26. Grace

TWENTY-SIX

GRACE

"Thank you," I say to the taxi driver, closing the door and turning toward the house. It's still light out, so I'm not expecting Cash to be home from work yet, but when I punch in the code to open the garage door, my stomach drops as both of our cars come into view. I spent the weekend at the lighthouse rehearsing this conversation over and over in my head, but now that I'm here, the nerves have kicked in.

My plan is simple. Go in there, tell him to pack his shit, and kick his ass to the curb. I got all the explanation I needed when I heard him tell whoever he was with that he loved her while he fucked her in our bed. The longer I sat with the details, the more my decision to call off the wedding and cut Cash from my life completely made sense. He not only blatantly disrespected me by bringing another woman into our home, but it obviously wasn't just a one-time lapse of judgment since it seemed like they have deeper feelings for each other. Meanwhile, I've been begging for scraps of attention and supporting him through this project, not knowing that the late nights and disinterest had nothing to do with it. I just want to get this shit over with so I can move on with my life .

I walk into the house, seeing my purse and keys right where I left them when I ran out on Friday. I know he saw them. It's been three days. I used Tanner's old laptop he left at the lighthouse to log into my iMessage and texted my mom, Monroe, and Claire to tell her I was taking a sick day today. I was actually surprised it even worked, but I guess life figured I'd already been kicked enough, so it gave me a little break. I had several texts from Cash asking where I was, but it's clear that he wasn't worried enough to reach out to my family or friends to see if they had heard from me.

Because he knows he's busted.

I'm not inside for thirty seconds before he steps into the room, plastering a saccharine smile on his face as soon as he sees me. "There you are, babe," he says in fake relief. "I was worried sick." He starts walking toward me, but I put my hands out in front of me, stopping his approach.

"Save it," I say firmly. "I saw everything."

His expression drops and his face goes completely white. "I don't know what you think you saw, but it isn't what it looks like."

I scoff. "So now you're going to gaslight me into thinking I didn't witness you fucking someone else in our bed. Who is she, Cash?" I ask. I thought I could stay calm, but now that I'm looking at him, I'm fuming.

He hangs his head, knowing he can't talk his way out of this. It doesn't matter either way. My mind is made up. We're over. I just want to know if he'll be at least a somewhat decent human being and come clean. "Sophia," he says quietly.

"Wow," is all I can offer. Sophia is his partner on the housing project. She's worked for my dad for about a decade and is definitely that much older than I am. She was assigned to watch over Cash because this was his first solo project and he needed someone to show him the ropes. I guess she went above and beyond the call of duty, didn't she ?

"I'm sorry," he offers. "I didn't mean for it to happen. It just…did."

I feel the blood in my body go completely cold. "I gave you everything I had," I begin, raising my voice in anger. "I supported you even when you left me here alone all night. I bragged about all the good you were doing. I begged you to fuck me and spend time with me, but you acted like I was a burden. And you've been fucking someone else since you started this project?"

His eyes go wide, but he tries to recover. It's too late, though. I already fucking saw the guilt as it passed over his face.

"Were there others?" I ask, not really wanting to know the answer. He just stands there, staring at the wall, not saying anything. "You piece of shit," I say, shaking my head because his silence just told me everything I needed to know.

I blow past him, heading up the staircase and straight to our room. I stomp into the closet, taking the biggest suitcase we have from the shelf and returning to toss it on the bed. Opening his dresser drawer, I reach in, grabbing as many articles of clothing as I can and throwing them in.

"What are you doing, Grace?" he says, leaning against the door jamb.

"Packing your shit. We're done. You can go stay with Sophia." I pull my engagement ring from my finger, throwing it straight at his chest before returning to the dresser for more clothes.

"I'm not leaving," he replies, bending down to pick up the meaningless piece of jewelry. "And if you tell your dad about any of this, we'll both get fired and the project will be put on hold because there's nobody else to head it up. Soph and I are the only ones who would be able to. Do you really want to be the reason all those women and children end up homeless?"

Is this motherfucker kidding me right now?

"Are you blackmailing me?" I ask in complete disbelief. I turn to see a smug look melt across his face as the corner of his mouth tips up in a disgusting smirk.

"That's hardly blackmail, babe. I'm just telling you what'll happen if you open that fat fucking mouth of yours."

My jaw drops. Cash hasn't been the best fiancé. He's ignored me and made me feel like I was never a first priority, but I never thought he had it in him to cheat on me or threaten me like this. Then again, it was so easy for him to put a mask on around my family, making them think I was the center of his world. I guess it isn't impossible that he was doing it to me all along, too.

"Who are you ?" I whisper, shaking my head.

He laughs. "I'm the guy who's put up with your ass for years so I could get in good at your dad's company. Did you know I applied there while I was still in college so I could get a foot in the door, but my resumé was never even pulled? Why do you think I tried to hook up with you back then? You can't possibly think I'd have really wanted you when I had my pick of hot college girls at school. I was playing the long game."

I'm frozen, unable to move or speak. All I can do is stand there while he continues.

"Here's what's going to happen. You're going to pack everything you need, and you're going to leave. You're going to tell everyone we're taking a break because you're getting cold feet, but that we still love each other. When the project is over and I have the experience under my belt, Soph and I are starting our own business, and you can go crying to daddy about how I broke your heart."

My mind is reeling with the way this just got flipped upside down, but I can't risk the project not getting finished. I was able to get to know some of the future tenants when my dad did the initial press conference about it. So many women sacrificing everything to give their children the best lives possible, all on their own. Some of them came from abusive situations, and having safe, affordable housing is giving them a brand-new start. I can't let them down.

I know my dad. If he finds out that Cash is cheating on me, especially with another one of his employees on company time, they'll both get fired. So, I'll play nice. But as soon as those families are safe and sound in their new homes, this man and everything he's building will be burned to the ground.

Keeping my eyes boring into his, I reach into the suitcase, removing his clothes piece by piece and dropping them to the floor in a heap. Fuck him. He can pick them up himself. I make sure to walk on them while I go over to my dresser and mindlessly take out random pieces before taking my time to fold each one meticulously and setting them into the now empty luggage. He stands there, arms folded, shifting his weight from foot to foot like my petty antics are annoying him. Good. He hasn't seen anything yet.

Once I've packed everything I can fit into the bags I have, I load up like a pack mule, determined to make one trip out to my car so I don't have to come back into the house. Cash just stands there like the selfish piece of shit he is, never offering to help. Not that I'd let him.

It's not until I'm in the car, turning off of our street that I let myself cry. All I've ever wanted was to be the most important thing in the world to someone. I wanted to build a life and be happy with them, making plans for the future with a family that we created out of love. I thought I had that a long time ago, and then again now, but both times I ended up alone and humiliated. With Cash, it feels like less of a blow, but it still fucking hurts to know that I never really meant anything to him. I was a steppingstone to the career he wanted. All the times he told me he loved me were only lies to reel me in so he could steal my heart. A heart that, by the time he got to it, was already missing so many pieces.

I tried to put myself back together in the months after Tanner left, and while I did the best I could, there was still a part of me that would always walk around outside my body. A part that was so close in distance but may as well have been on another planet.

I don't remember the exact moment I realized he wasn't coming back, but eventually, I started learning to live knowing that a small piece of me would never be returned. Cash was a Band-Aid covering that hole and making me feel like someday, I might be okay. Now that we're over, that part has become exposed again and I know how dangerous it is being near the person who has always been its rightful owner. I need to be careful and not give Tanner another chance to walk away with more of me. I would never say the words out loud, not even to myself, but I don't think I could survive losing him again.

It's a short drive back to the lighthouse, but these emotions I've been feeling for the past three days have me so exhausted, I just want to curl up in bed and hibernate for a few days. I can't because I have to work and keep up appearances that everything is fine for the next month or so while the housing project is being finished, but I have all of today to pretend like my life isn't a stage five dumpster fire.

It wasn't even a question that I would be staying at the lighthouse, at least until I can find another option. Tanner gave me a key and told me to stay as long as I wanted. As much as this place stirs up all kinds of memories, it's also giving me a feeling of safety and security that I haven't felt in a while.

When Cash and I bought our house, even though I grew up right there, it took a while for me to feel like it was truly my home. Maybe it was because I was used to just riding my bike by it every day, knowing it was owned by someone else, but when it came time to fill it with our own memories, it just never really felt right.

But not here. Even though I've only ever been here with him, the inside of this lighthouse feels like it's been ingrained into the deepest part of me. I didn't dig into why Tanner ended up buying it, but a part of me is glad that it wasn't sold off to someone who didn't know all of the amazing memories that were made within these walls. I knew it had been sold shortly after he went back to school that summer, but I never would've thought in a million years that he was the new owner.

What made him buy it? Does it hold a place in his heart the way it does mine? Even though he left and never returned to me, or by the looks of it, to this place, does he feel the same security here that I do?

All these questions swirl around in my head, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm still full of so much resentment toward him for doing what he did. Him coming back into my life certainly muddied things, but I still can't forgive or forget right now. I may never be able to. I may never want to . All I know is that I need the comfort this house is currently giving me, and I'm going to soak it up until I find somewhere else to go that isn't my old bedroom at my parents', which would raise way too many eyebrows.

I unload my bags from my car, lugging them into the house and dropping them with a thud onto the hardwood floors. I pull up the delivery app on my phone, ordering some food to cook because, although I may be staying here, I won't be eating the groceries Tanner bought. Other than the roof over my head, which I plan on paying rent for, I don't want any help from him. He can keep trying to extend olive branches, but I have to keep him at arm's length to protect myself. My trust has been hanging by a thread for years, and it's all but obliterated after my conversation with Cash today. It's going to take a miracle for me to ever give my heart to anyone again.

I busy myself, hanging my work clothes in the closet while I wait for my groceries to arrive. When they do, I make room in the refrigerator and pantry, unloading the bags and kicking them aside. I'll pick them up later. But right now, I'm starving. My nerves were too out of whack earlier, knowing I had to confront Cash, but it's catching up with me and I know I need to eat.

I keep it simple, throwing some pasta in boiling water and some jarred spaghetti sauce in a large pot I found in the cupboard. I complete the meal with enough cheesy garlic bread to feed a small country, because after the day I've had, I deserve it.

I leave my mess for later as I plate the food and plop down in one of the barstools. I notice that the roses Tanner bought are starting to wilt, an ugly brown fading into the petals as they droop off the stems. I tilt my head, slowly chewing my food as I think about how nothing beautiful ever seems to really last in my life. Not security, not love, not even the most exquisite flowers. They all die at some point, and it hurts my heart knowing that I may never find the lasting happiness my parents have shared for the past forty years.

My appetite begins to elude me, so I finish what I can before moving the rest into a container and placing it in the refrigerator. I'll try again later.

I don't bother doing my dishes because I have all night here by myself. I just want to lie down and take a nap so I don't have to think anymore about all the things I've lost and how I'm going to move forward in my life.

It's all so fucked. I'm going through so much and the only person that even knows half of it, besides Cash and Sophia, is the one person I wish I could stay away from. But instead, I'm here in his house by myself, trying to make sense of how I got to this point.

I know not everything was my fault. I didn't ask to be cheated on, and he obviously planned to use me long before we started building what I thought was a genuine connection. The effort I put into us was all wasted, but I can't even find it in myself to care about the time I lost with Cash. I'm too pissed that he was so careless and put me in danger by sleeping with someone else, or several someone elses , while he was sleeping with me.

I decide to go online and order an at-home STI test so I don't have to go to the clinic in town. Obviously, the doctors and nurses aren't able to discuss my medical history, but the nosy ass old biddies in this town have nothing better to do than to sleuth until they find out why I showed up there looking like I've been hit by a Mack truck. No thanks to that. I'll just take the test here, send it out, and wait a few days for the results. And if they're positive, please refer back to that time I mentioned cutting Cash's dick off and throwing it out of a moving vehicle.

I climb into bed, not bothering to set an alarm because honestly, I don't care how long I sleep. The less I'm awake, the less time I have to dwell on everything I have going on. I'll need all the rest I can get in order to put on a show at the boutique tomorrow. We have two big deliveries coming in and I need to get them ready for the customers who will surely be ready to see our fall collections. It took me all summer to hand pick each piece and it's something I'm really excited for.

Exhaling a slow breath, I close my eyes and focus on that, pushing everything else from my tired mind. It isn't long before I'm dozing off peacefully in a bed that smells vaguely like the man I used to love, dreaming of an alternate universe where he stayed, and I fall asleep every night with his arms wrapped around me.