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Carter leans back on the couch and runs his hand through his hair. “She thought she was helping. Vanessa saw you and Grace…in the bamboo garden?” He says it with a questioning lilt, but I’m pretty sure he knows exactly what she saw.
Fuck.
I nod and drop my head in shame.
“Apparently she was really upset and going on about how she was going to destroy Grace for setting you up with people when she was just trying to hide your affair.”
“But that’s not what happened,” I practically yell in Grace’s defense. “Grace didn’t want to be with me. Or she thought she wasn’t good enough for me.Nothingwas going on with Grace when I went out with Vanessa.”
Carter shoots me a look.
“Okay, well, obviously, I still had feelings for Grace at that point. That’s why I practically threw her over my shoulder at the club like a caveman. But not Grace. She wasn’t like that; she was trying to keep her distance.”
I hear my defense of her, and even I’m surprised how adamant I am. Running my hand over my face, I curse, “Fuuuuck.”
Carter continues, much to my dismay. “Tessa tried to calm her down. Explained the reason that Grace stayed away from you. Our history. Our parents’ history. And the fact that Grace knew you didn’t need a scandal. Tessa was drunk. She didn’t mean any harm,” he says in an aggravated tone. “She didn’t expect that Cat’s best friend would be such a devious little cunt.”
None of us saw that coming.
“It doesn’t change the fact that she chose to talk to Vanessa to begin with. I mean if Grace hadn’t done that interview, Cat wouldn’t be engaged to freaking Hanson right now, and our companies wouldn’t have merged into this disaster.” I hang my head. No matter how many times I run my mind around it, I can’t change that fact.
Carter sighs heavily. “You should watch this,” he says, holding out a small SD card.
I take it without thought and spin it between my fingers. “What is this?”
“The interview. Grace didn’t say anything about you. Or our family. She talked about her business. She talked about being happy.”
The air stills as the truth hits me square in the chest. “But the commercials—”
He cuts me off. “Were all clipped together to sensationalize the interview. Come on, Cash, we’ve lived this life long enough to know what the media can do with a sound clip. They played her. I still don’t know how Vanessa found this mystery child of mine. I continue to wonder if it’s even real or if I’m on a wild goose chase trying to find some child that doesn’t exist.”
I move to the couch and sit next to him. “We’ll figure it out, I promise.”
Carter turns his head sideways and looks at me. “You have enough on your plate. You need to talk to Grace. She didn’t do this. She isn’t to blame.”
I hear his words, but I can’t wrap my head around them. The shame is all-consuming. First my mother’s death, then the loss of my family company, and now the destruction of the woman I love. When will I stop being such a fuckup?
“Even if I talked to her, what good would it do? She’s having a baby with Hayden.” It hurts my throat to mutter the words. I had this whole life with Grace planned in my mind, and her having a kid with someone else was never part of it. Somehow even when she left my penthouse a few weeks ago after telling me it was over, it didn’t feel as final as it does now.
There’s no going back.
“So, if she somehow is pregnant with someone else’s child, but she was still the person you met and fell in love with, you wouldn’t want to be with her?” Carter says it so matter-of-factly that I actually consider the absurd question.
None of this matters because Grace will never speak to me again. I was horrible. Frank and Cat both tried telling me the truth and I wouldn’t listen. Instead, I destroyed her, and until now, I didn’t even think I was wrong for doing it. I took every insecurity she had, twisted them into horrible words, and then spit them back at her, aiming to hurt her. It’s physically nauseating to remember the way she looked at me.
“I asked you a question,” Carter says, pulling me from my memories.
“If Grace gave me a chance, would I take it, even if she was having someone else’s baby?” I clarify.
“Yeah. Exactly.”
I don’t hesitate. “I’d love her child because it’s hers. None of that would matter to me if I actually had a chance to be happy with Grace, to spend my life with her. I’d be the best goddamn stepfather that ever existed.”
Carter nods. “That’s what I thought. You should talk to her.”
