Breaking Her (Love is War #2)(64)

"Yes. I've always been involved in The Vivian Durant Project, but I'm particularly invested now that you've made me sink your entire inheritance into the endeavor. I plan to see that money work miracles."

I froze. "What the hell are you talking about? I don't have an inheritance."

He sighed loud enough to jostle me against his chest. It was part resignation, part exasperation. "Well, Gram left you eight million dollars, and you told me to give it to her charity. I figured since you never even let me finish talking about it that you meant what you said, so I damn well did it."

I was blinking, trying not to cry, trying not to fall apart. "She really did that? She left that to me?"

He made a noise in his throat that rumbled through him hard enough that I could feel every intense reverberation, his hand stroking over my hair, over and over. "Of course she did, angel. She thought of you as family. It was in her will for years before she passed. By the way, I have about a hundred papers for you to sign when you feel up to it."

Joy, yes joy, fluttered through me. Not because of the money. I'd meant it when I said I didn't want it, that I wanted it donated. No, again, I wasn't crazy, and prior to my recent starring role I'd been pretty close to broke, but I could not take money I had not earned, money that came from losing her. I wanted every cent to go to the charity she'd been so involved and passionate about, but the idea of it, the gesture, meant everything to me. She really had thought of me like family. So much so, she'd stood by the sentiment to the very end.

"Did Adelaide get her house?" I asked. A part of me didn't want to know. I was positive that Gram wouldn't have left it to her, but I also knew that Adelaide had her ways. I figured she'd have strong-armed Leo for it by now.

"Hm," Dante said. It was half-laugh, half-snort. "Not quite. Gram left her nothing, not a cent. The rest of us expected it, but Adelaide was furious. She's still on a warpath. It's been ugly."

I whistled. I could not even imagine. Adelaide was wrathful when it came to even the smallest slight. She'd once terrorized a woman into moving out of town just because she didn't like where she'd been seated at a wedding.

Being left out of the will for a payout she'd expected her entire adult life . . . it frightened me a bit just to contemplate the destruction she must have wreaked.

"My God, that is some justice," I said reverently, my mind on how much I still worshipped Gram.

"Time will tell if it will stick, though Leo has been holding his own more than usual."

"Let me know how it turns out."

"Oh, I will. Believe me, I will."

My phone dinged a text at me, and I checked it, assuming it was an alert to get back on set.

It was not. It was a message from Farrah.

I showed it to Dante.





FARRAH/SEXYASSBITCH: I just put in my two weeks at the airline. I'm over it. It's no fun without you. Shopping day soon! xoxo





"Well, I guess we have our spy." His tone was resigned but almost pleased. He was relieved to finally know.

I wasn't sure what to feel.





CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

"Being in love shows a person who he should be."

~Anton Chekhov





PAST





SCARLETT





I thought I was fine at first. I pretended—even convinced myself— that I'd bounced right back, returning to school as soon as I could, acting as though nothing had happened, talking about it to no one, not even the people I could talk about it with.

But I was not fine. Every day I got up, it felt harder. It was a struggle to shower, to put on clothes, to eat, to do anything but sleep, or lie in bed and wish I were sleeping.

Wish for something more permanent.

It affected me in strange ways. My stutter disappeared almost completely. I had almost no problem ignoring insults from the usual bullies. That sort of thing just rolled off me.

I started trying harder in school. Not because I liked it, or because I felt better, but because I wanted to finish and leave. Dante would be heading east for college the following year, and I was planning to go with him.

The rest of the school year felt like it passed in a thick, gray fog, but pass it did, and at the end somehow I rallied enough to actually graduate.

Dante left for college just two weeks into the summer. He had a nice apartment already set up for him for his freshman year at Harvard.

I went with him because I could not conceive of doing anything else.

It felt wrong right away. He was instantly busy, and I felt aimless, listless, shiftless. Pointless. I had nothing to do. When he was home with me, which wasn't often, he was tirelessly studying, whereas I was just watching TV, or reading book after book, feeling useless.

And worse, I was afraid when I was alone. Irrational fear. Debilitating. If I let the fear rule me, I'd have never left his side.

But I couldn't do that. Pure stubborn pride prevented it. And an instinct to do more than survive. I needed to thrive again.

And in order to thrive, I needed to find my own identity. My own life. My own purpose.

I started with something normal. As small of a change as I could stand. I got a job. Another waitressing gig. Dante hated it but he'd have done anything, agreed to just about anything by then just to cheer me up.