Chapter 10: Grant Pierce Can Only Ever Be My Dog

Something in Nora's chest ached at the mention of the baby.

She let the silence sit for a few seconds, gathering herself, before answering, barely above a whisper. "I already... lost it."

Her voice came out so level it almost sounded indifferent.

But Miles had watched what she'd put herself through over the past three years, trying to give Grant a child. Folk remedies, acupuncture, herbal treatments she'd tried everything. Eventually Bea had developed something that actually worked, though the process itself had been brutal. Nora had never once complained through any of it.

She'd finally gotten what she wanted. And then she'd let it go entirely, on purpose.

You don't do something like that to yourself and to him unless both of you're completely done. Unless there's nothing left to hold onto.

Miles could only imagine how much that decision must have cost her.

He softened his tone, trying for humor. "So what if it's gone? Grant doesn't deserve a kid with you anyway, a man like that should die alone with nothing to his name. Once you're out of Meridian City, we'll find you someone worth the trouble, and you can have as many kids as you want. Let him rot in regret."

The thought of Grant's face when he eventually discovered exactly what she'd left behind gave Nora something close to satisfaction.

After a moment, she spoke again. "Miles, there's something else I need help with."

"Go ahead."

Her expression sharpened. "I know Vivian's painting style better than almost anyone alive. She used to work strictly in realism. In the last few years, her work has shifted almost entirely to abstract pieces and she's found real success with them. People's styles don't just change overnight. Even after some major life shift, there's usually a thread connecting the old work to the new. Hers reads like it was made by an entirely different hand."

And Vivian never had the talent or the patience for real work in the first place. She never once finished anything without giving up halfway.

Miles, sharp as ever when it came to spotting a lie, caught on immediately. "You think someone else is behind the paintings that made her career?"

Nora hummed softly in agreement. "I've suspected it for a while. Never dug into it properly. You've got the connections, could you look into it? I want to know if I'm right."

Before she'd married into fame, Mrs. Ashford had been a painter of some renown in her own right, before she gave it up entirely after marrying Walter Ashford, a man who'd built his fortune off land development.

When Nora showed early promise with a brush, Mrs. Ashford had been thrilled, convinced her daughter had simply inherited her own gift.

That pride curdled the moment she learned Nora wasn't her biological child at all and that Vivian, her real daughter, showed nowhere near the same talent.

The better Nora got, the more Mrs. Ashford resented her for it.

She banned Nora from painting inside the house entirely. Once, as punishment, she'd deliberately stepped down on Nora's hand hard enough to nearly shatter it. If Bea hadn't tracked down a specialist in time, that hand would never have worked the same way again.

Miles agreed without a second's hesitation. "Done. I'll have something solid before you're out of the city. And while I'm at it I already looked into that accident myself. Get your money back from whoever you hired for that. No point paying for what you've got me for free."

Nora had thought of Miles first, of course she had. But this particular thread led straight back to Grant, and Grant wasn't a man to underestimate.

He'd built his empire out of nothing, clawed his way up from the bottom which meant he had more tricks up his sleeve than most people could count.

She didn't want Miles walking into that kind of danger for her sake. She'd already paid an outside party to handle it quietly.

Instead, she said only, "You'll have your hands full soon enough, no rush on my end. I've got someone else handling the accident. Focus on Vivian for now."

Miles's hands tightened slightly on the wheel, something working behind his eyes.

A few seconds passed before he spoke again. "Fine. Your call. I found you somewhere new to stay, by the way. Don't go back to that house full of wolves."

Nora shook her head. "Take me back to Cloudspire Manor. I don't want Grant noticing anything's changed before I'm ready to disappear. The quiet before the storm has to actually look quiet."

I want to vanish from his life completely without him ever seeing it coming.

It's close now. I can feel it.

---

Vivian was hospitalized again, though luck wasn't nearly as kind to her this time.

The gash on her forehead needed over a dozen stitches, and the impact had left her with a concussion serious enough that the doctors insisted she stay overnight for observation.

Grant sat up with her through the entire night without sleeping, and by the second consecutive night of it, exhaustion had started catching up with him fast.

He pressed two fingers into the bridge of his nose, weariness carved into every line of his face.

Vivian, playing the picture of gentle concern, patted the space beside her on the bed. "Grant, lie down and rest. It hurts just looking at how tired you are."

He looked at her with that same delicate face he'd always found so easy to love.

So why, looking at her now, could he only think of Nora's pale, expressionless face from the day before?

He stood abruptly, startling her.

"Grant? Are you leaving?"

She wasn't fully recovered. By any reasonable measure, he shouldn't be going anywhere.

And I'm still in so much pain.

But something in Grant refused to settle. He couldn't shake the memory of how calm Nora had looked yesterday too calm, unnervingly calm.

"Julian's coming back today," he said. "It wouldn't be right for me to still be here."

Vivian caught his hand, tilting her head with practiced charm. "What's wrong with that? We grew up in the same orphanage we used to share a room as kids. Julian knows how close we are. He wouldn't think anything of it."

After she was switched at birth and abandoned at an orphanage gate, Vivian had grown up alongside Grant, a quiet, withdrawn boy who got picked on constantly by the older kids. Vivian had been the one who stood between him and every fight.

It made sense, in a strange way, that he'd fallen for her so completely. He'd promised himself, young and fierce, that he'd protect her for the rest of his life.

The day Vivian's car struck Nora, Grant had raced to the scene the second she called him, hysterical, sobbing that her vision had gone blurry, that she couldn't bear the thought of losing her sight, even for a single day.

Grant hadn't been able to bear it either. Not for a single day.

How could I let the woman I love go blind?

So he'd turned his attention to Nora instead. If he could simply give Vivian her corneas, she'd never have to go blind at all right?

And so the story had been born, the one that spread through Meridian City like wildfire: Nora Ashford, blinded in a car accident, abandoned by her own fiancé in the aftermath.

Grant gently pulled his hand free of hers the first time in years he'd ever denied her anything. "Vivian, you got exactly what you wanted. You married Julian. Go live your life with him."

A flicker of displeasure crossed her face, gone as fast as it appeared, replaced instantly by soft, obedient warmth.

"You're right. That was too much to ask. Go on, Grant."

The disappointment in her voice was enough to needle at his guilt all over again. After a long pause, he relented. "I'll come see you again tomorrow."

She smiled. "Okay."

He left without looking back.

The second the door shut behind him, Vivian's expression twisted into something ugly, fury blazing in her eyes. She swept an arm across the bedside table, sending everything crashing to the floor.

"That blind bitch," she snarled. "Grant is my dog. Mine. You just wait, Nora. You just wait."

---

Grant climbed into the car outside the hospital, brow still furrowed with something he couldn't quite name.

Derek caught his eye in the rearview mirror. "Back to Cloudspire Manor, sir?"

Grant pressed two fingers to his temple. "No. The police station.”