You Want My Grandma’s $8 BILLION Inheritance DREAM ON! SCUMBAG, Watch Your Empire COLLAPSE Overnight! Chapter 02
When I walked out of the law firm, the New York night air carried the faint scent of salt.
I hailed a cab and told the driver to take me to the airport.
I wasn’t going there to pick Alex up.
I just needed to see the truth with my own eyes.
As the taxi sped down the elevated highway, I rested my head against the window while memories from the past twenty-six years flooded my mind.
Alex and I had grown up together.
He was two months older than me, and our families had been close friends for generations.
When we were kids, a neighborhood boy shoved me to the ground.
Alex charged at him without a second thought, beat him until the other boy burst into tears, and ended up splitting his own forehead open in the process.
The scar was still there.
When we were in high school, my father wanted to send me to boarding school in England.
The moment Alex found out, he got up at four every morning for an entire week and stood outside my house holding handwritten letters.
On the seventh day, he came down with a 104-degree fever.
Even after he was admitted to the hospital, he kept mumbling through the delirium.
“Evie… can’t leave…”
My mother had sighed and looked at me.
“That boy really loves you. If you want to stay, then stay.”
When I was twenty-two, we got married.
Our wedding at the Peninsula Grand Hotel in New York was the social event of the year.
As we exchanged rings, Alex stood before more than eight hundred guests and declared,
“I, Alexander Langford, will love only Evelyn Grant for the rest of my life.”
I cried until my makeup ran.
Back then, I truly believed I was the happiest woman in the world.
Turns out…
I had never been anything at all.
The taxi pulled up outside the arrivals terminal.
I stood among the waiting crowd, my eyes fixed on the exit.
Fifteen minutes later, he walked out.
Alexander Langford.
At six-foot-two, dressed in a charcoal overcoat, he stood out effortlessly in the crowd.
Someone walked beside him.
Sophia.
She wore a pale blue knit sweater, her hair loosely pinned back, looking soft, elegant, and effortlessly graceful.
They walked shoulder to shoulder, only half a step apart.
Then Alex stopped.
He turned toward her, slipped an arm around her waist, and lowered his forehead to hers.
His lips brushed her forehead…
Then slowly trailed lower.
The kiss lingered.
Long enough for people nearby to start pulling out their phones to record it.
Long enough for me to bite the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.
That was the moment I finally believed it.
When the kiss ended, Alex pulled out his phone, glanced at the screen, and locked it again.
It was the message I’d just sent.
*What time will you be home? I made your favorite dinner.*
I turned and walked away.
I didn’t run over to confront him.
I didn’t lose control.
Twenty-six years of loving him had taught me only one thing.
When the truth was cruel enough…
Tears were useless.