Chapter 14 - THE LAST THING GRANT ASKED ME FOROur final settlement conference happened eleven months after the wedding.
Grant asked for a confidentiality clause.
Not complete silence.
Privacy around Whitmore financial information.
Seabrook lender documents.
My personal investment records.
Reasonable.
Then his draft included:
Neither party shall publicly characterize the wedding incident as financial coercion.
I crossed it out.
Grant looked at me.
“Claire.”
“No.”
“You know how that sounds.”
“Yes.”
“It makes it sound like I married you for money.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
I believed him.
That mattered.
“Then I won’t say that.”
His shoulders relaxed.
“But I will not sign a document that says I cannot describe what actually happened.”
His eyes filled.
“You think I was using you.”
“I think you loved me.”
He looked surprised.
“I also think you slowly decided loving you required me to fund things you were afraid to lose.”
Grant stared at the table.
Both things could exist.
That was the tragedy.
If he had never loved me, leaving would have been cleaner.
Then he asked:
“Do you regret everything?”
“No.”
That answer hurt both of us.
“I regret what we became.”
He nodded.
Before signing, he placed something on the table.
My wedding ring.
I had left it beside the destroyed cake.
Kyle apparently gave it to Grant afterward.
“I didn’t know what to do with it.”
I picked it up.
The diamond caught the conference-room light.
Beautiful.
Expensive.
Meaningless without consent.
I put it in my purse.
Not on my finger.
May you like
Grant signed.
So did I.
