“I should’ve stopped her before it got that far.”
“You came with me.”
“She hit you.”
“And you still chose to walk out with me.”
His eyes lowered.
Then his phone rang.
His father’s name appeared on the screen.
Ethan answered.
“Dad?”
Robert sounded shaken.
“Your mother just found out.”
I knew exactly what he meant.
Ethan didn’t.
“Found out what?”
There was a long pause.
Then Robert quietly said, “Who owns the house.”
Ethan slowly turned toward me.
I lowered the ice pack.
Three years earlier, Diane and Robert had nearly lost everything.
Robert’s manufacturing company had collapsed.
Their mortgage was badly underwater, and foreclosure was only weeks away.
Ethan desperately wanted to help them, but at the time we didn’t personally have enough liquid cash to rescue the property.
What Diane never understood was that I controlled a private real-estate investment firm through a holding company inherited from my grandfather.
