Then I waited.
For the next forty minutes, Sloane performed motherhood like she had rehearsed it.
She showed everyone ultrasound photographs.
She discussed nursery wallpaper.
She told three different people that “the Whitmore genes are apparently very strong.”
Grant’s father beamed.
His mother cried twice.
Grant accepted congratulations like he’d personally invented reproduction.
Elliot drank bourbon.
Fast.
Eventually, he disappeared through a side door.
I
followed him.
He was standing on the terrace overlooking the golf course when I stepped outside.
He didn’t turn around.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he said.
“I was invited.”
“Rebecca.”
Now he faced me.
He looked terrible.
“How much do you know?”
I folded my arms.
“You tell me.”
His jaw tightened.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then his shoulders dropped.
“Sloane told me Grant knew.”
There it was.
“About you sleeping together?”
He flinched.
“She said their relationship wasn’t physical anymore. She said Grant knew he couldn’t have children and that the family needed an heir.”
“And you believed that?”
“I wanted to.”
“Why?”
His eyes moved away.
The answer arrived before his mouth opened.
“You loved her.”
He laughed once, bitterly.
“Apparently I’m an idiot.”
“That trait seems hereditary.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he whispered, “Does Grant know?”
“No.”
Elliot closed his eyes.
“Jesus.”
“How long?”
Three months.”
“Three months?”
“It ended after she got pregnant.”
“How convenient.”
“She said once the baby came, everything would settle down. She said Grant would raise him and nobody needed to know.”
I studied him carefully.
“And what were you supposed to be?”
His face tightened.
“Uncle Elliot.”
For the first time, I felt something close to pity.
Then I remembered every fertility injection.
Every accusation.
Every night Sloane held my hand while secretly helping the Whitmore family build a lie on top of my grief.
The pity disappeared.
I reached into my handbag and handed Elliot a folded sheet of paper.
He opened it.
His face went gray.
“What is this?”
“A preliminary notice from the forensic accounting team.”
He scanned it quickly.
“Consulting payments? Boutique transfers?”
“Your brother helped hide assets during our divorce. Your father moved company money through entities linked to Grant. Sloane’s boutique received
hundreds of thousands of dollars for services nobody can prove existed.”
Elliot looked toward the doors.
“Does Richard know?”
“He will.”
“Grant?”
“Very soon.”
He stared at me.
