Chloe tapped her paper. “He said, and I quote, ‘I would love to take Jack’s money, but an intern could do this surgery. Mrs. Phillips is in good hands.’”
Relief flooded my system, and I hooked my hands behind my neck and nodded. “Okay, that’s good.”
Chloe peered at me with concern. “You really care about this one, huh?”
I released my hands and rubbed them on my jeans. “I…Hannah has become a friend. I’m invested in her happiness.”
Chloe nodded, giving me a knowing look. “You’re invested in everyone’s happiness but your own, Jack.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. This was the same old argument we kept having. I’d hired Chloe the day I got out of prison. I’d designed the app in jail on the computer in the prison library. Jason had it go live and collected all the money. When I got out, I already had a hundred and fifty million—my half—waiting for me in the bank. She’d been with me through it all.
“Do I pay you enough? You do too much for me,” I told Chloe.
I trusted her. That was something I didn’t have with many people.
Chloe pointed a finger at me. “Yes. I’m the highest-paid executive assistant in the world. Stop changing the subject.”
I grinned. The year Jason and I had made our first billion, I’d made Chloe a millionaire. She probablywasthe highest-paid executive assistant in the world.
“I do care about my happiness,” I told her. “Making other people happy makes me happy.”
She rolled her eyes. “A girlfriend would probably make you a lot happier. Someone sweet like Hannah,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes.
I didn’t like where this conversation was going. I was a guy. Of course, I wanted a girlfriend. I’d had a few over the years, but whenever they got too close, I cut them off. It was better for everyone that way.
“Hannah deserves better than me,” I told Chloe. “She invited me to some church concert this weekend, and I can’t even go.”
“Why not?” she asked.
I gave her a look. “You know why not. I have to clear all travel with Cedric.”
Chloe pulled out her phone and typed something.
“What are you doing?” I sat up straighter.
She watched her phone for a few moments and then smiled. “Cedric said he can see you tomorrow at noon if you bring him lunch from Salty Burger. He’s squeezing you in.”
I swallowed hard. “I don’t want to push anything. I only have two more years left and then I’m home free.”
Chloe nodded. She knew all too well the details of my early release. She and Jason were the only ones who knew about my life before, besides my lawyers and my crazy uncle Rod. “That’s why we’re going through the proper channels and asking your probation officer,” she told me.
A thrill of excitement rushed through me. My work was in Seattle. I had no need to leave the state and had only gotten conditional approval to travel to Willow Harbor at Christmas time. But what if I could go see Hannah’s concert? I mean, we were friends, and that’s what friends did, right? They supported each other. If Chloe had a performance, I would one hundred percent be there to cheer her on.
Yes. This was me being a good friend.
“Find out where Hannah goes to church, but don’t let her know. I want to surprise her,” I told Chloe, and she nodded.
The next day, right at noon, I knocked on my probation officer’s door downtown with a bag of Salty Burgers in my hand.
“Hey, Jack!” he greeted me as I stepped into his office. Cedric was a genuinely kind human being who loved his job.
At six foot four, with a large build and dark-brown skin, he looked like he’d recently retired from pro football, but when I’d first met him, he told me he’d become a social worker right out of college and then moved over to being a probation officer. He said he felt that he could enact the most change that way, and I really respected the guy. But he was very by-the-book, so I couldn’t break or even bend any rules or I’d go back to prison no matter how much the guy liked me.
“Hey, Cedric. Thanks for meeting me last minute,” I said and handed him the bag of food. The guy was nice, but his power over my life terrified me.
He pulled out his burger and took a bite. “Your assistant tells me you want to take a trip on short notice?”
I swallowed hard. Would a short-notice trip look suspicious? I felt guilty even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
