He Gave Her a Three-Day Honeymoon, Yet Called One Day With Me a Waste of Time Chapter 07

He Gave Her a Three-Day Honeymoon, Yet Called One Day With Me a Waste of Time Chapter 07

The Smile Vanished from Sophie’s Face. “What do you mean?”

“I’m the one who had the civil ceremony with you. I’m the one you’re legally married to.”

Grant stopped at the door.

“Call a lawyer tomorrow. I want a divorce.”

Sophie stared at him.

“We’ve only been married a week, and now you want a divorce because of Elena?”

Grant spoke slowly, in a tone that left no room for argument.

“If I divorce you, there’s at least a chance she’ll come back. I owe her a real choice.”

After the door closed, Sophie smashed everything she could get her hands on in the living room.

Because she knew Grant’s prenup was airtight.

If they divorced now, she wouldn’t get a single dollar.

Grant went to the airport.

Of course, he didn’t find me.

Over the next few days, he tapped clients in his network, investigation firms, and private investigators.

My company gave him the same answer every time:

The matter involved a confidential cross-border business project, and no employee information would be

released.

Just when he was running out of leads, a FedEx envelope arrived at his law firm.

Inside was a cashier’s check and an itemized statement.

The statement listed every payment Grant had made on my behalf, every transfer to me, and every deposit

into our shared household account.

I checked every entry against the records and returned whatever I could.

Beside the check was a single note.

[Grant, I’ve returned everything that doesn’t belong to me. Don’t look for me again.]

Grant stared at those two lines, his hands trembling.

For the first time, he began going back through the past, memory by memory.

When I had a high fever, he’d stayed only five minutes.

When I worked late into the night on projects, he rarely even acknowledged how hard I was working.

Every time I talked about our wedding, I smiled, while all he could think about was how many billable hours

he’d lose that day.

No matter how many times he canceled on me at the last minute, he never really apologized.

Grant swept the files off his desk.

A cup hit the floor and shattered.

Standing in front of the broken glass, he slapped himself twice.

Only then did he admit that there was no excuse left for the choices he had made.

He returned to the apartment and cleaned up everything Sophie had smashed.

But there still wasn’t a single trace of my life left in the place.

He realized a person really could erase every trace of themselves so completely-as if they had never lived

there at all.

But Grant knew I had been there.

It was just that, in the end, I had stopped trusting him.

And I had stopped waiting for him.

By the time I landed in Toronto, it was already late at night.

The company had arranged for a local colleague to pick me up at the airport.

Instead of a downtown high-rise, I rented a small townhouse in a neighborhood a short commute from the

new office.

There was a small patch of lawn out front.

The day after I moved in, my neighbor came over to introduce herself.

Before she left, she reminded me that the city had rules about front-yard maintenance and that I could get a notice in the spring if the weeds got too high.

“I’ve got a lawn mower. Just knock if you need it.”

For the first time in a long time, my smile came easily.

I spent most of my first Toronto winter buried in work.

At the time, the Canadian operation was still just a small pilot team.

A handful of us were squeezed into a coworking space, and our processes weren’t even fully set up yet.

My official title was Head of Canada Operations.

During my first week, I conducted a full staffing review.

People who weren’t suited to the expansion phase were reassigned or had their contracts ended.

We recruited again for key positions.

We moved into a more formal office and rebuilt the budget, client pipeline, and division of responsibilities.

I was so busy that winter passed before I even noticed the seasons changing.

By the time the weather began to warm, the Canadian operation had grown from a pilot program into a full

department.

Grant still hadn’t found me.

But his law firm had started running into problems.

The consequences of rescheduling six months of commitments for Sophie’s wedding and honeymoon surfaced quickly.

Several major clients moved their business elsewhere.

His partners also began questioning whether he’d let his personal life bleed into business decisions.

Sophie was no longer as sweet as she’d been before the wedding.

Once the divorce negotiations began, she kept demanding a larger settlement.

Designer bags. Jewelry. Additional assets.

“If you want me to sign fast, give me terms I can live with.”

At first, Grant gave in a few times.

Eventually, he stopped.