He Gave Her My Home So I Took Back My Life Chapter 14
Within three days, the Ashford Foundation was in complete chaos.
Donors were withdrawing one after another. The bank suspended all lines of credit. The board held four emergency meetings, and each time the demand was the same: Graham had to resign as foundation president and step down from all related posts.
Even the families who once lined up to court his favor had stopped taking his calls.
His office was piled high with legal notices and payment demands. Board members were shoving all responsibility onto him, as if they had never benefited from the galas hosted among my heirlooms in my ancestral home.
Vivian stayed by his side the whole time.
On the third evening, Graham finally lost his patience with her anxious pacing.
“You should go.”
Vivian went rigid. “Go where?”
“Back to your own life.” He rubbed at a headache building behind his eyes. “The Ashford family is a sinking ship. It can’t give you what you want.”
“I never wanted anything!”
Her voice shot up, then softened almost immediately into a tearful plea.
“My son needs me. He’s in a terrible place right now. I can’t let him lose a complete home, too.”
Graham looked at her.
The boy was at boarding school in another state, with a regular therapist. In the last several days, he hadn’t even called her once.
Vivian avoided his gaze and threw herself at him, clutching his arm.
“Why are you sending me away? I can stay with you through all of this. Graham, I’d do anything for you.”
Her shoulders shook with sobs.
Graham felt nothing but irritation.
Those endless performances of a “complete family” were exactly what had brought everything crashing down. Only now, after it had all collapsed, was he beginning to realize that every sacrifice Vivian claimed to make had always been at someone else’s expense.
“You used to admire me for this,” she wept. “You said I would give up anything for my child. Why don’t you want me now?”
In the past, her tears had always softened him.
This time, he only pulled his arm away.
Looking at her reddened eyes, he suddenly thought of the hotel bills.
The last ten times, he had casually told me to pack and go. Told me it would only be for a few days. Told me not to embarrass the family.
He had never once wondered what it was like for me after that hotel room door closed.
He had never wondered if I had cried alone, too.