He smiled as if he were doing me a favor.
“You’re right. We’ve known each other since senior year of high school, by the way. Your stepmom approached me at your mom’s funeral.”
“You’re going to sign either way.”
“You’ve been so generous,” Diane added sweetly. “All Aaron had to do was be patient with you. Keep you comfortable and waiting. That part was just for my enjoyment. Call it ‘playing the long game.’ And you stuck it out and finally ‘won’!”
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.
