Page 43 of Whatever It Takes

“I don’t want to talk about Quinn.”

He leaned his hips against the counter and crossed his arms. “So, you’re not denying it.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Grant. I would want this divorce whether I was with him or not. You’re a wanted fugitive,” I pointed out. “Your days of freedom are numbered. You have to understand that you are in a no-win situation here.”

He froze as if my words struck a nerve. I wasn’t trying to purposely hurt him, but he needed to understand that his actions had consequences. This was all on him. He’s the one who made the decision to run. He is the one who set this train wreck in motion. He was a dead man walking. He had to know that. One way or another, his mistakes would catch up to him.

“I guess I never really stood a chance.” The disdain dripped from his voice. “All I’ve ever done is fight for you, but you never fucking loved me. It didn’t matter how much I gave you, all you ever did was want him.”

I was seething in anger, because, of course, this was all about him and his feelings. I swear this man brought out the worst in me. “If you want to put the blame on me, fine. Blame me for our failed marriage, and I use that term loosely. Our marriage was a sham. We both know that we were simply roommates sharing space and raising a child. And you can deny it all you want, but I’m pretty sure the only reason you wouldn’t give me a divorce was because you wanted to protect your precious image. And well…” I shrugged. “I guess we don’t have to worry about that anymore, do we?”

He brushed an errant piece of hair off his face. I’d never seen him look so out of sorts before. “Charlotte, I was under a lot of stress. I fucked up. You and Emery were the only good things in my life. I wasn’t giving that up, no matter how badly you wanted out. Shit was going down that you didn’t know about. I made mistakes and they cost me more than you could ever imagine.” He ran his hand through his hair and looked over his shoulders at the locked door. “Now I’ve lost my family, my career, my fucking freedom.”

A tiny part of me felt sorry for him, and the other part despised him for destroying so many lives. I wanted to ask him what drove him to all this madness, but I knew he would only give me excuses, and nothing he said would make me understand anyway. He’s told so many goddamned lies that I wasn’t sure if he was even capable of telling the truth anymore. Would he even tell me where he’s been all this time? Probably not, but I still had to ask because that question had crossed my mind more times than I could count.

I looked him over for any sign of physical injuries. Other than his unkempt appearance, he seemed fine. “Where have you been hiding? Who’s been helping you?”

He nervously shifted his eyes away from me. “I can’t tell you that.”

My mind screamed at me to run. To get the hell away from him. Yet I couldn’t seem to get myself to move. I was too angry and still needed answers even though I knew he wouldn’t give them to me. “Are you going to turn yourself in?”

“I can’t.” His eyes dropped to the manila folder I had in my hands. “I’m also not signing anything until you let me see my daughter.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re going to use Emery like she’s some bargaining chip? She’s not some pawn that you can sacrifice in order to get what you want.”

He had a set of balls on him. I’d give him that.

“I want to see my daughter. I want to hold her in my arms instead of watching her from afar like a fucking stalker. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me? To watch you both laughing and having fun on that playground, living your life as if nothing has happened. Do you have any idea how badly I wanted to snatch her off of that swing set and take her away with me?”

I surged forward and pushed on his chest. My vision blurred and it felt like my heart was going to explode. “Don’t you even think about taking her away from me you selfish bastard.”

He grabbed on to my wrist and held me back with a bewildered expression on his face. “Relax. Just because I said I wanted to doesn’t mean I would. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

My chest heaved up and down. A sense of loathing spread through me. I crossed my arms over my chest and pinned him with a death glare. “Don’t ever threaten to take her from me again.”

“You need to calm down,” he said, staring at me as if I was the crazy one. “I’m not going to take her with me.”

His words stalled in my brain. What the hell was he talking about? Take her with him? Oh my God. He really was messed up in the head. He had no intention of turning himself in.

How could someone as smart as Grant possibly think he could get away with this?

“Do you honestly think you can survive on the run forever? How will you live?” I folded my arms and glared at him. “Are you fucking crazy?”

He looked completely undone. It was hard to see a man who was usually so put together fall apart before your eyes. “I’m living in hell. My life is a fucking nightmare.” He exhaled, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Things had been spiraling out of control for months. I keep getting dragged deeper and deeper into a life that I never wanted.”

“That’s no excuse,” I shot back.

He looked at his feet, his voice was barely a whisper. “All I wanted was for you to love me. To be a good dad to Emery. For my parents to be proud of me. I failed at every turn. Nothing I did was ever good enough. Everything was a constant struggle. My job was the only place where I felt like I was in control. When that started to unravel, I started doing things that I’m not proud of. And at that point, I knew it was too late to turn things around.”

I stared at him in disbelief. He had life so damned easy; he didn’t know what real struggle was. Sure, he worked hard to prove himself, but opportunities that most people only dreamed of were always at the tip of his fingers, whenever he needed them.

“Don’t turn yourself into a martyr, Grant. You need to get beyond yourself and think about what this is doing to Emery.”

He slowly shook his head. “She’s the only reason why I haven’t ended it already.”

A small part of me wanted to help him, but looking into his lost, helpless eyes, I saw a man backed into a corner with no way out. I couldn’t help someone who wasn’t willing to help themselves.

“So what, you’re just going to keep running?”

“For as long as I can. Besides,” he looked down at the floor, “it doesn’t seem like I have much more here waiting for me.”

Bile rose in the back of my throat. Every part of me silently begged him to come to his senses and turn himself in. The tears in my eyes pleaded with him to do the right thing. I couldn’t let him keep running. My chest was tight because I knew what I had to do. I swallowed hard and tried to take hold of my emotions. With shaking hands and a heavy heart, my free hand slid into my purse. Grant’s gaze followed. He closed his eyes and rushed to the door.

His face crumbled when I pulled my phone out to call 911. “Please tell Emery I love her.”

And then he was gone.

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