“Pleasure doing business with you, Gary. Say hi to your wife for me. The one who works at the gallery? I bought a painting there last week. Lovely woman.”
I hang up.
The head nurse, Brenda, looks at me. She shakes her head.
“You are terrifying,” she says.
“I am aLiaison,” I correct. “I facilitate solutions. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lunch date with the establishment.”
I grab my chart—I still have a chart, though it mostly contains doodles and lunch orders—and head for the elevator.
I am not a Board Member. I am not an Intern. I am something new. Max calls it “Special Projects.” The HR department calls it “Patient Advocacy Director.”
I call it “Robin Hood with a Budget.”
I take the elevator down to the cafeteria. The noise hits me instantly—the clatter of trays, the hum of gossip.
I spot them immediately. The Royal Court of St. Jude’s.
They are sitting at the round table near the window.
Maxwell is eating a salad that looks like it was measured with a ruler. He is also reading a tablet with intense concentration. Jax is destroying a double cheeseburger, looking happily exhausted.
And next to them, peeling an orange with surgical precision, is Luke.
I walk over. I slide into the empty chair next to Luke. I steal a wedge of his orange before my butt even hits the plastic.
“Hey,” Luke says, smiling. He doesn't look up, but he pushes the rest of the orange toward me.
“The dog is approved,” I announce. “Mrs. Higgins gets her golden retriever.”
“You bullied the insurance company again,” Max sighs, not looking up from his tablet.
“I leveraged them, Max. There is a difference.”
“How is Alistair taking the news?” Jax asks, stealing a fry from his own tray.
“He’s spinning it,” I say. “Sloane put out a press release this morning. Apparently, my resignation from the Board wasn't a ‘scandalous exit.’ It was a ‘strategic deployment.’ The headline is‘Heir to York Empire Chooses Front Lines Over Corner Office.’”
“Strategic deployment,” Luke snorts. “You ran down several flights of stairs.”
“Alistair says it makes me look ‘rugged,’” I say. “He’s currently trying to getVanity Fairto do a profile on my sneakers.”
“At least he’s not suing anyone,” Jax says. “And the hospital is solvent. It’s almost… boring.”
“It’s efficient,” Max corrects, scrolling through a spreadsheet. “Speaking of efficiency, Jax, I’ve been reviewing our shared assets.”
Jax pauses mid-chew. “Oh no. Here we go. What did I buy? Was it the motorcycle? I told you, the Ducati was an investment.”
“The motorcycle is a death trap, but it’s depreciating within acceptable limits,” Max says dismissively. “No, I’m looking atour tax liability. It’s suboptimal. We’re filing as single entities because we never formalized the domestic partnership beyond the hospital HR paperwork.”
“Okay?” Jax says slowly. “And?”
Max taps the screen. “I’ve run the numbers. If we were to execute a legal marriage contract, we would save approximately twelve percent on the estate taxes. Plus, it would streamline the medical proxy forms and allow us to consolidate the real estate portfolio.”
The table goes silent.
I stop chewing my orange. Luke freezes.
