Chapter 4 - WHY WE SEPARATED
Grace and I had not ended because we stopped loving each other.
That would have been simpler.
We met at nineteen.
She worked at a café near Stanford where I was pretending I did not belong to the Sterling family.
I was twenty.
She laughed at my watch.
“You look like you’re wearing a down payment.”
I married her in my head that afternoon.
Reality was less romantic.
Pregnancy at twenty-one.
My father dying six months later.
Me pulled into Sterling Holdings before I was ready.
Travel.
Board fights.
My mother deciding Grace was “too young for the role.”
Grace hated being managed.
I kept asking for patience.
Then one night, Victoria told me Grace had asked for two million dollars to sign a postnuptial agreement.
Grace told me I had demanded she sign away rights to my family assets.
Neither was true exactly.
We fought using information supplied by others.
I did not know that then.
By Sophia’s second birthday, we separated.
Not divorced.
Legally married still.
Important.
Grace moved out.
My mother volunteered:
“I’ll handle support privately. No court circus.”
I agreed.
Idiot.
I signed a management directive authorizing up to $50,000 monthly for Grace and Sophia’s welfare.
Not automatically fifty.
Up to.
Statements later showed the full amount nearly every month.
I assumed:
Luxury housing.
Private preschool.
Everything.
Grace thought I had abandoned her except minimal support.
May you like
Both of us had evidence.
Forged evidence.
