Chapter 422
[ 517 words ]
Chapter 422:
He looked up, and his expression was a mixture of surprise and profound hesitation. He glanced at his computer screen, his fingers hovering over the mouse. “Caroline, it is wonderful to see you, but your status is… complicated.”
Caroline frowned. “My husband arranged for my leave through you. Has there been an issue?”
Finchley looked as though he might jump out of his skin at the mention of the Romero name. “Colonel Romero did call, yes. But, Caroline, there has been a secondary, substantial donation made to the hospital’s endowment fund this morning—a donation explicitly tied to your department and contingent on your continued, indefinite medical leave. It came from the Sinclair estate.”
Caroline felt the air leave the room. The audacity of it was suffocating. It was not kindness; it was a reach for control, an attempt to bind her to him through his wealth.
“Mr. Sinclair is a patient in palliative care, Dr. Finchley,” she said, her voice dangerously calm. “He has no authority here. Tell me, do you value his donation more than the standing orders of the Romero family?”
𝘙𝘰𝗆𝖺𝗇се 𝘢𝘯𝗱 𝗉𝗮𝘀s𝗂o𝗇 𝘰𝘯 𝘨а𝗹𝗇𝘰𝘷𝖾𝗹𝗌.com
Finchley turned pale, his terror of Jarrod clearly overriding his greed. “No. Of course not. I will handle it immediately.”
“Good.”
She turned and walked out. She did not need to chase Donovan; she knew exactly where to find him. A quick call to hospital security confirmed his discharge appointment for a specialist consultation in Georgetown.
She took a cab to a ridiculously expensive restaurant in the district and waited. Minutes later, she saw a car pull up. It was not the high-speed drama of a healthy man; Donovan moved with agonizing slowness, his movements stiff and heavily supported by two aides. He looked spectral, a man visibly fading despite his wealth.
Caroline stepped out from the shadows of the storefront. When he saw her, his face lit up with a fragile, hopeful warmth that he had no right to possess. He gestured for his men to stop.
“Caroline,” he rasped, his voice thin and breathless. “I… I was hoping for a chance to see you.”
“I am not here for pleasantries,” she said, her voice cutting through the space between them. “I know about the endowment, Donovan. I know about your attempts to manipulate my career from a hospital bed.”
He stumbled, one of his aides bracing him to keep him upright. “I only wanted to ensure you had time to heal, away from the stress of the trauma. I am not a threat, Caroline. I am a dying man. I just wanted to do something that felt… decent.”
She looked at him—really looked at him—and saw the fragility he could no longer hide. The anger was still there, but it was cooling into a detached, sharp clarity. She realized that continuing to rage against him was a waste of the life she was trying to rebuild.
“Decency is not bought with endowments, and it is not earned by infringing on my life,” she said, her tone devoid of the earlier venom. “You are dying, Donovan. Use what time you have left to find peace for yourself. Stop trying to curate mine.”
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