An Invincible Summer (Wyndham Beach #1)(54)

“Oh, sweetheart.” Maggie had come up behind her and read over her shoulder.

“Well, I guess my humiliation is now complete. I give up. Zach and Amber have won. I am done, Mom.” Grace’s eyes filled with tears. “I can never show my face in Philadelphia again. There is not one courtroom I could walk into where everyone doesn’t know how pathetic I am. My law career is over.”

“Grace . . .”

“Mom, you know how small the legal community is in Philly. Who could continue to practice here after this? I can’t. I’ve been dealing with this for months, and I just don’t have it in me anymore.” Grace got up from the table and went into the hall, up the steps, and crawled into the guest room bed. She pulled the covers up to her chin and spent the night staring at the ceiling.

She meant what she’d said. She was over the entire mess, done with pretending it didn’t hurt and done with ignoring the whispers. She just didn’t care anymore.

At some point in the morning, her mother came into the room, but Grace pretended to be sleeping. A few minutes later, she heard Maggie leave the house. Grace barely moved for the next couple of hours. It was unhealthy and stupid—she knew that, but she couldn’t make herself get up, and she couldn’t fall asleep.

She should get up and call George and let him know she wouldn’t be in today—or any day. It was cowardly to resign over the phone, but she wasn’t going anywhere near the office, not after this. From time to time during the night, she’d gotten up and checked the site where the offending article had been posted and found hundreds—hundreds!—of comments, almost all as nasty as the ones she’d read the night before. Shockingly, several were written by people she knew, some she’d thought were friends. She’d taken a peek at her email earlier and found Amy Spinelli, the author of the article, asking for an interview, or at the very least a comment. Grace deleted the email.

Downstairs, a door slammed, and Grace assumed her mother had returned from whatever errand she’d gone on. But the footsteps running up the stairs were too quick to be Maggie’s, and before Grace could once again feign sleep, Natalie burst into the room.

“What the hell, Grace?”

Grace rolled over and put her pillow over her face. The last thing she needed was a lecture from her younger sister.

“Go away, Nat,” she muttered.

“Like hell.” Natalie grabbed the pillow and won the tug-of-war, forcibly removing it from Grace’s grip.

Grace sat up and pushed her hair out of her face. “Mom called you, didn’t she?”

“Actually, I heard it first from one of my colleagues. He sent me a text this morning.” Natalie sat on the side of the bed.

“I can explain . . .” Grace sat up slowly and leaned back against the headboard.

“You don’t have to explain anything to me. I get it. I did talk to Mom. Frankly, I think it was a stroke of genius on your part—the blog?—finding a way to cope with a horrible situation, dealing with that moron you used to be married to.” Natalie paused. “You do realize how lucky you are to be rid of such a two-faced, cheating asshat, right? His little girlfriend deserves him. He does not deserve you.”

The last thing Grace had expected was such a deeply felt show of love and loyalty from her sister. Fat tears rolled from her eyes and dripped onto the T-shirt she’d slept in.

“I thought you’d be appalled that I’d done this blog thing. I thought you’d be disgusted with me for being so weak. I thought you’d be embarrassed and . . .”

Natalie moved close quickly to grab Grace’s face and make her look into her eyes. “I will never be embarrassed to be your sister. And I don’t think you’re weak at all. I think you’ve shown remarkable strength, and I’m proud of that. I don’t know if I’d have been as strong. I hate that someone has found a way to turn that against you. Believe me, when we find out who sold you out to Philly News and Views Online, they will feel the full force of the Flynns.”

“What did Mom say?” Grace wiped her face with the back of her hand, which she then wiped on the blue comforter. “Wait, where is Mom?”

“She said she had something she needed to do this morning and asked me to keep you company.”

“Did she say what?”

“Nope. Just that she might be gone for a while.” Natalie leaned over and grabbed the box of tissues from the bedside table and handed it to Grace.

“You don’t think she left town in a cloud of humiliation, do you?” Grace was only half-kidding.

“Not a chance. But I’ll tell you this: she sounded really pissed off.”

“Oh God,” Grace groaned. “She went into the office. She called Timothy yesterday . . .”

“The IT guy at the firm?”

Grace nodded. “We’re pretty sure someone hacked into my office computer, and that’s how they found out about the blog.” When she saw Natalie’s frown, Grace hastened to add, “I didn’t really use that computer to post on the blog, but there were some references to it. Like I kept my passwords in a file.” She sheepishly added, “And I did use it to work out the initial introduction to TheLast2No, so if someone had my password . . .”

“. . . this someone would know that you set up the blog in the first place.”