After I Saved Him, My CEO Said We Were Strangers novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Seventy-Two Hours

The shove goes viral under the caption unnamed worker, Camille arrives with soup and a statement saying Hallie and Declan barely knew each other, and Declan begs for seventy-two hours at midnight before a stranger's card arrives asking her to tea.

By Wednesday noon, the clip of the shove had nine million views.

Bea held her phone up over my head while I lay on our couch with an ice pack on my shoulder.

"Listen to this caption," she said. "'Unnamed worker saves billionaire CEO.' Unnamed. You've been at that company four years."

"Five."

"Even worse."

She scrolled.

The video was a short clip, shot from a crane cab across the river.

You could see me drop the clipboard and you could see him not look up.

You could see my face a half second before the beam hit, and I looked furious, not brave.

"You look like you're about to hit him," said Bea.

"I was telling him his permit was late."

"Then I love you even more."

Bea was an electrician, and she had walked off our site Tuesday afternoon without telling anyone and sat in the hospital waiting room for three hours.

Nobody had told her which floor.

She had found me by following the sound of a nurse calling Declan Ashworth "Mr. Ashworth."

That was how she had known he was there, and she hadn't forgiven him for it yet.

"Tell me again exactly what he said," she said.

"He said we'd never spoken."

"With his whole face?"

"With no face at all."

She put the phone down on her chest and stared at the ceiling.

"I'm going to take his crane," she said, "and drive it into his Tesla."

The doorbell rang at two.

Camille Draycott stood on our stoop in a cream coat, holding two bags of takeout soup and a bouquet of tulips.

"Hallie, I'm so sorry to just show up," she said. "I couldn't stand how that ended. Declan's under so much pressure. He isn't himself."

Bea stood behind me with her arms crossed, looking at the tulips.

"Come in," I said anyway, because Camille had paid for my lunches for a month and I couldn't make myself be rude.

She sat on our secondhand couch.

She unpacked the soup, found bowls, and asked where we kept spoons.

"I wanted to apologize in person," she said. "And I wanted to ask you one little favor."

She took a folded sheet of paper from her bag.

"Our PR people drafted a statement for the press. You've been all over the news. They want to say you were just a team member who was glad to help, and that you and Declan barely knew each other."

I read it.

It said I had met Declan Ashworth twice, in passing, on a site walk.

It said I held no hard feelings.

At the bottom was a line for my signature, and a second line for a witness.

"Barely knew each other," I said.

"Just so the story stays simple." She squeezed my good hand. "You know how reporters are."

I looked at the line for the witness.

Someone had already written a name there in pen, in small, neat handwriting.

It belonged to the lawyer in the grey suit.

"I'll think about it," I said.

"Of course." Camille smiled, warm as the soup. "Take all the time you need. I just wanted to make it easy for you."

She hugged me again at the door.

When she was gone, Bea picked the tulips up between two fingers and carried them to the trash.

"She's nice," said Bea. "I hate that she's nice."

"She paid for my lunches."

"For a month. With his money."

I didn't have an answer for that.

At midnight someone knocked on the door softly, three times.

Bea was asleep on the chair with her boots on, and I took the baseball bat from behind the door because I was too tired to be careful.

I opened it a crack.

Declan stood on the stoop in the same charcoal suit.

His tie was gone, and his eyes were red.

"Go away," I said.

"Hallie."

"That's Ms. MacAuley. We've never spoken."

He flinched at that.

It was a very small flinch, and I was glad of it.

"I need seventy-two hours," he said.

"For what?"

"I can't say."

"Then you can't have them." I started to close the door. "You looked at me in front of a camera and told the whole company you'd never seen my face."

"I know what I did."

He put his hand flat on the door, not pushing it, just holding it open an inch.

His wrist was inches from my wrist on the other side of the wood.

He had a cut on his thumb, and I noticed that before I could stop myself.

"Did Camille come here?" he asked.

"With soup."

"Did you sign anything?"

"Why do you care?"

"Don't sign it," he said, and his voice cracked. "Please."

For a second I thought he was going to say the rest of it.

Then he took his hand off the door and walked back to a black car parked at the curb.

I stood on the stoop until the taillights were gone.

When I turned around, there was an envelope on the mat, thick cream paper, my name on the front in blue ink.

Inside was a card in handwriting I didn't know.

"Tea. Thursday, four o'clock. Wear comfortable shoes. D. Ashworth."

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