“You betrayed me,” I said. “You lied to me for at least eighteen months. You used our money to finance the lie. You let your mistress into my house to steal from me. You explored financial access to my father’s assets while he was dying. Those are not mistakes. Those are choices with administrative follow-through.”
His jaw tightened.
“I was angry,” he said. “You and James—”
“Careful.”
“He never treated me like family.”
I laughed, because there in the concrete echo of that garage, he was still auditioning for sympathy.
“You brought another woman to his funeral.”
“He was dead, Natalie.”
The sentence hung there, ugly and revealing.
He heard it immediately. So did I.
Yes, that was the point. He was dead. Therefore, to Grant, certain protections had expired. Certain optics could be managed. Certain assets might finally loosen.
I set the banker’s box down on the hood of my car and looked at him with a clarity so bright it almost hurt.
“You know what’s amazing?” I said quietly. “You still think this is about who loved me more.”
His expression faltered.
“It’s not. It’s about who saw me as a person and who saw me as a path.”
He shook his head. “I loved you.”