Chapter 10 - Lorraine Told Grant What She Really Resented
The first direct conversation between Grant and Lorraine happened during a structured mediation session.
Lawyers were present.
Dana attended in her trustee capacity.
Grant did not bring Owen.
Lorraine looked smaller without the mansion around her.
Not weak.
Just less amplified.
“You've turned my grandson against me before he can even talk,” she said.
Grant stared at her.
“You did that yourself.”
“I loved that child.”
“Then why did you call him a bastard?”
Lorraine looked away.
“Anger.”
“Why were you angry at him?”
“I was angry at you.”
“For meeting the lawyer?”
“For choosing everyone over me.”
Grant almost laughed.
“Everyone?”
“Your father. Dana. That woman you had the child with. Now the child himself.”
Grant’s expression hardened.
“Owen is not part of some competition.”
“To you.”
There it was.
Lorraine continued.
“After your father got sick, everyone treated me like a thief. I spent decades beside him. I hosted his clients. I held that company together socially while he traveled. Then one questionable investment happens and suddenly I’m dangerous.”
Grant said, “It wasn't one investment.”
Lorraine slammed her palm on the table.
“I never forged Thomas’s signature.”
The room went quiet.
Grant studied her.
Dana said nothing.
Grant answered carefully.
“I didn't accuse you of doing it.”
Lorraine froze.
She had reacted to information Grant had intentionally not mentioned.
The forensic issue around the succession document was not in the mediation summary circulated to her new attorneys.
Grant leaned forward.
“How did you know we were discussing a forged signature?”
Lorraine's attorney immediately intervened.
“Let's take a break.”
Lorraine's face had gone pale.
Grant sat back.
That moment did not prove Lorraine created the document.
But it proved she knew far more about the disputed succession paperwork than she had ever admitted.
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And for the first time, the inheritance fight opened into a question that had nothing to do with Owen.
Who had actually assembled the document Thomas discovered on May 14?
