Page 2 of BillionHeir

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Chloe

“You better get out of here while you still can. It is almost time to pass out dinner trays, and if Tara sees you, you know she is going to make you help.”

I finish entering the last of a patient’s data into their chart before looking over at the clock. I should have left thirty minutes ago.

“Crap! You are right!” I close out of the charting software, happy to be finished, at least for the day. “Thanks for the heads up, Keisha. You are a lifesaver.”

“Any time. You have saved my butt on more than one occasion. Speaking of which, can you still cover my Friday night shift?” she asks hopefully.

As much as I despise working overnight shifts on Friday, there is no way I could say no when Keisha told me she needed the night off to go to her daughter’s school play. The fact that I desperately need the money may have had a little something to do with it as well.

“Of course!” I say, with more enthusiasm than I really feel. “I have already talked to Tara about it.”

As if I summoned her, our supervisor comes walking around the corner with a pissed off look on her face. She is known for going on the warpath, and when she gets in one of her moods, nothing and no one can stop her.

Keisha takes one glance at Tara and winces before walking quickly away. I take that as a cue to get out of there myself. I have been on my feet all day, and I can’t wait to go home and relax.

In the break room, I grab my stuff from my locker and clock out.

As I am walking to the staff lift, I pull out my phone and scroll through my messages.

There is nothing urgent. One text from a friend asking what I am doing this weekend, and another from my landlord asking when I am going to pay my rent.

Rather than responding to either one, I toss my phone into my oversized bag and put it all out of my mind, even if it is just until I get home.

I look up to see Mr. Broadmire, the CEO of the hospital, getting into the lift with me.

He has been not so subtly flirting with me for weeks, but I have been able to keep him mostly at bay.

For some reason, he just won’t take no for an answer.

He and I both know that I could sue him for sexual harassment, but he is my boss, and it is his word against mine.

The last thing I need is to lose the best job I have had since I graduated. What would I do then?

He tips his dark head of short curly hair up in greeting as he joins me in the now-too-small lift.

He is short enough that I can see his bald spot clearly, and his wrinkled gray slacks and white button down look like they sat on the floor all night.

I hope this isn’t how he presents himself when he is meeting with donors and important patients.

I notice a coffee stain on his sleeve, and I have to fight a smirk from spreading on my face. How such a sloppy, disgusting man got this high-profile job is beyond me. If I were in charge, I would probably fire him on the spot just based on his appearance right now alone.

“I was hoping to run into you,” he says as he brings a hand up and runs it through his greasy, unkempt hair. I struggle to keep a passive face instead of rolling my eyes at him. He is still my boss after all .

Rather than actually greeting him, I give him what I hope is a respectful but disinterested smile.

“Dinner?” he asks arrogantly as he blatantly flicks his eyes down to my chest before making a show of looking down at his watch. “I have a couple of hours I can spare.” Like I am some kind of item on his To-Do list that he can squeeze in.

Not if he were the last man alive.

It takes everything I have in me not to give him the verbal dressing down he deserves. The nerve of this man! I close my eyes and take a deep breath, collecting my calm before responding.

“I am busy,” I answer with a polite smile, doing everything in my power not to encourage him.

“‘Busy’,” he imitates. “I love your accent. So damn proper” he says, ignoring my dismissal as his eyes visibly travel up and down my body. “You gotta eat, right?”

I am working up a civil response when the lift stops on the next floor, and I am saved by two doctors in green scrubs. They are talking quietly to each other when they get on, paying us no attention as they ride with us down to the first floor.

As soon as the doors open, I push ahead to make sure I am the first person out.

The only thing keeping me from Broadmire’s advances are the eyes of the cardiologists who continue their murmured discussion as they follow me out before he has time to stop me.

I stride as fast as possible toward the door without running, but he still catches up with me.

“You are fast,” he says, huffing out an annoyed laugh. When I don’t slow down or respond, he tries one more time. “What about a drink? I know a great place.”

“I need to feed my—” My mind goes blank as I try to come up with some kind of pet that doesn’t really exist. “Fish,” I finally stammer out as we walk out the door of the rehab.

I leave him standing there without another word and walk to the curb. Almost as soon as I lift my arm up for a taxi, there is one swerving over to pick me up. Talk about good timing. I climb into the car and slam the door just in time to see him scowl at me through the window.

Dodged that bullet.

For now.

I stare blankly out the window watching the city roll by and contemplating my relationship status when my phone rings in my bag. I consider letting whoever it is leave a message, but something has me digging it out at the last minute.

I quickly retrieve it, seeing a picture of my mother before it rolls over to voicemail. I do the time zone math as I press the call back button. It is late in England, just after midnight. A shiver of worry runs down my spine as the phone rings .

“Chloe, dear, I was just leaving you a message,” my mother says in greeting, her voice sounding warm and filled with love, if a little tired.

“Mum, is everything okay?”

“Of course, darling. Why wouldn’t it be?” she says dismissively, but I can sense that there is something she is not saying.

“It is quite late, there, that is all,” I answer, trying to calm some of the panic I feel.

She is fine, I tell myself, taking a deep breath, but the peace I am searching for doesn’t find me.

When the car pulls up to the door of my building, I swipe my card on the card reader and leave the driver a tip before grabbing my bag and climbing out of the car, trying to ignore the way my feet scream in protest.

“Are you busy?” my mother asks, no doubt hearing the sound of the car door as I slam it shut and walk up to my apartment, waving at the doorman as I pass through the doors.

“No, actually. I am just getting home from my shift. Now, what has got you up so late?” I ask, stepping into the lift and pressing the button for the fifth floor. The old machine hums to life, groaning as it starts its accent.

“Oh, nothing really. I just couldn’t sleep thinking about my girl being an ocean away from me.”

“I have been gone for nearly ten years now. ”

“I know,” she says, sounding forlorn. “And yet I still lie here at night wondering why I ever let you go.”

I sigh as I sink my key into the lock on my door. “I miss you, mum.”

I am not a confrontation kind of girl. I don’t like to argue. In fact, I avoid it at all costs. My mother and I have been over this a million times, and it always ends with us both being sad. I would rather not revisit this conversation, but it seems as though I have no choice.

“I miss you, too, Chloe. Far more than you know.”

My mother isn’t the type to guilt trip or complain.

These phone calls where she reminds me of her quiet desire for me to move back to the UK are the only evidence of her displeasure with me.

Outwardly she is quite proud of her nurse daughter, but every few months I get a phone call where her sorrow is more prominent than usual.

“I am working really hard to save up for a visit, mum,” I lie. We both know that every spare penny I have goes to her to help with her bills since she is not well enough to work anymore.

I knew when I came here to Boston for my college experience that it was going to be expensive.

Fortunately, my mum started a savings account when I was born, socking away money wherever she could so that I could go to the university of my choice and pursue my dreams to the fullest. I don’t think she expected me to want to go quite so far away, but she begrudgingly accepted once she realized just how much I wanted it.

What neither one of us could account for was her cancer diagnosis just two years into my degree. Or the fact that even though the NHS paid for her treatment, it didn’t cover her mortgage, bills, or day-to-day expenses while she was bedridden and unable to provide for herself.

I immediately told her to take the rest of the money from the account and use it for herself. Naturally, she objected for as long as she could. But eventually, she couldn’t deny the writing on the wall. In order to survive, she needed that savings.

If only it had been enough.

The bills started to add up, and after a while, the money in the account had dried up.

I got my nursing assistant certification and found a part-time job, applying to the few scholarships I qualified for to help cover my tuition and taking out some very high interest loans for the rest. As often as I could, I sent money home to mum, even when she told me not to.

I just can’t bear her to be living off scraps.