All Chapters of HIS FORSAKEN WIFE HIS GREATEST REGRET : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Roberta's POV"I will destroy every single one of them."The words came out of me like something alive. Something that had been waiting in my chest for years.Brett was still sitting beside the bed. His face was hard to read. His eyes were dark. He didn't say anything."I will make them pay," I said again. Louder this time. "Irene. Jace. Millie. The VIP. The hospital. All of them.""Hey, can you just—""You don't understand." I tried to sit up higher. The room spun. I didn't care. "You don't know what they did to me. To my daughter. She was seven years old. Seven. And they used her. They took her bone marrow. They put her in a cab after surgery. And now she's... she's just gone."Brett stood up. "First, you need to calm down.""Don't tell me to calm down.""Your body just woke up from a coma. You're not strong enough for this.""I don't care if I'm strong enough." I looked at the tubes in my arm. The IV. The cannula under my nose. "I need to get out of here.""Roberta—"I ripped the c

Roberta's POVWe stayed like that for a long time.His hand holding mine. The fireplace crackled. The clock ticking on the wall.Neither of us spoke. Neither of us moved.I don't know when it became awkward. Maybe when I realized my thumb was moving across his knuckles. Maybe when I felt his fingers tighten around mine.We both looked down at our hands at the same time.Then we both let go.Fast. Like we had been caught doing something wrong.He pulled his hand back and flexed his fingers. Opened and closed them like they had fallen asleep. Like he was trying to wake them up.I held my own hand in my lap. It felt empty now and cold."Tell me," he said. His voice was rough. "Tell me everything. About your life. About your marriage. About what happened."I looked at him."Why do you want to know?""Because I need to understand." He leaned back on the couch. His eyes didn't leave my face. "Because I can't help you if I don't know what they did.""I never asked for your help.""I know." H

Roberta's POV We sat quietly for a moment.Then Brett said, almost to himself: "If Millie is Nolan's mother—how did you not know she was pregnant? You were best friends."I hadn't — in everything, in all of it, I hadn't stopped to think about that. The logistics of it. The timeline."She went to Italy," I said slowly. "About six years ago. A work placement, she said. She was there for almost eight months." I stopped. Something cold moved through me. "We only spoke on the phone. She said the time difference made it hard to video call regularly." I pressed my fingers to my lips. "I thought nothing of it. She came back, and everything was the same, and I never—"I counted backwards.Nolan was five years old.Six years ago. Eight months in Italy.She had been pregnant."She went there to have him," I said. The words came out flat, one at a time, as the shape of it assembled itself. "She went to Italy so I wouldn't see. She had the baby there. She came back and handed him to Irene—" My vo

Roberta's POVBrett stood there. Waiting. His eyes were calm but curious. He wasn't accusing me of anything. He just wanted to know.The question hung between us.For one terrible second, my heart stopped.I looked at Brett.He was watching me carefully.My mind scrambled."I—" Think. Think. Think."I heard it," I blurted out.The words came out before I knew what I was saying."Heard what?""Your name. At the hospital." I could feel my heart pounding. "When I was in a coma. I couldn't open my eyes or move. But I could hear things sometimes. Voices. Sounds."Brett's face shifted. Interested now."A nurse said your name. Or a doctor. Someone said, 'Mr. Brett.' I don't remember exactly. I was confused. I didn't know who you were or why you were there. But the name stayed in my head."He was quiet for a moment."You heard my name while you were unconscious?""I think so." I swallowed. "I'm not sure. Everything from that time is blurry. But when I saw you in the hospital room, when I wok

Roberta's POV Brett's eyes were on mine. Then he nodded. "I'm right here," he said. Just that.I nodded. Then I slipped out of the car.The morning air was cold, and the house looked exactly as it always had — indifferent, beautiful in the way of things built to impress rather than to hold. Same hedges. Same dark windows. Same cold, impressive facade that had never once felt like home. It looked exactly the same as the morning Ziva left in the back of Jace's car with her face pressed against the glass.and I walked toward the house steadily, and everything I needed to take back had already mapped in my mind.I didn't look behind me.But I knew Brett was there.I stood in front of the door.The code was still the same.Of course it was. Why would Jace change it? He had no reason to believe I was coming back. As far as he knew, I was still unconscious in a hospital bed, or dead, or simply ceased to matter — which to Jace was probably the same thing.The code that unlocked our home was