meal?” I shrug.
The days blend when you’re grieving.
Am I grieving?
I’m absolutely fucking grieving.
Finally, Gran pushes her bowl to the center of the table, leans back, and laces her fingers on her knee.
“Now, Darius. Tell me what happened.”
So I do. I tell her everything. How Katie was writing a book and I thought I was her inspiration, how I actually felt honored that I was. But how the day she sent it to her publisher the news caught wind of every private detail of my personal life.
Gran frowns and holds up her palm to stop me. “Okay, now,” she says thoughtfully. “Let’s backtrack. Was she sending her editor chapter by chapter?”
I shake my head. “Well, no. She said that night it was time to send the completed manuscript.”
She shakes her head. “Well, unless her editor or publisher had a direct line to the press the second that manuscript hit her inbox, that seems sort of far-fetched, doesn’t it?”
It does. I nod slowly.
“She confirmed it, though, Gran. She admitted she did it.”
Gran tips her head to the side. “Did she?”
I think back to our conversation, trying to remember the details.
“I asked her if she… wrote about me. And she confessed that she did.”
Gran rolls her eyes. “And really, Darius. I’m sure you’re not happy if you feel she betrayed you, but even if she did put in the details of your past, is it anything someone researching your history wouldn’t have found out?”
She has a point.
“And didn’t she say, or I heard on the news, it was a Beauty and the Beast story? Well, she’s a beauty, but you’re no beast. Clearly, this is fiction.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she shakes her head.
Gran goes on. “And I may have only spent a brief time with Katie, but I’m an excellent judge of character. And I know there’s no way a girl like Katie would use you like that.”
I know it, too. God, I know it in the very core of my being. “Then what other explanation is there?”
Gran shrugs. “Who knows? I don’t know much about the Internet and publishing and how these things work, but I know a few things.” She gives me a stern look. “And you should know them, too.”
“Yeah?”
“When someone acts inconsistently with their character, you find out more. Don’t assume the worst. Ask questions.” Her voice grows more vehement. “Find the truth.”
She shakes her head. “For God’s sake, Darius, Tiffany’s the type that would use you for her own means. Not Katie.”
Tiffany.
Tiffany.
I get to my feet and pace the floor. “Could Tiffany have actually done something?”
“When they left that night of the party, I heard Tiffany rustling around upstairs. I figured she was just applying her makeup before they left, but looking back, why wouldn’t she have used the downstairs bathroom?” Gran purses her lips. “I wouldn’t put anything past that woman.”
I whip out my phone. “I have some phone calls to make.”
Gran gets up and clears our bowls. “You do that, and so help me, one of the first calls better be to Katie, or I will personally box your ears.”
I’m chuckling as the door swings closed behind me. I dial Katie.
She answers on the first ring.
“Darius.”
She sounds as distraught as I feel. I walk out into the field lit by moonlight.
“Katie.”
We don’t say anything at first then both start talking at once.
“It wasn’t me—”
“I misunderstood, and I acted rashly—”
“I didn’t think you were talking about actual details—”
“I had a lapse in judgment—”
Finally, we both stop. “Go on,” I tell her. “You first.”
She lets out a deep breath on the other side of the phone. “After dinner, that night in your penthouse. My editor was messaging me, telling me how great the book was. And so I was smiling about that, and when you accused me of using us as inspiration… well, I told you the truth. I did.” Her voice catches. “How could I not? I love you. And I’ve lived a fairytale-come-true with you.”
My heart softens. I wish I could hold her, gather her up in my arms and rock her on the porch swing while the lightning bugs light up the night sky.
“You didn’t write the personal parts, did you?”
“No. Oh, God, Darius, why would I betray your trust like that?”
Of course she wouldn’t. How could I have ever thought she did?
“Then who did?”
She releases a shuddering breath.
“When I was writing at your Gran’s, I left my computer out on the nightstand. Remember? I… don’t use a password or any protection.”
I