CHAPTER TEN #2
"Grayson has been devoted to Olivia since the day he brought her home," Arthur said, his voice dropping into a register of cold disgust. "There was no timeline to speed up.
There was no need to manipulate anything.
He was going to propose because he loved her, not because he was trapped into it by a manufactured loss of control. "
For Grayson, standing silently in the center of the room, that explanation was the final, devastating blow.
This was exactly what people had tried to warn him about.
For two years, members of his family, his peers, and even Kennedy herself had gently pointed out that Olivia’s relatives came from a different world.
He had brushed those warnings off as elitism.
He had assumed they were talking about money, about pedigree, about the trivial rules of high society.
He hadn't understood that they were talking about a fundamental difference in thinking.
He looked at Linda, Beatrice, Brenna, and Chloe.
He saw the desperate, narrow, survivalist mindset that had driven them to commit a felony.
To them, Grayson wasn't a man; he was a lottery ticket.
And they had believed that the only way to secure a man of his wealth was through cheap, manipulative, and deeply degrading tactics.
They couldn't comprehend love without leverage.
The outrage burned like acid in Grayson’s veins.
He found the entire scheme repulsive. But beneath the outrage was the sickening, crushing knowledge that while these women were secretly plotting his downfall, he had turned around and aimed his fire at Kennedy Lockhart—the only person in this entire narrative who had actually belonged in his corner.
"The damage you have caused is enormous," Arthur stated, his voice cutting through Grayson’s internal spiral.
He stepped forward, putting himself between his son and the Winters family.
"We were willing to welcome Olivia. We were willing to accept all of you, despite our differences. But this changes everything."
Arthur looked directly at Linda, his eyes devoid of any mercy. "How do you expect my son to propose to your daughter now? How do you expect him to build a life with a woman whose family is capable of scheming, manipulating, and drugging people to get what they want?"
"Please," Olivia begged, turning to Grayson, her hands clasped together in front of her chest. She was sobbing openly now, the reality of her shattered future crashing down on her. "Grayson, please, you know I had nothing to do with this. I never asked for this. I love you."
"I know you didn't," Grayson said quietly, looking down at her. His voice was drained of emotion. "But your family did."
Ryder remained silent, leaning against the edge of a towering bookshelf.
He had not said a single word since ordering Olivia to make the phone call.
He knew about the slap. He knew exactly what Olivia had done at the Lockhart estate, and he fully intended to address it.
But he chose not to raise it while the Winters family was still in the room.
For now, he simply watched as Olivia’s family realized the full, catastrophic scale of the destruction they had wrought.
The silence stretched on.
Grayson ran a hand over his face, feeling a thousand years old. He looked at Olivia, his heart aching for the innocent girl caught in the crossfire of her family’s greed, but he couldn't see past the wreckage.
"Where do we go from here, Olivia?" Grayson asked softly, the genuine, heartbreaking uncertainty in his voice filling the quiet room. "What are we supposed to do after something like this? What is even left to rebuild?"
Olivia looked at him, her blue eyes wide and frightened. She wanted to tell him they could fix it. She wanted to promise him she would cut her family off, that she would be whatever he needed her to be. But the shame was too heavy. She had no easy answer for him.
"I don't know," she whispered, her voice breaking.
Grayson nodded slowly, a tragic finality settling over his features. "Maybe some distance would do us both good. Perhaps we need time apart. We need to think seriously about everything that has happened… and what it means for our relationship."
It wasn't an outright breakup, but the words felt like a death sentence.
Olivia let out a sharp, devastated sob, covering her face with her hands.
Her mother reached out, trying to pull her into a comforting embrace, but Olivia violently shoved Linda away, refusing to let the woman who had ruined her life touch her.
"We are leaving," Olivia choked out, turning away from her family and looking at the Ashford-Wales. "I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry."
As she turned to walk toward the library doors, her tear-filled gaze briefly caught Ryder’s.
Ryder was not looking at her with pity. He was not looking at her with the gentle, fraternal affection he had always shown her.
He was looking at her with a cold, piercing disgust that sent a sudden, inexplicable shiver down her spine.
There was something in his expression that made her realize, with a sudden jolt of terror, that he knew more than he was saying.
But Ryder did not confront her. He simply stood in silence, watching as Thomas the butler stepped into the room to escort the disgraced Winters family out of the estate.
The doors clicked shut, plunging the library back into a suffocating silence.