Page 58 of At His Beck & Call

“The details I have on file say you’re self-pay. Is that correct? We don’t have any insurance listed for you.” Dr. Erkhart’s voice is wary.

I swallow. “That’s right.”

“Lissa, I want you to focus on Henry’s care right now, but the cost of this surgery could go over a hundred thousand dollars.”

“I know,” I say, attempting to sound as confident as possible. “I can pay for it.”

She eyes me with concern, glancing at Henry. “Alright. We would usually ask for a deposit with self-pay accounts. I can get that down to ten thousand for you, but that will need to be paid before you bring him in.”

“That’s fine.”

Dr. Erkhart looks at me again, her dark brown eyes soft and questioning. She gives me a tiny nod and begins typing on the computer.

“Do you need me to bring Henry in later today, then?” I ask, trying to get a handle on my racing heartbeat.

“That would be great, if you can. We can get him set up over the weekend. He should be ready to go home in under a week, as long as everything goes well, and then we can start the chemo. But focus on the surgery for now. He’s a little fighter. We’ll get him better.”

I smile faintly at her, already planning in my head what I might need over the next few days. I can only pray that after less than a week on the job, Oliver and Adelaide will allow me a day to be with my son. I can’t afford to take more, and the thought of him recovering alone splits my heart in two.

But I have no other choice. If I’m going to pay for this treatment, I have to work.

As Dr. Erkhart shows me the documents and I begin to read through them, I ignore the little voice in my head telling me how stupid I was for touching Oliver yesterday.

I shouldn’t have done it, and it clearly made him uncomfortable. I’ll apologize, and hopefully he’ll give me the benefit of the doubt. I can’t afford to lose this job.

I’m not too proud to beg if I have to.

Chapter 20

Oliver

I’m later than I intended when I get to my mother’s house on Saturday afternoon. She’d offered to make me lunch, and I’d planned to go over to see her at midday, but work had gotten in the way.

The Reynolds case is so complex and constantly shifting. Carmen’s husband has also hired Ingram Bennet as his lawyer. We’ve sparred against each other before. She’s ruthless and will try to get Richard Reynolds every penny she can. I can’t afford to rest on my laurels on this one, and I had to spend most of the day delegating work to other members of my team.

I’m frustrated, not only that Tom Burton pushed this huge and irritatingly complicated case on me, but that Warren Sutcliffe was spared from having to do any work.Again. It’s as if having a family means he doesn't have to bring in revenue for the firm.

If I’m honest with myself, things have felt like this ever since I joined AGS. I’ve always been the ‘quiet one,’ the odd man out, receiving perplexed or fearful looks whenever I enter a room.

My intimidating image has served me well, and I have never wanted to become one of the simpering ass lickers who follow Burton around like a flock of idiotic ‘yes men’.

But I also want to become an EP.

There’s a line to be drawn between making connections with the right people and staying in my fortress of solitude. Sometimes you have to play the game to get what you want.

That goes for other things in my life as well, and I clench my jaw as I think about my time with Lissa the day before. There’s a line there, too. A far more frightening one that I haven’t crossed in a long time.

The thing that scares me the most is that Iwantedher to touch me. My initial flinch reaction was instinctive and automatic, but afterward I found myself regretting it.

A little whining sound brings me back to the present as I pull the Chiron up to my mother’s house and look over at Truman pawing at the window.

The car is hopelessly impractical for a dog, and my mother has repeatedly admonished me for keeping him in the front seat, but the alternative is buying a larger car with a cage in the back, and I can’t bring myself to do it.

He pants at me, his big eyes excited, knowing exactly where he is and that he’s about to see his Grandma and get spoiled rotten. The cats don’t even seem to mind him since he’s an Italian Greyhound and not that much bigger than them. They just give him a warning look and move along.

I look out of the windshield at the soft leaves falling from the park, watching a young woman with long blonde hair cross at a jog as a light pattering of rain begins.

“Now look what you did,” I say to Truman. “You made it start raining so we have to stay longer with Grandma, didn’t you?”