37 Times She Chose Him, The Last Time I Let Him Go Chapter 08

37 Times She Chose Him, The Last Time I Let Him Go Chapter 08

Grant texted me the next morning.

[Natalie had low blood sugar. She’s fine now.]

[Leo was alone all night. I couldn’t leave a kid by himself at the hospital.]

[This was an emergency, Naomi.]

I forwarded the messages to James.

“Add these to the file.”

James read them and shook his head. “Every single time, he gives you another reason why leaving him was the right move.”

At the mediation hearing, Grant was thirty minutes late.

His shirt was wrinkled. Dark circles shadowed his eyes. “I won’t sign.”

I placed my compiled records on the table.

Thirty-seven phone calls. Twenty-one last-minute departures. Seven missed events in Tessa’s life.

On top: the school’s official record of Grant deleting the security footage.

Grant flipped through the thick stack, his face paling page by page.

“You’ve been counting all of this?”

“From Tessa’s third birthday.”

That was the day he’d promised to be home to blow out the candles. Natalie called—Leo had a stomach ache. He went to the ER.

Turns out Leo had just overeaten.

Grant came home the next morning and complained that I hadn’t saved him a slice of cake.

The mediator flipped through the last pages. “Mr. Holloway, these records are extremely damaging if you’re seeking custody.”

“I’m not trying to take her child from her.”

He corrected himself immediately. “I just don’t want the divorce.”

James spoke evenly. “A child is not a tool to save a marriage. Ms. Bennett’s premarital property remains hers. There’s no significant shared debt. This isn’t complicated.”

Grant turned to me with raw eyes. “You’re taking the house too?”

“That house was my mother’s.”

He went silent.

After the hearing, he chased me outside. “Naomi. Let’s start over. I’ll move out. I’ll cut Natalie off entirely. When Tessa’s ready to see me, we’ll fix this slowly.”

I stopped. “Why did you leave last night?”

“Natalie collapsed. Leo was crying.”

“There were nurses. Her ex-husband is in the same city. Why didn’t you call him?”

Grant frowned. “She said he didn’t care about the kid.”

James pulled a document from his file. “That’s interesting. According to her ex-husband’s court records, he’s filed sixteen visitation requests in the past six months. She denied every one.”

Grant stared. “That’s not true.”

“And there’s more.”

James slid out a photo. At the Family Fun Day registration, Natalie had filled out the parent form in advance.

In the father section, she’d written “Grant Holloway.”

The relationship was not “friend” or “temporary escort.”

It was “stepfather.”

Grant’s eyes locked on those two letters.

A moment later, his phone buzzed—an unknown number sent a video.

In the clip, Natalie coached Leo.

“When the host asks, you hug Grant and yell ‘Dad.’ The louder, the better.”