Three days before my wedding, I found my fiancé in bed with my brother’s wife. My mother’s answer was, “Stop being selfish, Olivia! This wedding is happening whether you like it or not!”
My father threatened to cut me off. I wiped my eyes and smiled. “Fine. Let’s make this a wedding nobody will ever forget.”
They had no idea I had already called my attorney.
They had no idea the prenup my fiancé signed had a fidelity clause attached to a million-dollar property.
And my father had no idea who had quietly kept his company alive for three years.
PART 1
Three days.
That was all the time separating me from the wedding I’d spent nearly a year planning.
Two hundred guests had confirmed.
The flowers were ordered, white peonies and garden roses, enough to fill the ballroom of the Rosemont Hotel in Dallas.
My dress was ready, hanging in a garment bag in my hallway.
Everyone believed Grant Ashby and I were about to begin a wonderful marriage.
My name is Olivia Mercer.
I was thirty-one, and I had been told my whole life that I was the sensible one, which in my family meant the one who could be counted on to give in.
Then I heard his voice coming from my brother’s bedroom.
He was laughing.
I had stopped by Nathan’s house to pick up the seating chart Whitney had promised to finish.
My brother Nathan was in Chicago on business, and Grant sometimes helped him with things around the house.
At first, I assumed he’d stopped by for a ladder.
But when I opened the bedroom door, I froze.
Grant was there with Nathan’s wife, Whitney.
One glance was enough.
The room smelled of her perfume and his aftershave and the afternoon heat coming through the blinds.
Whitney hurried to cover herself with a blanket.
“Olivia! Please, let me explain!”
“Explain what, Whitney?”
Grant stepped forward, reaching for his shirt.
“Olivia, calm down. This was one stupid mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“Don’t make this bigger than it needs to be.”
I looked at his belongings scattered beside the bed.
His shoes.
His watch, the heavy Swiss one my father had given him when he made vice president of finance at Mercer Building Group.
“You didn’t accidentally end up here, Grant. You made a choice.”
Whitney lowered her head.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I thought about Nathan.
That morning, he’d called from Chicago, excited about returning in time for the wedding.
He’d joked that Grant was the one person he trusted completely around his family.
I took out my phone and took pictures of the room, the bed, the two of them.
Grant stepped closer.
“Delete that.”
I moved away.
“No.”
“Olivia, you’re being ridiculous.”
“Nathan deserves to know the truth.”
For the first time, Grant looked genuinely worried.
I didn’t stay to argue.
I walked out, and I sat in my car in the driveway with my hands on the wheel, and I did not cr*y, because the three-carat diamond on my left hand caught the sun every time my hand shook, and I could not stand to look at it.
An hour later, I was sitting at my kitchen table with my parents.
I’d called them because I needed support.
I expected my mother to hug me and my father to say everything would be okay.
Instead, Mom folded her arms.
Margaret Mercer is sixty, in pearls and a cream blouse, with the posture of a woman who has never once been told no and kept listening.
“Olivia, you need to stop being so dramatic.”
“Mom, Grant betrayed me with Nathan’s wife.”
“Yes, and everyone makes mistakes. The wedding is in three days.”
Dad leaned forward.
Richard Mercer is sixty-three, a builder’s hands and a banker’s suit, and he has run Mercer Building Group for thirty-four years by saying the numbers out loud until people stop arguing.
“Do you understand how much money we’ve already spent? Two hundred people are coming. Important business associates. Our investors. Friends we’ve known for decades.”
“Are you seriously more concerned about the expenses than what happened?”
“Think how humiliating it would be if you canceled.”
“I’m the one who’s been humiliated.”
“Olivia, marriage requires forgiveness.”
I turned to Grant, who was sitting silently beside my parents, already showered, already composed, already theirs.
“Was this really the first time?”
His expression changed.
Only for a second.
But I noticed.
“Does it matter?”
So there had been more.
Mom sl*pped the table.
“Enough! You’re making everyone uncomfortable.”
Dad stood up.
“Listen carefully, Olivia. If you cancel this wedding and publicly disgrace this family, don’t expect another dollar from us.”
There it was.
The threat he’d used my whole life.
Money.
He believed financial pressure would always bring me back into line.
What he didn’t realize was that I hadn’t depended on him for years.
My parents thought I worked an ordinary contracts-management job for a real-estate company.
They assumed the family trust still paid for my life.
Because I had never discussed my finances, they had no idea how far I had gone.
Four years earlier, I had started making private investments through a holding company called Lantern Hill.
Small at first.
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