The second drawer reveals neatly labeled folders—ranch expenses, rodeo schedules, medical records. Nothing personal. My eyes scan the folders and freeze.
A folder labeled “RENTAL PROPERTY—RIVERSIDE COTTAGE” sits at the front.
That's... my cottage. The one that flooded.
I shouldn't look. I absolutely shouldn't.
So I open it.
Inside are Property deeds. Tax filings. Maintenance logs. Rental agreements.
And Grant’s name is on every damn one of them. Understanding dawns like a cold wave crashing over me. The cottage belongs to Grant. Has belonged to him for years.
My stomach drops, like the floor’s been pulled out from under me.
“What the hell?” I whisper, flipping through more documents.
And then I see it—a plumber's report dated two weeks ago. Not detailing work needed, but workcompleted.The fatberg cleared. Pipes repaired. Property statushabitable.
Two weeks ago.
The breath lodges in my throat. It feels like drowning without water.
Two whole weeks he’s let me believe I had nowhere else to go. That the cottage was a swampy, broken mess. That I was stuck.
That I needed him.
My hands begin to shake.
Beneath the plumber's report is an email from the property management company, addressed to Grant:
Mr. Taylor,
Per your request, we will continue to list the Riverside Cottage as uninhabitable until you notify us otherwise. As the owner, this is your prerogative, though we do advise informing the tenant of the situation at your earliest convenience.
Regards,
CHS Property Management
Tenant. Prerogative. Notify.
All those polite, clinical words boil down to one thing.
He knew. He chose this. He kept me here.
My knees buckle and I sink into his desk chair like it might hold me together. But nothing can. Because this... this betrayal feels all too familiar.
The breath in my lungs turns shallow and sharp. Because suddenly, I’m not in Grant’s study anymore.
I’m fifteen again. Sitting in a locked bedroom while my father tells my swim coach I’m not available for regionals. I’m seventeen, the acceptance letter to a summer program torn in half on the kitchen floor. I’m eighteen, crying in a bathroombecause every time I tasted freedom, he found a way to chain it back.
And now Grant—
God, Iknowthis is different. Iknowhe’s not my father.
But my body doesn’t.
The betrayal, the manipulation—no matter how pretty the packaging—feels the same. And it slices through me like a rusted blade.
