Chapter 15 - The Final Goodbye
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He had lost weight. The bespoke suit that used to fit him perfectly now hung loosely from his broad shoulders. Dark, heavy bags carved valleys under his eyes.
“Claire,” he rasped, taking a desperate step forward.
I held up a hand, stopping him five feet away. The roar of Manhattan traffic blurred into white noise.
“You knew,” I said. No pleasantries. No hesitation.
His face crumbled. He didn't even try to lie. “Madison told you.”
“You knew about the heartbeat. You knew about your genetic condition the night you started sleeping with her.”
“I was so ashamed, Claire,” he pleaded, tears welling in his eyes. “My mother handed me that report, and I felt like a complete failure. I couldn't face you. I couldn't look at what I had done to you.”
“So you punished me for it!” I fired back, my voice echoing off the brick building. “You let me spend another eighteen months crying in doctors' offices, thinking my body was a graveyard, while you sought validation between the sheets of a twenty-three-year-old!”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you! I thought if Madison gave me healthy children, it would secretly prove I wasn't broken.”
“And when her pregnancy nearly killed her and Samuel?”
Grant swallowed hard, a tear finally escaping. “I realized that having children doesn't make you a man. Facing your mistakes does. Claire... I love you. I never stopped.”
“You loved the peace I created for you,” I corrected coldly. “You loved that I managed your mother, your properties, and your reputation. But the second loving me required you to be uncomfortable, you disappeared.”
He fell to his knees on the concrete, not caring who saw. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“I can stop carrying the hatred,” I said, looking down at him. “But that is not the same as reopening the door. There is no 'us' anymore, Grant. You need to go home, protect Madison from your toxic mother, and raise your sons to be better than you.”
I hailed a yellow cab. As I pulled the door open, I looked back one last time.
May you like
“The fifty million dollars was never the reason I left, Grant. The reason I left was because you actually believed my dignity could be purchased.”
I got in, and the taxi sped away, leaving the billionaire crying on the sidewalk until the city swallowed him whole.
