How Does Grace: A Memoir End?

Cast aside and humiliated, Elice McLean never imagined she would endure life. She was on the verge of giving up. Until that night led her to a crazy revelation. That she still had value. His name was Garrett Alexander Morales. A stranger who proved to Elice that she was still immensely valuable in his eyes. Through his gaze, through the way he spoke, and through his... touch.

On the night of my engagement party, Luca Moretti walked his childhood sweetheart over to me. "Clara accidentally stained her dress," he said. "Let her borrow yours for a while." He added, "Everyone knows you're the main character tonight. It doesn't matter what you wear." I didn't bother objecting. The gown was already on her. I stood behind the half-closed back door in a borrowed black dress while his men laughed over their whiskey. "Luca, is your real fiancee going to lose it?" someone asked. Luca barely looked up from his glass. "Anna is going to be a Donna. She needs to learn grace." Another man snorted. "Besides, she's an orphan. Where's she gonna go without you?" Luca smiled. "She can't leave me." They didn't know I had never been an orphan. I had buried the Valenti name for five years because I wanted Luca to love me as Anna, not as the Valenti daughter. My father is the Mafia Chairman, the man every family answered to when the highest table met. That night, I took off the Moretti emerald ring, left it beside the guest book, and called home. "Papa, I’m not marrying Luca. Don't come to Chicago."

Tessa Ford thought she had it all: a loving husband, a beautiful daughter, and a thriving fashion brand. But when her husband, Grayson Grant, is manipulated into believing she’s having an affair with one of her models, the perfect life she built begins to crumble. Without giving her a chance to explain, he serves her divorce papers and disappears just when she needs him the most. When tragedy strikes, Tessa signs the papers and walks away. Five years later, fate brings them face-to-face once more. Grayson is haunted by his mistakes and desperate for forgiveness. Tessa has built walls around her heart that no amount of apology can break. As time goes on and old feelings resurface, will Tessa be able to find it in her heart to give him a second chance?

My mother was my father’s sugar baby. Every year, he would hold her in his arms and promise, “Wait for me. Next year, I’ll marry you.” He said it for five years. In the end, he married a woman from his own social circle instead. My mother never got the wedding she dreamed of. After that, she became unstable and cruel. She used me as a way to get my father’s attention. “Go. Call your father and tell him you’re sick. Tell him to come see you.” But my father only frowned and yelled at me. “You’re already learning to lie from your mother at such a young age? Always haunting me like this. Disgusting.” They blamed all the anger they had for each other on me. Later, my father’s wife gave birth to a son. He became the perfect husband and father in everyone’s eyes. My mother only grew worse. She hit me harder and harder, all just to make my father come look at her once. When I was seven, I fell down the stairs and broke my leg. I begged my mother to take me to the hospital. She slapped me hard across the face. “What are you pretending for? You fall once and suddenly your leg is broken? You’re just like your irresponsible father. You were born to make me suffer.” My father rushed over, but he only shoved my mother to the floor in irritation. “If you use this little bastard to fake being sick and trick me again, don’t expect another cent from me.” Their screams and sobs tangled together. I lay on the cold floor, slowly losing consciousness. This time, could they finally stop fighting?

On the day I rejected Isabelle Hale, Wall Street's newest golden girl, everyone thought I had lost my mind. She had everything: a Wharton degree, a national finance championship, a perfect family name, and a résumé polished enough to make doors open before she even knocked. But I knew what was hiding behind that name. Fifty years ago, her grandfather stole my grandmother's acceptance letter, her New York scholarship, and the future she had earned with her own hands. He used them to escape an Appalachian coal town with another woman, then built himself into a celebrated Ivy League professor who lectured rich students about ethics. My real grandmother, Grace Walker, was left behind in coal dust and shame. My mother grew up carrying the weight of that stolen life. They lifted me out anyway. I made it all the way to Manhattan, to a glass conference room at Northbridge Capital, where Isabelle sat across from me in a black suit tailored like victory. She thought her family name would protect her. She thought I would bow. Instead, I closed her file and said, "You didn't pass." By the next morning, they had fired me, dragged my name through the mud, and turned a press conference into my public trial. They forgot one thing. I didn't climb to the top of Wall Street to beg for a seat at their table. I came to take back every name, every chance, and every voice they stole from women like us.

"Sign this, honey!" Grace said, rubbing her husband's head, the words clipped. She couldn't wait to run for her dear life, but first, she needed to run from him as fast as her legs would take her. It didn't matter that she was scared of the outcome, but she needed to run first, and she needed it fast. Finally, after she had gotten him to sign it, she did what she had been meaning to since forever, without looking back. A few days later, she was able to do just that, without problem because her now ex-husband had traveled out of the country, but now, it was left to her to stay hidden, if she wanted to enjoy her freedom.