The Surgeon He Betrayed Now Belongs to a CEO novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: His Chair

Imogen finds her father's photograph and her old mentor in the history gallery, and a stranger who owns the hospital offers her Desmond's job in front of him and Fiona.

On my second morning back in Boston, I walked down the hospital's history gallery to the very last photograph.

My father hung at the end of the hall, in a white coat and black-rimmed glasses.

He was frowning at the camera, as if someone in the room had made a mistake.

Someone was standing under his picture with a clipboard.

He turned around, and it was Desmond.

There were a few silver hairs at his temples now that hadn't been there three years ago.

His badge said Chief of General Surgery, which had been my father's title for thirty years.

"Imogen."

"Desmond."

He looked at my coat, my bag and my hands, and then back at my face.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"Public relations asked me to review the memorial displays." He lowered the clipboard. "And I thought this would be the first place you'd come."

"You thought right."

"Your flight landed Tuesday. You've been in the city two days and haven't called anyone."

"I called the board."

"You didn't call your sister."

I didn't answer that.

A gold band sat on his left hand, and it had worn a groove in the skin.

He saw me look at it, and he put the hand behind the clipboard.

"Immy!"

The voice came from the far end of the corridor, bright and breathless.

Fiona hurried toward us with a small boy on her hip, a sippy cup in one hand and a diaper bag swinging from her shoulder.

She had cut her hair to her chin, and she looked tired and pretty.

"I saw your name on the visitor list and I ran all the way from development," she said. "Theo, look. This is your Aunt Imogen."

The boy hid his face in her neck.

He had Desmond's hazel eyes, and he peeked out of one of them at me.

"He's two and a half," Fiona said. "He's shy for about five minutes and then he's a menace."

"He's beautiful," I said, and I meant it.

Fiona's eyes filled up, and she laughed at herself and wiped them with her wrist.

"You're staying with us. I already made up the guest room. Grandfather's expecting you at dinner on Sunday, and I told him you'd be there."

"I have a hotel."

"Don't be silly. Desmond, tell her."

Desmond's pager went off.

He read it and said, "I have to go to the fourth floor."

He did not say goodbye, and he did not look back as he walked away.

Fiona watched him go with a small, careful smile.

"He's been like that all week," she said. "He's been so nervous about you coming home."

"Has he."

"We all have." She squeezed my arm with the hand that wasn't holding Theo. "I'm going to take this one down for his nap. Come on Sunday, please?"

"I'll think about it."

She kissed my cheek and went.

I stood alone in front of my father's picture.

"Is that how he looked at everyone?"

I hadn't heard anyone come up.

The man standing beside me was tall, in a long charcoal coat, with close-cut dark hair and a faint scar along his jaw.

He wasn't looking at the photograph.

He was looking at my hands, which were still on the strap of my bag, and then at my face.

He studied my face for a long moment, and I let him.

"When he found a mistake in the room, yes," I said. "Who are you?"

"Declan Maddox."

I knew the name from the bottom of the board's email.

He didn't offer his hand, and he stood slightly too close.

"I own this building," he said. "The renovation plan takes down this wall in the spring. Your father's photograph goes into storage."

"No."

"There's a vote on it."

"Then I'll vote against it."

"You don't have a vote, Dr. Vaughan. You resigned."

He knew that, and he said it flatly.

"Then why did you ask for me by name?"

"I read your file from Kenya," he said. "Four hundred and twelve emergency operations in three years, on a generator, with no blood bank and no imaging. Your death rate was lower than this hospital's."

"I had fewer patients who could afford to wait for me."

"I don't care what you were working with. I care what you did."

Footsteps came down the hallway behind us.

It was Desmond, who had come back for his clipboard, and Fiona was with him, Theo asleep on her shoulder.

Declan Maddox saw them, his expression going very still.

He didn't lower his voice.

"Dr. Vaughan, I'm not taking your father down. I'm offering you his chair."

"The chair belongs to Dr. Pierce."

"It belongs to whoever I give it to," he said.

Fiona's diaper bag slid off her shoulder and landed on the floor.

Desmond's face had no color left in it at all.

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