Chapter 7 - The Blind Settlement
Grant expected me to fight him for every penny. He braced himself for a brutal, drawn-out legal war over the penthouse, the cars, and the company. He wanted the drama; he wanted the opportunity to publicly crush me and prove his dominance.
Instead, I gave him the divorce he demanded with terrifying speed.
Daniel drafted the settlement papers. We didn't contest a single one of Grant’s major demands. I kept the guesthouse, my family trust, and the quiet, liquid assets I had owned long before I ever met him.
Grant, meanwhile, insisted on taking everything with a shiny label. He demanded the downtown penthouse, the two imported luxury cars, and his title as Chief Executive Officer of Vale Medical Systems.
He signed the final settlement in Daniel’s office, practically vibrating with smug satisfaction. He didn't even bother to read the attached financial schedules. If he had, he would have noticed the trap.
The penthouse carried a massive, ballooning mortgage that my trust had been quietly paying. The cars were leased under a corporate holding company. And his coveted title as CEO? It was an at-will position, governed entirely by a board of directors that he believed he controlled.
He didn't. The company belonged entirely to my trust.
For six years, I had allowed Grant to stand before the flashing cameras and the business press, calling himself a self-made prodigy. I had always preferred the quiet sanctuary of the laboratories over the superficial noise of corporate galas, so he had tragically mistaken my silence for dependence.
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Vivian genuinely believed my aging father had handed his empire to Grant because Grant was a visionary.
My father had handed it to me. And Grant was merely a tenant in a house I owned.
