Furious by Jeffrey Higgins (top 10 novels to read TXT) 📕

restaurants, jewelry on my birthday. Having financial freedom was not the most important thing, but it beat the alternative. I had been poor after my mother died, and I had milked the insurance money through my undergraduate and medical schools. I had finished the last of it when I started my general surgical residency, a job which paid little, but offered valuable experience. During that five-year period, the most I ever made was fifty thousand dollars—not much in Boston—but I scraped by, living frugally.

“I know you’re not after my money, but they have to be cautious.”

“What did your family do? Have me investigated?”

Brad looked away.

“Come on, Brad. Did they?”

“Maybe,” he said.

“I’m a doctor, not a hobo, and my earning potential’s high. I know my salary as a fellow is meager, and I have almost three hundred thousand in school loans, but—”

“They’re protective about their money.”

“Their money or your money?”

“It’s all the same. They’re worried.”

“I make peanuts at Boston Pediatric, but after I become board certified, I’ll make over two hundred thousand as an attending pediatric surgeon. I’ve developed powerful human capital and my financial future is bright.”

“I know all that, and I told my parents, but . . .” Brad stared into the distance.

“But you can’t defy them,” I said.

“They hold the purse strings. Dagny, please, I—”

“Give it to me,” I said.

I snatched the paper off the table and signed it. I did not need Brad’s money.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“What bothers me is that you want me to sign it. It shows a lack of commitment to our marriage, like you’re planning its dissolution, before it even begins.”

“They require it.”

“If that’s true, you don’t possess the independence a thirty-seven-year-old man should have.” I handed him the signed document and headed for the exit. “I’m going to my condo tonight. Alone.”

I still remembered the look on his face. Another awful memory.

I walked along the deck to the bow where the rise and fall of the boat increased, and my gut flopped.

I grasped the halyard and leaned over the side. The ocean turned to ink at night, a curtain pulled over the world below. I did not observe the great white, but I had read somewhere that sharks were nocturnal feeders, and I sensed its presence. Somewhere close.

I stared into the darkness, sorting through my history with Brad. Money had not been the only issue. Brad’s family had caused other problems. They had been in Boston for hundreds of years and were prominent figures in the community. Brad never missed an opportunity to comment about his blue-blooded ancestry. He wore his family’s history like a crown.

Brad knew my mother had neglected me, and he acted like I had been an orphan he found on the street. He pushed me to take a genetic test and research my family’s ancestry. I did and discovered my family arrived in Massachusetts in the 1606, more than a hundred years before Brad’s ancestors. Learning my Steele family history interested me, but I judged myself based on my own accomplishments, unlike those who believed they could inherit success like the family silver. Brad had mentioned his own lineage far less after my discovery.

That was when I first noticed Brad’s competition with me. It was a one-sided competition, because I believed couples should root for each other to succeed, not hope their spouses failed so they could feel superior. Brad seemed envious of my intellect and of my ability to make it on my own, without a family fortune. With his recent revelations about his botched surgeries, I understood why he was also jealous of my surgical skills. I was a rising star at Boston Pediatric Surgical Center—at least I was until my leave of absence—and Brad might lose his job.

When I examined our relationship, through the lens of his jealousy and competition, everything seemed different. Had he moved me to a suburban house because he knew I thrived in the city? Had it been a way to flaunt his wealth? Had he chosen to escape on a boat because of my aquaphobia? Was everything designed to make him feel better about himself?

I had an epiphany.

I had become a doctor because of my childhood tragedy. I had specialized in pediatric surgery because of my mother’s neglect. I had married Brad because I wanted a secure home for my unborn child. I had always known these things, but thinking of them together, here at sea, with nothing to stand between my memories and my reason, led to one, inescapable fact.

I had lived my life for others.

Being a doctor made me happy, but I had to take charge of my life and follow my own path. Chart my destiny and find my happiness. And I had to do it without Brad.

Brad was handsome, wealthy, and had moments of kindness, but he was also narcissistic, childish, and spoiled. It had taken me ten months to agree to date him for a reason. He was not smart enough. He was not compassionate enough. He was not my soulmate, and I did not love him. I had never loved him. Maybe it had been the hormones or my genetic need to protect Emma, but whatever it had been, it had vanished. Staying with Brad would be as unfair to him as it was to me. When he awakened, I would tell him.

I wanted a divorce.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I felt reborn.

The sun rose behind us, filling the world with color and light. I had stayed on deck all night, scared and excited, full of dread and hope. Today I would ask Brad for a divorce. Telling him while stuck on a boat was bad timing, but now that I had decided, hiding it would be dishonest. I had to tell him everything.

Today was the first day of the rest of my life.

I stood at the helm and fidgeted, too energized to sit. I sipped a coffee, more from habit than need. For the first time in many months, my