His Dancer, His Chains novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: A Gift Under Review

Nobody in the garden said a word.

Through the doors behind us, a quartet was playing something light.

"The fund waived it," Nicolette said. "I did, on a Tuesday, with a pen."

"You can't give a person a thing like that and then call it a favor," Rafferty said.

"I can call it a gift, darling. That's what the paperwork calls it."

She turned her wrist so the pearls caught the lamp.

"A gift the trustees review every quarter, at their discretion. Papa and I are the trustees."

"What does a review do?" I asked.

My voice sounded like someone else's.

"If the review goes badly, the hospital bills your sister for the full forty-two thousand, plus interest, and a collection agency gets her chart."

"She's twenty."

"Then she has plenty of time to pay."

Rafferty took a step, and Thaddeus stepped in front of him.

"Not here," Thaddeus said. "Not with a hundred donors forty feet away."

"Get out of my way."

"You are standing in my garden with your wife, who is a stripper, shouting at my daughter."

"Think how that will read."

He said it mildly.

I understood then that the chairman had not just heard Nicolette's confession.

He had known every word of it before tonight.

"You knew," I said.

"I knew my daughter was resourceful."

"Papa," Nicolette said, "the donors."

She put her heels back on, one hand on his arm.

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