Home Entertainment Game Technology Six months after a bullet left me paralyzed, my fiancée secretly ordered the staff to stop my afternoon therapy because she believed helping me was pointless, but the exhausted aide earning twenty-five dollars an hour refused to treat me like a lost cause. I had spent my life surrounded by men terrified of my name, yet it took one brutally honest woman washing my back to make me realize the person wearing my engagement ring had already abandoned me.352

No security in the room.

No lawyer.

Mara sat beside the window.

She had Tessa's eyes.

That was the first thing I noticed.

The second was the cane beside her chair.

The third was the scar disappearing beneath the collar of her sweater.

Tessa stood near the door.

Mara looked at my legs.

Then at me.

“I heard you can walk a little.”

“A little.”

She nodded.

“I heard you reopened the claims.”

“Yes.”

“You shouldn't expect gratitude.”

“I don't.”

“Good.”

I sat across from her.

My heart pounded harder than it had in any boardroom.

“I signed the acceleration order.”

“I know.”

“I didn't read the structural warning.”

“I know.”

“Dominic told me it was safe.”

“I know that too.”

I swallowed.

“But my name was on it.”

Mara stared at me for a long time.

Then she said, “Do you know what I remember most?”

I shook my head.