Chapter 5: The Man She Hired

The ballroom went silent for a second, and then it came apart.

Guests rose, chairs scraped, and the photographer shouted for us to look his way.

Hollister grabbed my wrist.

"You've lost your mind," he hissed. "Take that off."

Rafferty's hand closed around Hollister's, not hard, only completely.

"Let go of her," he said, in the same pleasant voice.

Hollister let go.

I watched him look at the width of Rafferty's shoulders, and then at the circle of investors who had stopped talking to watch.

"Sherilyn, call security," he said.

Sherilyn did not move, and I knew by her face she was counting the room.

At the head table, my father had put one thin hand flat on the folder.

He pushed it off the cloth, and the folder slid to the floor with a soft slap.

"I'm tired," he said, in a voice that carried because nobody was speaking. "Take me back to the hospital. I won't be signing anything tonight."

Sherilyn's face went the colour of candle wax.

The nurse wheeled him out, and as he passed me he lifted two fingers from the arm of his chair.

It was the sign we used when I was a little girl, which meant, go on, I'm proud of you.

I swallowed hard.

"This way," Rafferty said into my ear.

His hand settled at the small of my back, and he steered me through the crowd toward the terrace doors without once looking behind us.

Cold air hit my face on the empty terrace, where the paper lanterns hung unlit.

I put both hands on the stone balustrade and breathed.

"You," I said.

"Me."

"Rafferty Caldecott."

"Raff, to anyone who's earned it."

"You were in a parking garage in a cap."

"You're the CEO of a hospital company."

"A few hundred hospitals and clinics, but yes."

I turned and looked at him in the lantern shine, properly, for the first time.

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