Page 37 of Morally Black Betrothal

But Lemond wasn’t wrong about the wall of press. Last night, just in time for the eleven o’clock news, I’d watched from his window as the TV trucks arrived outside of Mass General.

Leeches, all of them.

“It was difficult to get inside today,” Simone admitted. “Security went over my badges in three different places. I had to sign something down there too.”

Sorry, baby,I thought before wondering where the fuck that had come from.

Baby?Sorry?

“What’s the fuss about?” Simone wondered as she looked over something on a clipboard.

Lemond snorted. “Girl, where’ve you been? Thought you’d want to come back to sit with Mr. Moneybags now that he woke up.”

“Lemond!” hissed the other nurse.

He didn’t even look a little ashamed. “What? We can’t be honest?”

Simone’s big blue eyes opened fully, mouth dropped in shock. “I’ve, um, had some family issues to deal with. Is Mr. Black doing well? Why didn’t someone call me?”

I hadn’t told her at the bar that Dad had woken up. Had just quietly left a stack of bills that amounted to far more than the alcohol I’d consumed, then headed straight back to the hospital to negotiate the chaos surrounding Dad as he came in and out of consciousness.

I frowned. Why did she care so much? She didn’t even know him. She didn’t knowus.

I suspected that if she really did, her reaction would be different.

Joan seemed to have the same line of thinking. “Why would we call you? We love you, honey, but I got better things to do than track down missing volunteers. Besides, the family was here. Mainly the one son, but the rest of them have been filtering in and out too.”

I slunk down lower against the wall, already feeling Simone’s gaze toward Dad’s room. I didn’t ask myself why I was hiding. Or why I felt the need to listen to this conversation.

Maybe because I was preparing for the inevitable. The part where she recounted our conversation at the bar. The one I hadstupidly engaged inwithoutany form of legal protection, NDA or otherwise.

In just a few minutes, Simone had uncovered more details about me than most people knew in the world.

And now it was about to reach a row of gossips. The only question was how bad she would make me out to be.

“Is he really that famous?” Simone asked.

My mouth dropped. She still didn’t know?

Lemond snorted. “Girl, please. Your patient in there is one of the richest men on the planet. Haven’t you ever heard of Blackguard Holding?”

“I—a little. But I didn’t really think about it.”

“It’s one of those companies that owns a bunch of other companies. That dude in there is Boston’s Warren Buffett. Mr. Black has the Midas touch, started out as a bookie in the 1960s and built his company out of that. And his kids are all just as ruthless as their pop.”

It was correct, technically. But it made a family business sound like a small operation, when, in fact, Dad’s prowess had turned Blackguard Holding into the best investment company on the planet, with a finger in nearly every market and stakes in so many household names, we needed executives to manage each branch of the company like it was itsownmultinational corporation.

Having four kids came in handy.

It also made the competition for the top spot—CEO of Blackguard Holding—intense. But I was always supposed to be the winner.

“That’s not the impression I got,” Simone said. “I talked to one of them for a bit, and he was…not like that.”

Oh, baby. You have no idea.

“Probably in shock about his dad,” said Lemond. “You think he’s going to make it?”

“That is not our job to speculate on,” Joan replied. “Which I know you know, Lemond.”