Broken Oaths in White Coats novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Her Own Terms

At eight the next morning I sat in the chair at the head of the boardroom table.

It was the chair Alastair's six had used to look down on me.

Ben sat three seats away, with Norma behind him because she had refused to wait in the hall.

The founding chairman was in the middle with his cane across his knees.

"Dr. Falkland," he said. "You have our letter."

"I do."

"Do you accept?"

I had practiced something on the way in, and the board was owed an honest answer instead.

"Not as written," I said.

A few people shifted.

"Chief of Surgery runs two hundred doctors. I want the job. I'd be good at it." I laid my palms flat on the table.

"But the transplant program is not going under that office again. It keeps its own budget and its own audit, and the donor reads the statements."

"That's reasonable," said the woman in silver.

"There's more. No leave of absence is ever filed in a surgeon's name without the surgeon's signature. Not by a spouse, not by a chief."

"Granted," said the chairman.

"And Dr. Almqvist's post is not a package with mine."

Ben turned his head.

"If you want him as chief of trauma, you want him because he's the best trauma surgeon you've had in ten years," I said. "I won't be the reason he stays, and I won't be the reason he doesn't. Offer it to him alone."

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