Julia didn’t answer. She looked at the table, avoiding eye contact.

Bradley reached out and put his hand on her arm. “Settling this case is the smartest thing you could do.”

“He wants a divorce, you know,” she said, ignoring his previous comment. She shook her head, letting out a nervous laugh. “And that’s not the worst part. Right after I married Colin, he asked me to prove my love to him by adding his name to the deed of my house and on my practice. I had the papers drawn up that included him as fifty percent owner of my assets.”

Bradley looked at her sympathetically and held her arm tighter. “Julia, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I was stupid. I realize my mistakes now. I just wanted to believe he loved me. I guess I was wrong.”

The lawyer had no response this time. Julia continued.

“He owns half of my defunct practice, half of my house and half of my investments. So not only do I lose my pride and malpractice money to his mistress, I lose half of everything else to him. Brad, all I have left is my dignity and professional name. I don’t want to lose that too. I will not be broken down. You will fight this case for me or I’ll get another lawyer.”

“Julia, I don’t know where to begin.”

“They’re at fault, start the case there. Ask the jury, why would my husband’s mistress come to me to get a mole removed unless something else was going on, unless this was a set-up. It makes no sense otherwise. This was done on purpose, all of it. He planned it from the beginning. First, he got his hands on my assets and then he wanted more. So, he planned a way of taking my malpractice money, and she went along with it. They would get millions in the end.”

Bradley just stared. “Julia, do you really think she literally cut off her nose to spite her face?”

“I believe he concocted this scam and didn’t know what he was doing. She ended up with a problem that got out of control. I think he infected her or had her do it to herself in the hopes of getting ten million dollars. All she had to do was get a bad infection, something that wasn’t easily cured, something where there was a little pain and suffering and I would look incompetent. I think they just didn’t plan on one that bad. They were just stupid.”

“How would he have infected her? Where would he have gotten the bugs to do it? It’s not the kind of thing you buy at a store.” He couldn’t hide the skepticism in his voice.