkins told me the basics of your mother’s will. She left the majority of everything she owned to you, but other than a monthly allowance, it’s been in a trust until your twenty-first birthday. Which is next week?”
“Um, yeah. That’s it in a nutshell.” I was slower to sit down, but once I was off my feet, I felt like the weight of the world was pressing down on me. The reins of control I had on my emotions were beginning to slip, and I realized that dealing with this right now hadn’t been the best idea. Remembering my mother—aching to have her hold me and make all my problems go away—was not going to make the maelstrom of craziness already swarming around in my head any easier to deal with. “Mr. Jenkins said I needed to sign some papers.”
“Right.” She flipped through the documents, her eyes scanning over each page as she made sure everything was in order. When she got to another page, her eyes widened, and she lifted them to me. “There’s a note here that says your father has already been questioning Jenkins about the money. He’s provided a bank account and routing number for the money to be deposited. Is this really where you want the money to go?”
It shouldn’t have surprised me, but part of me was still stunned by what she had just said. My father was so desperate to get his hands on all that money that he was trying to trick my mother’s lawyer into putting all of it into an account I probably would never be able to access. This, on top of everything else, was too much, and I felt the tears well up in my eyes, impossible to hold back.
“I-I…” I swallowed, but it suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. Nothing would come in, nothing going out. I felt dizzy and knew if I had been standing, I would have fallen on my face.
Through the blur of tears and panic, I saw Gracie jump to her feet and race around to crouch down in front of me. “Easy, sweetie. You’re having a panic attack.?
?? She put her hand on my chest, her fingers tapping steadily. “Close your eyes and just focus on my fingers. Feel the rhythm.”
My eyes clenched shut and I tried to focus, but all I could see was a slideshow of the day’s events flying through my mind. Waking up beside Matt. Having coffee with Raven, Flick, and Aggie. Walking into my father’s office and finding Steph and her vile father there. Finding out Matt had slept with her—and probably Casandra as well, even though he had said he had considered us always together the entire time I had been gone. My heart cracking open, followed quickly by my father’s threats. Knowing that Matt was lost to me forever. Finding out that my father was trying to steal everything my mother had left for me and me alone…
Gracie slowed the rhythm of her fingers, but she made the taps stronger. I tried to clear my head, tried to erase it all, if only for a moment. My lungs burned from lack of oxygen, and the panic only increased.
“Listen to my voice. You’re okay, Rory. Nothing can hurt you here. You’re safe.” Her tone was soft, soothing, but commanding.
Tears slipped through my lashes and spilled down my face. My lips and chin were trembling so hard my teeth chattered together, but somehow, I was finally able to focus on her steady fingers and her voice, so full of authority, but so alluring.
When my lungs finally filled, I gasped in pain, my chest throbbing. I covered my face with my hands and just let go, tired of acting strong when I wasn’t. The sobs took over, but I was deaf to the sounds I was making. My heart was broken, shattered into even smaller pieces than it had been the first time I’d had to let Matt go.
It wasn’t fucking fair. Why did I have to give up everything, while my father got it all? Why was I the one left with nothing, while he got to play dirty and rule the goddamn world?
A cold, damp cloth was pressed to the back of my neck, jerking me out of my mental tantrum. I lifted soaked eyes to find Mr. Jenkins standing beside where Gracie was still crouched in front of me. Embarrassment made my cheeks turn scarlet, and I averted my eyes, not wanting either of them to know just how weak my father could make me—how much of a victim he had turned me into.
“Your mother and I were friends about a hundred or so years ago,” Mr. Jenkins informed me with a concerned smile. “Or at least, it feels like it was that long ago. When she moved here with your father, I was one of the first people to welcome her into the community. She was a good woman. Strong, determined, maybe a little naïve at first, but smart.”
A frown made my brow pucker, and I wiped my snotty nose with the tissue Gracie offered. “She was the b-best woman I ever knew.”
“I agree,” he said, dropping casually down into the chair beside me. “Which was why she came to me to handle her will. She wanted to make sure that the most important person in her life was taken care of. That your father couldn’t trap you like he trapped her.”
“T-too late,” I whispered brokenly.
“Only death can make something too late, sweetie,” Gracie assured me with a kind smile.
“He’s making me leave Matt,” I confessed, letting the words spill out of me as easily as the tears were falling from my eyes. “He… He said if I didn’t give Matt up, he would charge him with the rape of Stephanie Campbell and her friend Casandra.”
