Chapter 5
The room didn't go silent, not exactly, but enough heads turned that I felt the heat crawl up my neck the same way it had in that SUV three weeks earlier. "I care for his grandmother," I said, keeping my voice level. "That's the entirety of what I am to this family."
"Is it?" Preston smiled, the exact cruel cousin of Jacob's calm smile, and turned to the board members beside him. "Tell her what the foundation's new eligibility clause says. About hospital staff accepting personal gifts from board family members. About conflicts of interest." He looked back at me. "Jacob's been quietly funding your floor's equipment budget for two months, sweetheart. Did he mention that? Or did you just assume St. Catherine's suddenly found extra money for new monitors?"
I felt the floor tilt. I hadn't known. I truly hadn't known, and the accusation in his voice made it sound exactly like what he wanted it to sound like, a nurse who'd played her cards well.
"That's not what happened," I said, but my voice had lost some of its steadiness, and Preston heard it.
"Isn't it?" He raised his glass toward the small crowd that had gathered without quite meaning to. "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the newest member of the Bennett family payroll. Funny how a double shift and a car door led to a very generous donor."
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Several people laughed, quiet, uncomfortable laughs, the kind that don't require conviction, only permission. A board member I recognized from hospital fundraisers whispered something to his wife that made her glance at me like I was something spilled on the carpet. I stood there in my three-year-old navy dress, holding a champagne flute I hadn't touched, feeling every ounce of the six years I'd spent earning my license get stripped away in front of a room that decided in thirty seconds I'd earned nothing at all.
That was the moment Jacob crossed the atrium.
