Page 103 of The Light to My Darkness (The Light to My Darkness 1)

"That's what Penny wanted. She thought writing a book and making a name for herself would make her worthy of you. Instead of just lucky that you chose her. That's why she wanted it. That's why she didn't want your help with it."

"Did she tell you that?"

"She didn't have to, man." He sat down on the floor next to me.

"I fucked everything up. I don't know what I was thinking."

"You were thinking you wanted to make her happy. It's not like that's some fatal flaw. But yeah...it looked bad. I may have been projecting though."

I looked up at him.

"She started throwing up after I brought her ice cream. Then she started bleeding." He looked down at the floor. "All of this is actually my fault."

I shook my head. "No, I'll tell you whose fucking fault it is. Her last OB-GYN who didn't tell us about her heart condition in the first place. I need to go talk to my lawyer."

"I don't know if this had anything to do with her heart. She was having stomach pains."

"It has everything to do with it." I slowly stood up. "I'll be back."

"You can't leave. Scar won't stop crying. She needs you."

"I can't..." I shook my head. "I can't look at her right now." I walked over to the door.

"Penny needs you here. You have a kid that needs you. And any minute now, you'll have another one. The lawsuit can wait. You need to be here."

I pushed open the door.

"Penny never left your hospital bed after you got shot," he said to my back. "Never."

"That's the thing, Rob. I was never worthy of Penny, not the other way around." The door closed behind me with a thud. If Rob was expecting me to feel guilty, that wasn't going to work. I couldn't feel anything but the numbness creeping into my bones.

Chapter 37

Monday

"He withheld information!" I slammed my fist down on the desk.

The man sitting across the desk from me jumped. A small man. One I had talked to only a few times. One that hadn't earned my trust yet. Not that any lawyer could. Not after the one I had trusted ended up being in bed with Isabella. I stared at him, pleased that he quavered under my gaze.

"James," he said in a voice that didn't demand an ounce of respect. "We don't know if that's what caused the incident. Malpractice isn't a petty lawsuit. You'll ruin his reputation. We'll need more proof."

I cringed at the word incident. Why did everyone keep saying that? It diminished the situation. This wasn't just some random event. This was my whole fucking life. I wanted to reach across the desk and wrap my hands around his throat.

"Penny called me this morning," he continued. "She wanted to deliver her will to the office. Well, an amendment to the will you had made for her. But I didn't have any appointments open until this afternoon. She was supposed to come in right around now, actually."

The side of my face twitched. I looked away so he couldn't see it. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"She said she wanted to add to it. But based on that phone call, is there any possibility at all that this could have been planned?"

I turned back toward him and leaned forward. "My pregnant wife bleeding out in the back seat of a car? You think that was planned?"

"Signs of suicide..."

I stood up. The chair squeaked behind me against the wooden floorboards. "You don't know my wife. You know nothing about us. So I'll forgive you this once. But if the next words out of your mouth aren't, 'I'm filing the suit,' then you're fired."

"James." He sounded exasperated. "Why else would she want to update her will hours before this happened? I understand that suicide isn't..."

"Stop saying suicide." I slammed my fist against his desk again.

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