he said to Eric’s questioning look, then took a seat beside me and unbuttoned his jacket.
“Chris,” he said, shaking his head. “The older you are, the more like your mother you become. It’s disappointing.”
“Get out,” I spat at him.
My dad laughed meanly and sat forward in his chair.
“You are a complete idiot,” he said softly, “just like your mother.”
“Except she was the one who screwed you out of millions of dollars,” I retorted.
“And you’re about to get screwed out of billions.”
I blinked. “No, I’m not.”
“Stupid is right,” Addison said, swinging around the doorway. “Everyone warned you Grace was up to no good.”
“That’s right,” Linneah said, bouncing in behind Addison on bright-pink platform heels. “We told you, and you didn’t listen.”
“It’s because he’s so handsome,” Addison said, placing her palm under my chin and running her thumb over my mouth. “The handsome ones are always so dumb.”
“This is a private meeting,” I said. “You all need to leave.”
“You’re crowing about how you’re going to inherit a bunch of money, scot-free. Meanwhile, Grace has been scheming behind your back the entire time,” my father said coldly.
I clenched my jaw, bracing for whatever lie he was about to spin about Grace.
“You didn’t notice,” he continued, “because you never notice. It’s like how Addison almost steamrolled you until I jumped in.”
“Then why is she here now?” I crossed my arms.
“I’m reformed,” she said in an innocent voice. “I never should have hurt you, and I’m here to make it up to you. Trust me. As soon as I met Grace, I knew she was a no-good gold digger.”
“Takes one to know one,” I sneered.
“Exactly,” Addison said flippantly. “I just didn’t have the proof until Linneah gave me all the information I needed.”
Linneah set a stack of color photos on the desk in front of me. The Svenssons and I stood up to peer at them.
“This is just some random kid,” Eric said as we flipped through the photos.
“These,” Linneah corrected, “are pages of a scrapbook Grace made as she stalked Freddy McDonough the Fifth, who stood to inherit six hundred million dollars when he turned twenty-five. He was in her calculus class. And these”—she turned to another page—“are some of the creepy photographs she took of him to put in her scrapbook.”
“Sounds like puppy love,” I said, refusing to believe Grace had ulterior motives and refusing to give Addison the satisfaction of my believing she was correct.
“Oh, there’s more,” Linneah said, turning to another page. “Seem familiar?”
At the top, written in sparkly pen in Grace’s handwriting, was a list:
How to become Mrs. Freddy McDonough.
Bump into him casually.
Help him with tasks he finds too hard to do himself.
Pretend like you actually despise him to make yourself seem more interesting.
Cook tasty food for him.
Give him amazing, interesting sex.
Pretend that you totally aren’t after his money.
Act worldly so he doesn’t think you’re trash.
Act like you don’t want a big wedding, but you totally do.
“I am going to puke.”
Eric wordlessly handed me a brandy as Linneah flipped through the rest of the scrapbook. There were pages and pages depicting the elaborate wedding she was going to have with this Freddy and the lavish lifestyle they would lead. She went on and on about how he was all muscle and good looks but no brains. But the final page was the one that kicked up a fog of doubt about Grace’s motives.
It’s too bad Freddy isn’t a billionaire.
“Guess Grace scaled up since then,” Addison said smugly, arms crossed.
I drained the glass of brandy.
“So,” I said, trying to make myself believe it. “This was something stupid she did in college. I did horrible shit the first few years of university.”
“It’s a clear pattern of behavior,” Addison said, tapping her phone. “It wasn’t a one-time thing. She was just biding her time like a spider in a corner, waiting for the perfect target, the perfect billionaire to fall right in her trap.”
Her phone crackled with the static of a recording. There was Grace, voice sharp, talking about how I was hers, how she wasn’t going to give me up. That was Grace laughing and saying that of course she was going to take all my money when she divorced me, and then finally I heard Grace crowing with her friends about how I had bought her lies hook, line, and sinker.
“I’m so fucking stupid,” I snarled. “Fuck!”
I threw the glass against the far wall, where it bounced off, unbroken.
Eric shrugged.
“It’s NASA-grade plexiglass because we have a lot of angry people in