Desired: A Love Letters Novel by Kristen Blakely

Author:Kristen Blakely [Blakely, Kristen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-06-07T23:00:00+00:00

Gabriel forced himself to keep his hands relaxed when the tension and frustration would have had him curling them into fists. Silence fell like a shroud between him and Valeria. Each time it did, the distance between them seemed to grow.

He wanted to tell her about his conversation with Peter’s insurance company, but it was too premature, even though a positive outcome seemed likely. After Valeria had told him about the Browns’ battle with the insurance company, Gabriel had called them and offered to represent them pro bono. He had then sent a letter to the insurance company, identifying himself as a lawyer retained by the family, and articulated Peter’s case. Not too subtly, he had threatened the company with a lawsuit unless the company reconsidered its stance on Peter’s so-called preexisting medical condition.

The insurance company was scrambling for a response. He knew as much from the appointments the company’s legal counsel had attempted to set up with him. He had made it clear, though, that he was interested only in a settlement or a solution, and the insurance company had a week to deliver it; a young child dying of cancer didn’t have enough time for lawyers to muck around with their legal reindeer games.

The company’s lawyers had called back and finalized an appointment for the following Friday. If he guessed right, he would have good news for Peter’s family—as much as any news could be considered good in light of a child’s illness.

Valeria didn’t get it. She wouldn’t have, although he wished she did. Instead, she focused on granting wishes—like visits to Disney World or playacting the day away as a make-believe judge—when in the real world, real things mattered, like who was responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. A failed wish would not have left Peter’s family any worse off; massive debt, however, could have shattered the family.

Gabriel had once believed that he and Valeria had everything in common, including disadvantaged backgrounds and a burning desire to do better for themselves and for their family. He had once believed that he and Valeria were united in purpose, but he was no longer certain how much common ground they shared, apart from the two children who shared their genes.

If he needed a reminder of how different he and Valeria were, he could have found no better example than in their approach to the priorities of the dying child’s family.

Here she was, worrying about how to hassle a judge into indulging a child’s one-day role-play, while he focused instead on the hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt the child’s sickness was costing his family.

Priorities. He sighed.

His priority was to work, to secure that promotion to partner, to secure his family’s future, including trust funds for the children, retirement accounts for Valeria and for him, a hefty rainy day fund for emergencies, and more than enough money to enjoy a life of luxury every day. He stifled a sigh and pressed his thumb against a tender spot at the side of his head, pulsing shafts of pain through his temple.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.