“I wanted just you here for dinner before I talk to the rest of your siblings. In fact, I haven’t even said a word to your father about this. However, he’s been having an affair.”

I laugh once. “You might want to change your singular to plural. You can’t seriously tell me that you weren’t aware of them.”

My mother swallows and then straightens. “Don’t be ridiculous, I’ve known for years. I’ve accepted it, dealt with the embarrassment, and turned the other cheek because, what were my other options? Until now, it’s never had need of my attention or brought embarrassment to this family in this way. That has changed, and after almost forty years of marriage, I’m leaving him.”

“Why has that changed?”

“This. I will not allow this to go on.” She hands me the envelope. “Open it. It’s all there.”

When I do, I see the photo of him, and . . . her.

Before I can even understand what’s happening, I punch my father in the face and I see nothing but red.

Chapter 30

Jessica

Grayson hasn’t said a word in fifteen minutes. He keeps clenching and unclenching his bloody fists. I want to talk, to ask him who was in the photo, but I stay quiet. The scene was something out of a movie. There his father was on the floor with blood coming from his nose and Grayson screaming in his face.

He wasn’t making much sense. It was a lot of yelling and threats before I was able to pull him off his father. Then he looked at me, grabbed my hand, and practically ran out of the house without a word.

The silence is eating me alive.

We pull into his driveway, he throws the shifter in park, and just sits. Each breath is labored—clearly, the drive did nothing to diminish the anger.

“Grayson?” I keep my voice even and calm.

He shakes his head. “Don’t, Jess. Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t . . . fucking ask me what I saw.”

In all the years I’ve known him, I have never seen him like this. He’s always been the level-headed and collected guy. This version of Grayson, I don’t know.

“Okay, I won’t ask.” However, I will make about a million assumptions and all of them don’t end well.

He releases a very heavy breath and then slams his hand on the wheel. “He’s fucking Yvonne.”

Oh, okay, well. I don’t know what to say. My jaw is hanging, and I blink a few times. “Your ex?”

“Amelia’s mother.”

And then a new sense of panic hits me. If he’s sleeping with Grayson’s ex, where the hell is she? “In France?”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “It appears the property that he’s been looking into buying is overseas.”