They Left Me Out of Their Group So I'll Leave Them Out of My Life novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Plus One

I waited until the last client left and Nate had locked the front door.

Then I climbed the back stairs to his flat above the clinic, which I had never once been inside.

He opened the door with a can of cat food in one hand.

"Ledger's late for dinner," he said. "And I believe you have a rule."

"The rule is about downstairs."

"Then come up."

It was one long room with a kitchen at the far end, a couch with a quilt on it, and shelves of paperbacks with cracked spines.

Ledger took one look at me and sat on my foot.

I held out the gold-bordered card.

Nate read it twice and set it on the counter.

"Bachelor of Science," he said.

"He's not a bachelor of anything. I wrote back yes, plus one."

"Who's the one?"

"I'd like it to be you."

"Yes," he said.

He said it so fast that my chest went tight and cold.

"You'd say yes to anything I asked," I said.

"What?"

"I'm your best tech. You can't replace me. You've been kind to me for four years because you can't afford to lose me."

Nate set the cat food down very carefully.

"You think that's why there's a sandwich on your desk at one o'clock."

"I think it's a reason."

"Corina."

"You said you wanted to ask me to dinner for three years, and you never did. A man who wants a thing asks."

"A man who signs your paycheck doesn't."

"That's a rule you made. You make a lot of rules about what a person doesn't get to do." My voice shook, and I let it. "On my first morning you stood at the sink and told me family's the one thing you don't get to quit."

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