He Took My Love 99 Times. The 100th Time, He Lost Me Forever. novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Donata's Price

Donata sat down on the edge of an empty cot.

She crossed her ankles and set her handbag on her knees.

"Dr. Barsi," she said. "You may stay. I'd rather have a witness than a rumor."

"I wasn't planning to leave," Leone said.

He had stepped half a pace in front of me.

I stepped beside him instead.

I didn't want to be protected from this woman.

I wanted to hear every word.

"You made a scene at my table," Donata said. "In front of thirty families. That was brave, and it was stupid, and I admire the first more than I resent the second."

"You came here at midnight to tell me that?"

"I came to make you an offer."

She opened her handbag and took out a cream envelope.

She held it out to me, and I didn't take it.

"One million dollars," she said. "A clean divorce, signed tonight, with every right to your own name. A flat in any city you choose. And the claim withdrawn, the log burned, and my son's name left out of it."

"And what do you get?"

"What I've always had. My family intact."

"Your family sold my love to buy a dock lease."

"Your husband," Donata said, "is a man who has been given a great many gifts and has made poor use of some of them. I'm not asking you to forgive that. I'm asking you to stop."

"And if I don't?"

She didn't answer right away.

She studied me with those pale, dry eyes, and I realized she was deciding how much of herself to spend.

"Then I'll destroy this place," she said. "Dr. Barsi's license was revoked three years ago, and I have a very polite friend at the health department. By the end of the week, every bed in this room will be a violation. Those patients will have nowhere to go, and an old baker will be back on the street."

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