All Chapters of Fighting History (Fighting For Love 4): Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

56 Chapters

Chapter Thirty-one

Ten minutes later, Maggie was relaxing with a glass of white wine and watching Joe stir something that smelled delicious. He’d brought her some vegetable wraps from the fridge, and she was inhaling them at roughly the speed of light as she sat and waited.Joe joined her at the table now. “OK, so. That’ll be another ten minutes, then I’ll stick it in the oven for twenty minutes. Can you hang on that long?”“Sure.”“Good.” He sat and took a sip of his own wine. “So how are you doing now?”She stiffened. “Fine.”“OK.” He studied her. “You going to want dessert, too?”“You got some?”“Yeah. I was just fooling around with some ideas for the menu today, and I made a few things. I was planning to take them to a soup kitchen near my place, but we can sample them, I guess. You interested?”“Sure.” Despite herself, Maggie smiled at him. “I love sweet stuff.”“Yeah, I remember.”She looked away and he fell silent again.“Maggie?”She glanced back at him.“Is your Mom OK?”“I told you I wasn’t go

Chapter Thirty-two

“OK.” He drank some wine. “Truth? I fucked it all up because I could.”Maggie stared. “That’s – that’s it? You cheated on me because you could?”“Yeah. I wish there was more to it than that, but there’s not, really. I mean, I treated you like crap in so many ways, and the cheating was just one more way.” Joe cocked his head at her. “Can I ask you something now?”“I guess so.”“Why did you?”“Why did I what?”“Let me treat you like crap.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Why did you put up with it?”She was stunned. “So – what? You’re saying the cheating was my fault? I didn’t stick your dick in those women, Joe.”“No, that was all me. But I disrespected you long before you caught me that night. I was always late, I stood you up, I cancelled dates at the last possible second. I missed your first really big exhibition, for Christ sake, and my excuse was fucking lame. And whenever you so much as protested about anything, I shut you up with sex.” He met her eyes. “Why did you let me do

Chapter Thirty-three

“So, that was a body blow. Then, Dad cut me off.”Maggie started. “You mean, financially?”“Yep. Said that he and Grandpa had supported me for years, and that the free ride was over. I already had one successful restaurant, you know, and when I went to Dad to give me the money for this one, he told me to do it myself.”“Wow.”“Uh-huh. Said that I could use my own business as collateral for a bank loan, use my established restaurant and its reputation to attract investors. Told me to start acting like a thirty-three-year-old businessman, not a trust-fund brat. He reminded me that Grandpa had come from nothing at all and worked his way up in the world, and that he’d made Dad finance his own way. He wanted to see some of that same grit and hard work in me.”Maggie blinked. “Harsh. But not totally off-base.”“I know. I mean, I know now. But two years ago, I was furious. I had this fucking entitled attitude, and I was stunned that Dad didn’t hand over millions just ‘cause I wanted the mone

Chapter Thirty-four

Maggie watched Joe take the food out of the oven, taste it, add something, taste again. He nodded to himself and she smiled at the look on his face. It was one that she remembered well; it was pure happiness, and she’d only ever seen him look this way when he was cooking.As he plated up the food, her mind started to wander over their conversation, and she thought about his question to her: why she had allowed him to treat her badly. It hadn’t been an accusation, she saw now, or an excuse for anything that he’d done. No, quite the opposite, actually – tonight, Joe had taken full responsibility for his own behavior and decisions while they had been together. But she hadn’t.“Joe?”He heard something in her voice and turned. “Yeah?”“I want – I’d like to answer your question now.” Joe gazed at her. “OK.”“But first, I want to call the hospital… check in.”“You do that.” He sprinkled something on the dishes. “Give this a minute to cool down.”Maggie didn’t even bother to put a few symbo

Chapter Thirty-five

She broke their gaze now. “I don’t know. And I can’t think about that right now.”“OK.” He fought with himself to stop pushing. “Can we at least agree that you’ll let me be there for you? That you’ll talk to me about Rita, and what’s happening?”She looked back at him, surprised. “Really?”“Yeah. I don’t want you to do this alone, Maggie.”“Well, I’m not alone.” Her tone was challenging, and he grinned at the return of her spirit. “I do have friends, you know.”“I know.” He longed to kiss those lips, to whisper against her mouth as she heated up against him. “But I’d like to be counted among the people you can talk to, OK? Can you trust me to do that?”She looked at him for several long seconds and he held his breath. Finally, she nodded, a single jerky movement. “I’ll try.”He sighed in relief. “I’ll take it.”They smiled at each other now, and Maggie was shocked at the heat that sparked between them. She looked away first, afraid that if she kept gazing at the warmth in those gorgeo

Chapter Thirty-six

“God, Joe.” She gestured at him, irritated at having to point out the obvious. “Look at you. You’re handsome and sexy and your body just doesn’t quit. You’re rich, a known chef, a celebrity. You’re damn near on-paper perfect, and that night we met, I almost ran and hid in the bathroom when you smiled at me and said hello.”“You did?”“I did. Mia forced me to stay, told me that you were just a guy. Told me to relax and just talk to you. So I did.”He recalled how nervous and shy she’d been that night, and how much he’d liked it. Joe had been sick to death of predatory females at that point in his life, and this sweet, quiet woman with the stunning eyes and gorgeous curves had taken him aback. He’d been interested in her from the first, mostly because she’d been the exact opposite of his usual type. Her talent had blown him away, too: all that passion and strength tempered with grace had been overwhelmingly sexy. Nobody had been more surprised than Joe when he’d asked her out for dinn

Chapter Thirty-seven

She stared at him across the table. “So is yours.”“You think you know me at my best?”“Before tonight, I’d have said no, even if I took into account that long weekend. But the side of you I’ve seen over the past hour or so… I feel like that’s you, Joe, the you that your grandfather said I should hold out for. And I like it.”“You do?” His heart leapt in his chest.“Yeah. I do.”“Enough to give me another chance?”“That I don’t know.”Just then her cell rang, and she jumped. When she saw the number, a wave of fear washed over her. “Oh, no.”“What?” Joe asked.“It’s the hospital.” She looked up at him, her eyes wide with panic. “They never call me.”“Answer, baby. I’m right here, OK?”She nodded and put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”Joe watched as all the color drained right out of her face. Alarmed, he stood up and came to her, knelt down again. She reached out and held his hand.“OK,” she whispered. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.” She hung up, looking dazed.He touched her cheek.

Chapter Thirty-eight

In the hospital elevator, Joe watched Maggie closely. She was shaking and pale, her eyes fixed on the floor numbers as they ascended, stopped, ascended again. He knew she was feeling every second of every delay as people struggled on and off on crutches, or were rolled in and out in beds. At one point, he seriously thought she was going to bolt out and make a dash for the stairs.They got off on the ninth floor and Maggie shot off to the right, straight down the hall. A tall blonde nurse rushed to meet her.“Hurry, Maggie… hurry!”Maggie broke into a run now, and Joe let her go, watched her move farther away from him. She disappeared around the corner and he followed, his heart in his throat.Fuck. I hope I got her here in time. I’ll never, ever forgive myself if she doesn’t get the chance to say goodbye to Rita. She was at the restaurant tonight because of me.He turned the corner and blinked at the long hallway in front of him. He passed room after room, peering in, looking for Magg

Chapter Thirty-nine

At about three o’clock in the morning, it happened. Joe sat straight up in his chair, shocked to complete alertness by the alarms ringing and lights flashing on the machines next to Rita. Maggie gripped her mother’s hand tighter, and nurses rushed into the room.The blonde one who had spoken to Maggie by the elevators turned off the alarms. The silence was empty and almost deafening.“She’s gone?” Maggie’s voice was eerily calm, and Joe’s heart ached.“Not yet, hon.” The nurse was firm but kind. “Those alarms mean that her system has gone into full organ failure. She’s gone past the point of being able to come back to us… her body is now completely deprived of oxygen. She’s dying, Maggie, but she’s not all the way gone. Not yet.”“When?”“No way to say for sure.” The nurse looked at Rita, looked at the monitors. “Everyone is different. It could be five minutes, it could take hours. All we can do now is wait.”“How will I know? How will I know that she’s really gone?”“See this line?”

Chapter Forty

When Joe came back into the room, he found Maggie sitting next to the bed, holding her mother’s hand in both of hers, pressing Rita’s hand against her cheek. She was silent and still, almost cold in her lack of emotion. He paused in the door, uncertain, and then he looked at the monitor.“Oh, Maggie.” His voice was rough. “Baby…”She didn’t seem to hear him, and he set the tea on the small table next to the door. Joe walked over to her, not sure if he should touch her. He stood next to Maggie, waiting for her to tell him what to do, to say what she needed.He heard a sound behind him and from the rubber-soled foot falls, he knew it was the nurse again. He didn’t turn around; he knew she was there to start the process of forever separating Maggie and Rita and he closed his eyes.Joe almost sighed when a doctor walked over to the monitor, turned it off, and then checked Rita. He glanced at his watch.“Time of death… three forty-three a.m.”Maggie didn’t give any sign that she’d heard hi

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