I gripped the counter so I wouldn’t sway.
“And the proposal?”
“That was phase two,” Aaron said, as if he were reciting a slide deck. “Marriage gives me legal standing. Diane buys the property through me. Quiet, clean, family business.”
“That part was just for my enjoyment.”
My stepmother tapped the folder.
“Just a quitclaim deed on the house, dear. And a small acknowledgment of the trust. Aaron will handle the rest.”
I looked down at the papers. Then I looked up at the woman who’d spent 20 years calling me ungrateful for inheriting my own mother’s home.
“You paid a teenage boy to date me?”
“I invested,” Diane corrected. “In what should have been mine.”
I let her have that moment. I let Aaron pick up the pen and click it open, ready to coach me through where to sign.
“Aaron will handle the rest.”
Then I picked up my phone from the table, clicked a couple of things, and set it on the counter, screen up.
