The Surgeon He Betrayed Now Belongs to a CEO novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Clause Fourteen

Imogen signs a five-year exclusive contract that makes her Chief of Surgery and says her hands, hours and calls belong to Declan; her grandfather calls an emergency board session before she reaches the street.

Maddox Health Group occupied the top two floors of a glass building in the Seaport, and the receptionist already had my name.

"Mr. Maddox said to send you straight in."

His office had a long table, a wall of windows and nothing on the desk except one folder.

He stood when I came in, and he stayed on his side of the desk.

"You came faster than I expected," he said.

"You embarrassed my family in a hallway. I wanted to see what you'd say when nobody was watching."

"The same thing."

He pushed the folder across.

It was nineteen pages, and I read all of them standing up while he waited.

The first page said that I would become Chief of General Surgery at Boston Harbor Medical Center, effective the night of the gala.

The second page said for how long.

"Five years," I said.

"Five years."

"Exclusive."

"Your hands, your hours and your calls belong to Maddox Health for the length of the term. You don't operate for anyone else, anywhere."

"My calls."

"If I phone you at three in the morning because a patient is crashing in one of my hospitals, you pick up."

"That's what it says? You phone me?"

"The clause says the hospital calls. I wrote my own name over it by hand." He didn't smile.

I turned the page.

Clause fourteen was one sentence: Outside working hours, the parties have no personal contact.

"What's this?"

"A rule."

"For whose protection?"

"Mine."

It was such a flat answer that I looked up.

He was holding very still, and his eyes were on my hands again.

"Mr. Maddox, why me?"

"I told you. Your numbers."

"Forty hospitals in this city have surgeons with good numbers."

"None of them stayed three years in a place where the generator failed twice a week." He shifted his weight, and one hand went to his left side below the ribs and came away again. "People who do that don't quit when it's hard. I need somebody who doesn't quit."

"I did quit. I handed in a letter and left."

"I know," he said. "I've read it."

I didn't ask how he had read it, because the next thing he said was the name I had been waiting for.

"Dr. Pierce is competent. He is not the surgeon I want."

"He's the chief."

"He's the chief because your father's chair was empty, and he was standing closest to it."

I put the page down on the desk.

It was the first time anyone in Boston had said it out loud.

"I have conditions," I said.

"I assumed."

"My father's photograph stays on the wall. The gallery stays as it is."

"Done."

"Nobody tells Desmond before I do. Not you, not the board, not the lawyers."

"Done." He picked up a pen and held it out to me. "Is there another one?"

"Yes." I took the pen. "If you ever give an order that puts a patient behind a budget, I walk. Not in five years, that day."

His mouth moved, almost.

"I'd rather you hit me first."

"I'd do both."

I noticed that he had said it as an answer to the question, not as a joke.

I signed on page nineteen.

He didn't lean over to look at the signature, and he didn't reach for my hand.

He took the pages back and squared them in the folder with the same careful fingers, and put them in a drawer, and locked it.

"That's it?" I asked.

"That's the contract."

"There's usually a handshake."

"Not in clause fourteen."

I looked at him.

He looked at the window.

"Dr. Vaughan, there's one more thing, and it isn't in the contract."

"Go on."

"The board will hear you accept at the gala. In person, in front of the whole hospital."

"Fine."

"Dr. Pierce will be sitting at the head table. Your sister will be next to him."

"I know where they sit."

"I don't think you do." He turned from the window. "He has had three years to prepare for you. You have thirteen days."

"Then I'll use them."

"Good."

His phone buzzed on the desk.

He glanced at the screen and then, very slowly, turned it so I could read it.

The senior Mr. Vaughan requests an emergency session of the board. Subject: Dr. Imogen Vaughan's contract.

My grandfather had been a member of that board for forty-one years.

I hadn't told him I was home.

"He found out in under an hour," Declan Maddox said.

"He always does."

"What does he want?"

"Everything," I said. "Always."

I picked up my coat.

"Dr. Vaughan."

I stopped at the door.

"The session is tomorrow at nine," he said. "You're allowed to attend. You are the contract."

"Then I'll be there at eight."

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