Chapter 9 - Grant Comes to BegGrant came on the third day.
Not to apologize.
Men like Grant rarely begin with apology. They begin with damage control and hope you mistake it for love.
He appeared outside my hospital room wearing a navy suit, no tie, hair slightly disheveled in a way that probably took effort. A nurse blocked him. Hospital security stood nearby. Sebastian had left an hour earlier to meet prosecutors, but his restrictions remained.
“Elena,” Grant called through the partially open door. “Please. Five minutes.”
My mother rose from the chair beside my bed like a small, furious storm.
“Absolutely not.”
Grant looked past her. “This is between me and my fiancée.”
My father stepped forward.
“You no longer have a fiancée.”
Grant’s eyes flicked to my bare left hand.
I had removed the ring the moment my fingers stopped shaking enough to do it.
It sat now in an evidence envelope because Sebastian said anything purchased through Blackwood accounts might become relevant.
Even my engagement ring had become contaminated.
“Elena,” Grant said, lowering his voice into the wounded tone that had once undone me. “I know things look bad.”
I laughed.
Everyone turned.
It hurt my ribs, but I kept laughing until tears came.
“Things look bad?”
Grant’s face flushed. “You know what I mean.”
“No, Grant. Explain it.”
He stepped closer to the threshold. Security shifted.
“I was scared,” he said. “The FBI came out of nowhere. My mother was being accused. Reporters are outside our house. Everything happened fast.”
“My blood sugar was 58 before your mother touched me.”
He looked away.
“You had time.”
His jaw worked.
“Mom can be difficult.”
My mother made a sound so sharp my father put a hand on her shoulder.
I stared at Grant. “She ripped a medical device out of my body and threw it in seafood trash.”
“I didn’t know she’d do that.”
“But you knew she took my bag.”
His silence confirmed it.
My father’s face turned gray.
Mom whispered, “You knew?”
Grant lifted both hands. “I knew she asked staff to move it. I didn’t know it was locked away. I thought Elena had glucose tablets in her purse or something.”
“You thought?” I said. “Or you hoped I would stop being inconvenient?”
His eyes hardened for half a second.
There he was.
The real Grant beneath the soft voice.
“You don’t understand the pressure my family is under.”
“No. I understand pressure. I understand calculating insulin for food that never comes. I understand alarms vibrating under formalwear while people call you embarrassing. I understand being told not to make a scene while your body is begging you to stay alive.”
Grant’s face tightened. “I loved you.”
The past tense landed like a gift.
“Good,” I said. “Then we agree it’s over.”
He stepped closer, desperation cracking through the polish. “Elena, listen to me. My mother’s attorneys are going to come hard. They’ll dig into your medical history. Every emergency visit. Every panic attack. Every time you miscalculated a dose. They’ll make you look unstable.”
My father moved so fast I barely saw him.
Security caught him before he reached Grant.
Grant flinched back.
I did not.
“Is that a warning or a threat?” I asked.
His eyes met mine.
For the first time, he looked truly angry.
“It’s reality.”
“No,” I said. “Reality is Lily’s video.”
His face drained.
That was when I knew.
He had not seen it before it leaked.
Or he had not realized how much it showed.
“You watched her do it,” I said quietly. “And now everyone else has watched you watching.”
Grant’s mouth opened.
No words came.
Beautiful, polished, wealthy Grant Blackwood had finally run out of language.
A voice spoke behind him.
“Mr. Blackwood.”
Sebastian had returned.
He stood in the hallway holding a folder, expression unreadable.
Grant turned. “Agent Vale.”
“You were instructed not to contact Ms. Ward.”
“I came to speak with the woman I was going to marry.”
“She has declined contact.”
Grant’s face sharpened. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“Elena does.”
The silence that followed felt important.
Maybe because nobody in Grant’s family had ever treated my no as legally binding.
Sebastian looked at hospital security. “Please escort Mr. Blackwood from the floor.”
Grant stared at me.
The pleading vanished.
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” he said.
I looked at the man I had almost married.
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
He was taken down the hall.
My mother sat back down, shaking. My father placed both hands on the bed rail and bowed his head.
Sebastian remained by the door until Grant disappeared.
Then he entered.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You didn’t bring him.”
“No. But I should have anticipated he’d try.”
I looked at the folder in his hand. “What’s that?”
He hesitated.
My stomach dropped.
“More bad news?”
“Complicated news.”
“Those are usually cousins.”
He almost smiled.
Then he opened the folder.
“We found evidence that Evelyn hired a private investigator eighteen months ago.”
“To follow Margaret?”
“To follow you.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“Me?”
Sebastian placed one photograph on the tray table.
It showed me outside my apartment, carrying groceries.
Another showed me leaving my endocrinologist’s office.
Another showed me kissing Grant outside a restaurant.
On the back of each photo was a date.
Eighteen months.
Before Grant proposed.
Before I met Evelyn.
Before I ever entered the Blackwood world.
My voice went thin.
“Why was she watching me before she knew me?”
May you like
Sebastian’s eyes were grim.
“Elena, are you certain Grant met you by accident?”
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