I put every ounce of strength in my body behind my hand and slapped her across the face. I wanted her dead. I wanted her to pay for my mother's life right then and there.
"Geraldine!"
Piers's furious roar erupted behind me. A brutal force wrenched me around, and a vicious slap crashed across my face.
"Julie is pregnant. How dare you touch her?" His voice was low and seething. "Apologize. Or I pull the plug on your grandmother's treatment right now."
A ringing filled my ears. I suddenly remembered a cocktail party where someone had deliberately provoked me, picking at the scar of my miscarriage. I'd thrown a glass of red wine in their face.
Back then, Piers hadn't hesitated to pull me behind him, shielding me without a second thought.
Now, for Julie's sake, the woman who'd killed my mother and left my grandmother clinging to life, he'd struck me with his own hand.
Tears fell before I could stop them. I wiped them away roughly.
This was the last time I would ever cry for him.
"I won't apologize."
His expression turned to ice. He flung a sheet of paper at me.
"Then let's see who lasts longer, you or your grandmother!"