Chapter 8 - Cold Glass and Steel: The Jailhouse Confrontation
The visiting room of the Metropolitan Correction Center was cold,
cramped,
and smelled of stale floor wax and industrial detergent.
A thick pane of reinforced bulletproof glass separated the visitors from the inmates.
I sat on a hard metal stool on the visitor’s side,
wearing a crisp beige cashmere coat and black leather gloves.
I did not need to be there.
My lawyers had advised against it.
They told me Grant was broken,
desperate,
and attempting to negotiate a plea bargain with the federal prosecutor.
But I wanted to look him in the eyes one last time.
I wanted him to see the woman he had tried to destroy.
The heavy steel door on the opposite side of the glass opened.
A guard led Grant Ashford into the small cubicle.
I barely recognized him.
The impeccably tailored Tom Ford tuxedo was gone,
replaced by a loose,
coarse orange jumpsuit.
His dark hair was unwashed,
matted,
and falling over his forehead.
Deep black circles shadowed his eyes,
and his hands were locked together in heavy steel handcuffs attached to a waist chain.
He sat down on the stool across from me,
his breath rattling in his chest.
He looked at me through the glass,
and his eyes immediately welled with tears.
He reached for the plastic phone receiver on his side of the wall.
I picked up the receiver on my side and placed it to my ear.
“Vivienne...”
he sobbed,
his voice coming through the low-quality speaker,
cracked and desperate.
“Vivienne,
thank God you came.”
“Please...”
“You have to get me out of here!”
“They have me in a high-security block!”
“The food is terrible,
the noise is constant,
and the prosecutor is threatening me with twenty years in federal prison!”
I held the receiver quietly,
watching him squirm like a trapped animal.
“You look tired,
Grant,”
I said softly.
“Viv,
listen to me!”
he begged,
pressing his handcuffed hands against the thick glass.
“I made a mistake!”
“A terrible,
horrible mistake!”
“Julian Vance set me up!”
“He was the one who suggested the offshore structure!”
“He was the one who introduced me to Piper and her brother!”
“They manipulated me,
Viv!”
“They knew I felt inadequate standing next to your wealth,
and they exploited my ambition!”
I tilted my head slightly,
listening to his pathetic attempt to pass the blame.
“So the affair was Julian’s idea too?”
I asked,
my tone dripping with sarcasm.
Grant flinched as if I had struck him across the face.
“Piper meant nothing to me!”
he cried out,
tears streaming down his hollow cheeks.
“It was just sex,
Viv!
Just a stupid,
meaningless distraction!”
“I never loved her!”
“I love you!”
“I have always loved you!”
“We built a life together for seven years!”
“You can’t throw all of that away because of one period of foolishness!”
I let out a soft,
quiet laugh that made Grant stop mid-sentence.
“You didn’t love me when you put my home address on your mistress’s hospital intake forms,
Grant,”
I said,
my voice sharp as a diamond edge.
“You didn’t love me when you forged my signature to sell thirty-five percent of my father’s business to Dubai equity firms.”
“You didn’t love me when you told Piper on a recorded line that you were going to claim I was mentally unstable so you could steal my penthouse.”
Grant went pale,
his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
He realized every word he had spoken in secret was now part of a federal court record.
“I brought you something today,
Grant,”
I said,
pulling a legal document from inside my cashmere coat and holding it up against the glass.
He strained his eyes to read the title:
PETITION FOR ABSOLUTE DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE & TOTAL ASSET FORFEITURE.
“Divorce papers,”
he whispered,
his voice trembling.
“Signed by me this morning,”
I informed him.
“Under the prenuptial agreement you signed seven years ago...”
“which included an explicit infidelity and financial fraud clause...”
“you forfeit all claims to joint marital property,
spousal support,
and corporate severance.”
“You leave this marriage with exactly what you brought into it.”
“Nothing.”
Grant slammed his handcuffed fists against the glass,
making a dull thud.
“You can’t take everything!”
he shrieked,
his eyes wild with desperation.
“My childhood house in Greenwich!”
“My mother still lives there!”
“The deed was under my personal name!”
I smiled warmly through the glass.
“Not anymore.”
“Yesterday afternoon,
to satisfy the preliminary civil restitution debt owed to the Ashford Heritage Trust...”
“my legal team purchased the mortgage on the Greenwich estate from the bank.”
“Notice of eviction will be served to your mother on Monday morning.”
Grant gasped,
his face contorting in sheer agony.
“You monster!”
he screamed into the receiver.
“She is an old woman!”
“Where is she supposed to go?”
“She can go live with Piper Vale and your newborn daughter in their eighty-four thousand dollar hospital bill,”
I replied coldly.
“You destroyed my trust,
Grant.”
“You attempted to destroy my life.”
“Did you truly believe your family would remain untouched while mine was burned to the ground?”
Grant dropped his head onto the metal counter,
sobbing uncontrollably,
the heavy chains rattling against his orange jumpsuit.
He was completely broken.
Stripped of his money,
his status,
his freedom,
and his arrogance.
I hung the plastic receiver back onto its metal hook.
I stood up,
smoothed down my cashmere coat,
and adjusted my leather gloves.
I looked down at the weeping man behind the glass one last time.
“Goodbye,
Grant,”
I whispered,
though he could no longer hear me.
I turned on my heel and walked out of the prison,
May you like
stepping into the bright Manhattan sunshine,
leaving him to face the darkness he had created for himself.
