Chương 9
“I was there when you woke up from surgery and asked why your feet were cold.”
Dante said nothing.
“I was there when they told you the damage might be permanent.”
“Marcus.”
“I carried you off the bathroom floor when you tried to transfer alone because you were too proud to call a nurse.”
“Enough.”
“I sat outside your mother’s funeral because you refused to let anyone see you cry.”
Dante’s face changed.
Marcus’s voice remained calm.
“So don’t tell me I don’t know what was taken. I don’t know what happened medically. I know what it cost.”
Dante looked away.
Marcus waited.
Finally Dante said, “Then why aren’t you angry?”
“I am.”
“You hide it well.”
“That’s the job.”
Dante looked back.
Marcus’s expression was different now.
Not professional.
Not quite.
“I’m also angry at you.”
“For what?”
“For making revenge the first thing you can stand up for.”
The sentence sat between them.
Dante looked down at his legs.
Marcus regretted it immediately.
He didn’t apologize.
Dante’s voice was quiet.
“Get out.”
Marcus left.
This time Dante did not call him back.
That evening Isabella asked to meet.
Rebecca advised against it.
Dante agreed anyway.
Not at the penthouse.
At the Park Avenue apartment.
He had not been there since before the crash.
The building staff tried not to stare when Marcus wheeled him through the lobby.
Dante recognized the doorman.
The doorman recognized him and pretended not to.
The elevator opened directly into the apartment.
Isabella stood by the windows wearing jeans and a white blouse.
No makeup.
No shoes.
For a moment, Dante saw the twenty-three-year-old with the wrench.
Then she turned.
The illusion disappeared.
Marcus remained by the elevator.
“I want him outside,” Isabella said.
Dante looked at Marcus.
Marcus stepped into the hall.
The doors stayed open.
Isabella noticed.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
Fair enough.
Dante rolled farther inside.
The apartment smelled faintly of lemon cleaner and old books.
“You still have this couch.”
“You hated it.”
“It’s uncomfortable.”
“That’s why I kept it.”
He looked at her.
For one second, they almost smiled.
Neither did.
Isabella sat across from him.
“Hale is going to say I forced him.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“How do you know?”
“He called me.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“You spoke to him?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Phone records will.”
“He used another phone.”
Dante stared at her.
“You’ve gotten very sophisticated.”
“I learned from you.”
“That line sounded better in your head.”
She looked down.
“Yes.”
Dante waited.
“Why did he call?”
“To tell me he was going to protect himself.”
“Meaning blame you.”
“Yes.”
“Is he lying?”
Isabella’s eyes lifted.
“Not entirely.”
There it was.
Dante felt the muscles in his shoulders tighten.
“Go on.”
She took a breath.
“The first medication changes were his.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I don’t remember every prescription.”
“Then remember the important ones.”
She stood and walked toward the kitchen, then changed her mind halfway and came back.
A nervous habit.
Dante had seen it hundreds of times.
She sat again.
“About eighteen months after the accident, Hale told me you were showing signs that he thought could become voluntary movement.”
Dante stopped breathing.
The room narrowed.
“He told you.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don’t know the exact date.”
“What did he say?”
“That your injury might have been classified too aggressively. That there was preserved function.”
“And?”
“That we should repeat testing.”
Dante’s voice was almost a whisper.
“Did we?”
“No.”
“Why?”
She looked at her hands.
“Because I asked him what would happen if you recovered.”
Dante stared.
Isabella continued before he could speak.
“The company control agreement would be reviewed. Your executive authority could come back. You had already started asking questions about the reserve accounts.”
“So you kept me disabled.”
“No.”
His hand gripped the wheelchair arm.
“No?”
“I delayed the testing.”
“You delayed finding out whether I could move.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“A few weeks.”
“A few weeks.”
“It became longer.”
“How?”
“Hale said the movement might be spasticity. Then you had that episode with the nurse. Then your mother got sick. Everything was—”
“Do not put my mother in this.”
Isabella flinched.
Dante leaned forward.
“You knew there was a chance I was recovering.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
She rubbed her palms against her jeans.
“Hale increased the baclofen.”
“Because?”
“He said it would control the spasms.”
“Did he say it would reduce movement?”
“He said it could.”
Dante’s eyes closed.
A faint tremor moved through his jaw.
“How long before you understood?”
She did not answer.
He opened his eyes.
“How long?”
“Months.”
His voice disappeared almost completely.
“And you kept giving it to me.”
“Yes.”
The apartment was so quiet Dante could hear the elevator machinery behind the wall.
He looked at her.
Not the wife from the photographs.
Not the woman with the pill.
Just Isabella.
A person he had known for twelve years.
“Why?”
She began to cry then.
Not dramatically.
Her face tightened and tears formed despite her effort to stop them.
Dante felt no satisfaction.
“I was afraid.”
“Of losing money?”
“Of you.”
The answer struck somewhere he had not prepared to defend.
She wiped her cheek angrily.
“You were getting stronger mentally. You were cutting back the whiskey. You were asking about the company. You were talking about going back to the office.”
“That was my company.”
“I know.”
“My life.”
“I know.”
“You were afraid I would take it back.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Isabella laughed once through her tears.
“Because you take everything back.”
He stared.
She stood again.
This time she walked to the window.
May you like
“When we married, everything became yours. Where we lived. Who we saw. What events we attended. My job ended because your schedule mattered more. When I wanted to start the design firm, you said people would think you funded it. When I wanted separate accounts, you called it preparation for divorce.”
Dante’s face hardened.
