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“Illegal?” I croaked. I ripped my surgical mask off. “What? I need to go—” I reached ineffectively for the covers.
McGee turned and gave me a wink. “Nah. You sit tight. Thatcher’s got this. Trust him. Just listen.”
“I’m so glad you and I are finally on the same page about this,” Layla was saying. “I know how reluctant you were to see the truth about Reagan—it’s a huge betrayal of your trust, of course—but he’s young. Overeager. And he was trying to impress you. You shouldn’t blame yourself?—”
“Oh, I don’t,” Thatcher said smoothly. “When I said I knew the truth, Layla, I meant I knew it was you who sent Nova the shirt.”
I gripped the bed rails tightly with both hands. Oh, god. “McGee,” I whispered. “Get out there. Stop him. He can’t do this in a hospital hallway.”
“Thatcher, come on,” Layla demanded. “After all these years, after all we’ve been to each other, surely you trust me. You can’t possibly think?—?”
“The better question,” Thatcher interrupted, trying to keep his voice low but failing, “is how, after all these years, you could do something like this. Because I did trust you, Layla. I trusted you to lead PennCo. I trusted you to be honest with me. Instead, it seems your idea of leadership means sidelining employees who might upstage you, stealing their ideas, and trying to blame others for your mistakes.”
“How could you possibly accuse me of something like that?” she shrieked.
“Let me be clear,” Thatcher continued, unmoved. “I’m not angry that you made the mistake of sending the shirt to the wrong influencer. I’m angry that this mistake happened because you didn’t want to share the glory and therefore didn’t consult anyone who might have known what they were doing. And I’m disgusted that when it went wrong, you tried to ruin a good man’s reputation in order to save your own. Go home, Layla,” he said witheringly. “Your presence is not needed or welcome here.”
“You’re letting your personal relationship with Reagan cloud your judgment, Thatcher,” Layla insisted, panicky now. “Anyone who looked at these facts impartially would see Reagan had the most to gain. He forged my signature, he corrupted my assistant. He’s manipulated you?—”
“Dear god, stop. Reagan doesn’t have to manipulate me to gain my trust because he already has my trust, full stop. He doesn’t have to lie to gain my attention because he has my attention and always will. And he doesn’t need to scheme in order to make himself look important because he’s already important?—”
My heart leapt at the things he was saying, but… fuck. This was getting way too personal. Thatcher was trying to defend me, as usual, but in the process, he was giving far too much away. When he stopped being angry, he might regret having this out in a hallway instead of following the proper protocol. He’d definitely regret saying such sweet things when he realized they might cause speculation about our relationship. And I couldn’t stand to see Thatcher look at me with regret ever again.
I finally managed to clasp the blanket in one weak hand and pull it aside. I tried to swing my legs off the bed and nearly fell out.
“Ah, shit,” McGee muttered, coming around to stop me from face-planting on the linoleum. “Boss?” he called. “Need a little help in here.”
In the space of a single heartbeat, Thatcher was at my side, barking an order for McGee to shut the door and keep everyone out. With gentle fingers, he cupped my cheek. “Baby? Oh, thank fuck you’re okay.”
“Is this some kind of flu-dream?” I whispered, closing my eyes so I could relish the soft caress of his thumb against my temple. “Karmic payback for how awful and weak I feel? Because if so, I’m kinda here for it.”
He chuckled. “It’s not a dream. I’m here, and I’m not leaving.”
His voice brought a wave of comfort over me. I tried to focus my thoughts, but they seemed to be tangled up. “I heard you and Layla. She must’ve gotten my email. Is that why you came?”
I opened my eyes to find him staring down at me, shaking his head in fond amusement. “No, sweetheart. I came for you. When JT told me you were sick, I came as fast as I could.”
A memory of him telling me this earlier tugged at my consciousness. “Wait, I remember. You… you flew? On a fucking airplane, through the goddamn sky?”
He nodded. “You needed me.”
“Yeah I did,” I breathed, gazing up at him like a total sap. “But… wait, Layla… Did you?—?”
“I figured out what she did, with some help from JT,” Thatcher confirmed. “When you’re feeling better, I want to hear your take on it, and obviously, I want you to go to HR and tell them everything, on the record. I don’t want a single shred of doubt attached to your name. But in the meantime, HR and our legal team are investigating Layla in an official capacity, including following up with some former members of her team, and— Wait.” His brow creased. “Did you say you sent her an email?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed at my forehead. “I, uh, told her I knew what she’d done and that she should confess,” I admitted. “Dramatic, but in my defense, I felt like death, and I may have gone a little… feral.”
Thatcher snorted, but his eyes were still soft and warm on mine, that finger still stroking my face like he couldn’t believe I was real. “Like the beavers in Lake Wellbridge?”
He startled a laugh out of me, and miraculously, I managed not to cough my head off at the same time. I wondered dazedly if Thatcher Pennington might be the cure for influenza since he made me feel better than whatever they were pumping through my IV. “Kind of,” I agreed.
“I wish you’d come to me,” he said softly, sobering me quickly. “I wish you hadn’t done any of this alone?—”
Just that fast, I remembered why I hadn’t. “Oh, god. Thatcher, I’m so sorry about Brantleigh. He was being awful, but I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I don’t blame you for being angry at me?—”
“Angry? At you? God, no.” He tapped my hip so I’d push over, then sat down beside me. “The way you defended me, the things you said… You were amazing, and the incident led me to finally work things out with Brant, sort of.” He rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell you all about that later, too. I, ah… figured you felt like you couldn’t tell me your suspicions regarding Layla because I shut you down when you first tried to tell me.”
“Yeah,” I admitted, picking at a loose thread of the blanket with my free hand. “That, too.”
