Page 145 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 3

“When you throw money at someone they’ll tell you whatever you want to hear!” I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. She blinked back tears. She was trying. She was caring. That’s all I had wanted from her in weeks. But moving Liam wasn’t the answer. This wasn’t what he needed. And what happened to being a team? We should have been making these decisions together. Before I told her what I thought, she started talking again.

“All of it’s already arranged. Everything’s already booked. Ian’s already agreed to come with us. I have to do this.”

“You barely know anything about Liam’s condition. You’re still healing yourself. I think we should stay here.”

“Then you can stay here.” She pulled her notebook to her chest as she stood. “Liam and I are going to Newark. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go pack.”

“Penny…” I reached out for her, but she dodged my touch. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me again.” My defense was weak. I knew that. But I wasn’t going to have her storm off angry with me. We had time to talk this through.

“I’m not leaving, James. I’m trying to save our son.” The emotion was gone from her voice. She sounded tired. And defeated.

“Then have a conversation with me for five minutes instead of shoving statistics down my throat. I’ve been dealing with this problem myself for the past few weeks. I’m used to making the decisions here.”

“Don’t throw that in my face. You think I’m not upset that I wasn’t there for him? It kills me. Why the hell do you think I’m doing this?”

I tried to take a slow breath. “If seeing Dr. Hughes is so important, we’ll fly him here. I don’t think Liam should be flying in a helicopter.”

She wiped beneath her eyes. “He can’t come here. I tried that.”

“Then we’ll find someone else.”

“But he’s the best. I’ve never cared about your money. I’ve never wanted fancy things. But in this one case I want to use it. This is all I’ll ever ask for. I want to save our son.”

“I do too. Of course that’s what I want. I just don’t know if this doctor is claiming the impossible. I’ve had other doctors come in to look at Liam. None of them have leapt to Dr. Hughes’ conclusions. I haven’t just been sitting here doing nothing. I’ve been doing my best.”

“I didn’t…” her voice trailed off. “That’s not what I meant, James. I know you’ve done everything you could.” She closed the distance between us. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” I grabbed one of her hands and squeezed it in mine. “I know that you wanted to be there for him. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.”

She nodded and locked eyes with me. “You know, I remember making a bet with you,” she said.

I raised my eyebrow. I knew exactly where this was going. She had won the fucking thing. And now she was cashing in. “I remember. You won.”

“Yeah, I won.” Her voice was shaky. “We had a baby boy.”

I tried to smile, but it felt like more of a grimace. I thought it was a girl. I really thought we’d have another girl. “You knew it all along.”

She nodded. “And I get whatever I want? In the whole world?”

“That was the deal.”

“I want Liam to live, James.” Her voice cracked. “I want to do whatever it takes for him to be okay.”

Her words broke my heart. “I don’t know how to give you that. It’s the one thing in the world I don’t know how to give you.”

She lifted up her notebook. “Dr. Hughes is a specialist that deals with the mental development of preemies. I’m telling you what I want here. I know what Liam needs. It doesn’t matter that I was unconscious for the first two weeks of his life. He grew in my belly for months. I know him. And Dr. Hughes can fix him.”

“Baby, we don’t know if he’ll live long enough for us to worry about his development.”

“Yes we do.” A tear fell down her cheek.

“We don’t.” I felt tears threatening to spill from my own eyes. I had heard all the numbers. I had done this same research. AndI had done everything in my power to hold my family together. But I wasn’t strong enough. I needed her. She was the glue that held this family together. She was the strength I lacked. And maybe she did know the answers that I didn’t. Maybe she had found someone that could help Liam.

“Yes we do, James. He’s going to live.” There wasn’t a doubt in her voice.

I wanted to believe her. I desperately wanted her to be right. “You don’t know…”

“He kicked, James. We had a discussion and he kicked and that means he’s going to stay and fight.”

All throughout her pregnancy, Penny always claimed that Liam’s constant kicking was him agreeing with her. That they were on the same page. I wasn’t going to deny her this. And I wasn’t going to risk my son’s health because of my stubbornness. “Okay.”

“Okay? And you’ll come with us?”

“A bet is a bet.”

“Thank you, James.” She pressed her face to the side of my chest as she wrapped her arms behind my back. “I’m going to fix everything I broke.”

And that’s when I realized that she blamed everything that happened on herself. She was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. And I was letting her take it. Because I was tired. And she was right. I wasn’t fine. But I didn’t know how totell her that. I didn’t know how to tell her that I was having a hard time catching my breath. That my physical therapy wasn’t helping. That I might need to have another surgery soon. We were already worried about our family becoming three instead of four. I didn’t have the strength to tell her that it might become two instead.