Then he looked up at his mother and said, “You stole seven years from me.” And Delphine began, again, to defend herself — the stress of that year, the corporate risk, the fear I would take half the fortune.

Grayson closed the blue box.

“And I stole her dignity,” he said, “long before you ever touched a letter.” It was, by his own account, the first time in his life he had taken the full weight of a thing onto himself without handing a piece of it to someone else.

Chapter 15 — Show Up on Thursday

The rest of Grayson’s careful life came apart on its own.

Serena was gone for good — the ring returned, the honeymoon canceled, both families refusing to speak to him.