Instead, I found my whole life on the front lawn. Photo frames. College textbooks. Clothes scattered like trash. Brett stood on the porch with his arm around Paige, informing me that the house belonged to his grandfather, that I had no claim to it.
“Get your things and leave. Now.”
Paige stayed on the porch, watching me load boxes into my car, openly amused. “I can’t wait to redecorate this house,” she sighed. “It’s all old lady stuff. So ugly.”
I kept my face blank. I wasn’t giving either of them the satisfaction. And then I heard it — a car pulling up behind me in the driveway.
✦ ✦ ✦
I turned around. Stepping out of a sleek black car was Walter Castellano — Brett’s grandfather. He looked confused, taking in the scene: my belongings on the grass, a stranger on his porch, Brett nowhere in sight.
Walter had a reputation in town for being exactly as tough as the fortune he’d built from nothing would suggest. I’d spent the first year of my marriage quietly dreading him, certain a man like that would never warm to me. Instead, he’d been nothing but kind from the start — the kind of grandfather-in-law who remembered my coffee order and asked real questions about my work.
Paige called out, unprompted: “Brett, babe, come out here!”
I watched Walter’s expression travel from confusion to something flatter and far more dangerous.
Brett came outside, mouth already opening to explain. “Grandpa, we didn’t know you were stopping by. This isn’t really the best time. It’s private.”
