Page 90 of Yours to Keep

His eyebrows pulled together. “You were looking at⁠—”

“She’s worked here for twenty years,” I snapped, stepping toward him. “Twenty. She helped save my father’s life. She’s one of the kindest people in this hospital and you’ve got her listed under position elimination like she’s a broken printer you’re tossing out.” I shook my head. “I feel sick.”

Annoyance flashed in those vibrant blue eyes I’d come to love staring into so much. The same eyes I’d looked into when I’d come apart underneath him and while we’d been laughing in the waves. It seemed impossible that they could belong to the man who was doing this.

“It’s not that simple.”

My chest rose and fell too fast, my anger feeding on itself and rapidly turning into fury. “Do you even know who these people are? Or are they just numbers you shuffle around so the quarterly report looks prettier?”

“Bree—”

“No.” I narrowed my eyes, my chin coming up. “You have no idea who she is. Who any of them are. If you did, you’d know how much Emily actually does around here. Do you know who shows the new nurses around and helps them get settled? Emily. Do you know who even the young doctors go to when they need help? Also her. It’s not just about the fact that she was here the night my father came in, Sullivan. It’s about the fact that without her, this place’s foundation would crumble, but you don’t even know that. You don’t even care.”

“I’m restructuring departments to keep the hospital operational long term,” he said, his voice carefully calm and even. “If we don’t make changes, more jobs disappear later. Entire units⁠—”

“It’s funny how it’s never your job on the chopping block,” I seethed. “You’ll cut hours, cut benefits, and cut people’s entire livelihoods, but I’m guessing your salary isn’t taking a hit. Or your penthouse. Or whatever obscene amount you spend on those suits.”

Color crept across his cheekbones, but I plowed forward. The dam wall had already shattered. My voice shook despite my best efforts to keep it steady. “The problem isn’t the nurse making forty grand a year. It’s the CEO making forty grand an hour.”

Silence dropped between us like a guillotine. His expression shuttered, something wounded flashing too quickly for me to name before it disappeared behind that impenetrable control. I slung my bag over my shoulder, my throat burning with rage. “Every time I think you might actually be a decent man, you remind me exactly who you are.”

“Bree, please, we can talk about this.”

“We’re done,” I said, the words tasting like metal, regret, and fury all at once. “I was dead wrong about you.”

I stormed past him with my vision blurring, leaving him standing there with his precious spreadsheet and the shattered remains of whatever fragile understanding we’d been building. And to think I bought that son of a bitch a muffin.

I felt like a fool.

In a daze, I told my shift supervisor I needed to leave. She took one look at me and didn’t argue. I didn’t remember getting to my car. One minute, I was striding down the hallway, ignoring the curious glances from staff who’d probably already heard whispers about restructuring. The next, I was in my car with my engine running, my hands gripping the steering wheel hard enough to make my knuckles ache.

My chest felt hollow, like someone had scooped everything out and left nothing but sharp edges behind. I pulled out of the parking lot without looking back. Traffic blurred past in streaks of brake lights and afternoon sunshine. My vision burned, but I refused to cry. Not yet.

Instead, I focused on red lights, turn signals, and staying in my lane. Anything that required just enough concentration to hold back the storm brewing inside, but when I walked into my apartment, my composure cracked clean in half.

I barely made it through my front door before the first sob tore out of me. I kicked off my shoes and stumbled down the hall toward my bedroom, my bag sliding off my shoulder and hitting the floor with a dull thud. Collapsing face-first onto my bed, I hugged my pillows and finally let it all out.

Hot, humiliating tears soaked into the fabric as every moment with him replayed through my mind with brutal, mocking clarity. The Bahamas and the laughter. The nights we’d spent together right here in my bed, quiet conversations while he looked at me like I was something rare and worth understanding. The careful way he’d listened when I talked about my father, about the hospital, and told him that to me, it was more than a job.

God, I’ve been such an idiot.

I curled onto my side, clutching the pillow against my chest like it could hold me together. I’d convinced myself there was something different about him. That beneath the immaculate suits and ruthless reputation, there was a man capable of actual human emotion.

“He showed you on the very first day that he has a black heart,” I whispered into the empty room, my voice cracking. “You stupid, stupid girl.”

The tears kept coming until my head throbbed and my throat felt raw. Exhaustion eventually dragged me under, pulling me into a dreamless sleep that felt more like shutting down than resting. When I woke, the room was dark except for the orange glow of sunset leaking through the curtains.

For a few disoriented seconds, I just stared at the ceiling, unsure what had jolted me awake. Then my phone buzzed again on the nightstand, vibrating loud enough to rattle against the wood.

I rolled over and grabbed it, squinting at the screen. Six missed calls and nine text messages were waiting for me. All from Sullivan.

My stomach twisted violently, grief and fury tangling together like barbed wire. I opened my messages long enough to see his name at the top of the thread, but I didn’t read a single word. I couldn’t.

The idea of seeing him try to explain, justify, or worse, apologize, made something fragile inside me splinter further. Another notification popped up, a voicemail, but I deleted it without listening. Then I deleted the rest, dropping phone on the mattress when I was done.

I picked it up again almost immediately and scrolled to Ellora’s contact. She answered halfway through the second ring.

“Well, hello, stranger.”