Page 27 of The Good Billionaire

The past two days had not gone like I planned.

At all.

In a taxi heading back to the West Village, I took out my phone and found the text messages from my lawyer earlier in the day. The plan had been to sweet-talk Seb into signing my divorce papers. Instead, he sweet-talked me into bed.

Anything?the lawyer had texted.

No. He won’t sign them. What are my options?I responded.

In New York, you can now sue for a no-fault divorce. It means going to court.

He’s leaving for San Francisco soon. I don’t suppose we’d get a date before then.

He’ll have to fly back to New York for the hearings.

Ugh, I’d be dragging him to New York. Any goodwill I earned with his family would be blown apart if this turned into a war. Maybe Ishouldask for half his money. Maybe that would lighta fire under his butt. I didn’t want money. I wanted another weekend like that one. Where I was the center of his attention.

My mother had taught me not to show emotion to men. If a man loved me enough, he’d give me everything. Don’t ask for anything because it was a sign of weakness. Year after year, my marriage crumbled more and more.

My pride got in the way too.

Stupid.

I started typing my lawyer another text, but my phone closed down from the lack of juice.

The cab stopped in front of my building.

What would Seb tell everyone the following day when I didn’t show up for the brunch? The wedding was over, his family deserved to know the truth. But it wasn’tmyfamily and I had no obligation to reveal that truth to them.

Inside my large and lonely apartment, I kicked off my wet stilettos and filled my clawfoot tub with hot water to warm my feet. I left my luggage, my purse, and even my phone to rot by the door. I only wanted a bottle of red wine and a bath.

MONDAY MORNING, I BREEZEDinto Memorial Hospital, grateful to start my new job. Fall into the abyss of learning a new routine and meeting new people. Being Head of the Department meant I’d have a full day of work ahead of me. No word from Sebastian. Or anyone. I guessed they’d taken the news well. What was done was done and they all went on with their lives. Savannah and Brandon were on their honeymoon, and Tristan had gone off on his salacious cruise. With or without Sebastian, that was the question burning in my mind.

“Dr. Hart, there’s a call for you,” one of the surgical assistants said to me as I placed my workbag down on my desk. A desk I hadn’t even set up yet.

It starts...

I picked up the desk phone. “Dr. Hart.”

“It’s Mason Tether, cardiology. Check your cell. All your calls are going to voicemail.”

Horrified, I yanked it out of my bag. It’d died two nights ago and I’d been in such a fog, I hadn’t even noticed. “Looks like I had a battery issue, Dr. Tether. Thank you for letting me know.” Scary that the head of cardiology took time out of his busy schedule to tell me about my phone.

“That’s an old friend I’ve got scheduled for the bypass in OR 6. I assume you want to scrub in as well. I know it’s your first day, but considering...”

A chance to prove myself to my new team tickled my insides. But didn’t that make me as bad as Seb? Unable to delegate. “Dr. Tether, we have the best anesthetists here at Memorial. I’ll send down my top....” I scanned the online charts for Dr. Tether’s patients and gasped. “What... What happened to Dr. Hart?”

“You didn’t know your father-in-law needs a triple bypass?”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sebastian

“Ican’t believe you lied to us,” my mom said, holding my father’s hand in the ICU.

“I didn’t lie. I just kept something from you. I didn’t want to blow up Savannah’s wedding.” I paced, watching my father’s vitals crash. Then stabilize. Then crash again.

The last twenty-four hours had been a roller coaster.

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