Playing Broke at My Reunion

I have a fortune worth more than ten billion dollars, and I showed up to my high school reunion in an old hoodie. Someone asked how I'd been doing. I gave them a pained smile. "Bad investments. I owe seven million." The words were barely out when the prom queen on my right quietly slid her chair away from me. The class president on my left clapped me on the shoulder, then turned around and went off to toast somebody else. I took in every expression in that room and played my part to the end. After it broke up, a transfer notice popped up on my phone. $100,000 received. Underneath it was a note. [This is all I have right now. Use it for the emergency. There's no rush to pay me back.] The sender was Grace Quinn, the girl who confessed to me at graduation and got turned down in front of everyone. Chapter 1 When I got home, I dug an old high school yearbook out of storage. A decade of dust came off the cover. I flipped to the class photo and found her in the back row. Heavy bangs. Black-framed glasses. Grace Quinn. The memories came back all at once. On graduation day she'd stopped me outside school with a pink envelope clutched in both hands, her face bright red. Half our classmates were standing nearby, laughing and cheering her on. I was eighteen, arrogant and full of myself. "I'm not interested in you." I said it in front of everyone, and then I walked away. Ten years later, she hadn't held it against me. The moment she thought I was ruined, she sent me everything she had. Guilt hit me hard enough to make my chest ache. I picked up my phone and called my executive assistant. "Miles." "Yes, Mr. Hawthorne?" "Look someone up for me. Grace Quinn. We went to high school together." Miles was efficient. Ten minutes later a file landed in my inbox. Grace Quinn. Twenty-eight. Cardiology nurse at Metro General Hospital. Single. Small social circle. Her only real hobby was traveling when she could afford it. Her parents had divorced when she was young, and she'd worked her way into a steady hospital job on her own. Her life was ordinary, steady, hard-earned. I looked at the photo attached to the file. The glasses were gone. Her eyes were still gentle, but there was something stronger in them now. She had grown into herself. I called Miles again. "Put me in an entry-level administrative job at the company." There was a pause. "Three or four thousand a month. Something boring. "And rent me a one-bedroom near Metro General. Older building, nothing luxury. The worse it looks, the better." Miles finally recovered. "Understood, Mr. Hawthorne." The next morning I showed up at a Hawthorne Group administrative office in a cheap gray suit. The department manager saw me and started to straighten up and greet me by name. I gave her one look. She went rigid and swallowed the words, "Mr. Hawthorne." At 5:30 I clocked out like everyone else. I stopped at a soup place near the hospital, the one people line up for, and bought two containers of chowder. Then I took the subway across town. It had been years since I'd been packed into a train like that. By the time I reached Metro General it was already dark. It was the first time I had ever come to wait for her. I stood outside in the cold and watched the doors. Ten minutes later, she appeared. Grace wore a beige coat, her head lowered. The moment she saw me she stopped. Then she walked straight toward me. "Ryan?" Her voice was soft. I rubbed my hands together and made myself look awkward. "I just started a new job nearby." I held up the insulated bag. "I got the hundred thousand. Thank you. "You just finished your shift, right? I figured you probably haven't eaten. I brought dinner." Grace took the bag. "Thanks." That was how it started. For the next two weeks I lived the most absurd double life of my career. Every morning I went to work as an entry-level clerk in my own company. Every afternoon at 5:30 I clocked out. And every evening I went to Metro General to wait for Grace. After the first few days, she started bringing an extra meal from the hospital cafeteria for me too. Chapter 2 Every afternoon at 5:30 I left work and went straight to Metro General. Grace and I would sit side by side on a bench outside the hospital, each of us holding a warm container. The food cost almost nothing. I'd eaten at restaurants where a single course ran more than her monthly salary, and none of it had ever tasted this good. "Eat more." Grace nudged the container of ribs toward me. "You've lost weight." I took a bite and mumbled an answer. Then her eyes brightened. "Something good happened today. Our department's been waiting three months on approval for a set of cardiac supplies. The system office finally signed off this morning." I lowered my head so she wouldn't see me smile. I'd called the head of Hawthorne Medical myself the night before. "Really?" I kept my voice casual. "That's good." Grace smiled. She suspected nothing. "How's the new job?" "Fine." The question caught me off guard, and years of executive instinct took over before I could stop it. "The procurement pricing structure's too rigid, though. The rebate tiers are strangling our distributors." Silence. Grace stopped eating and stared at me. "Rebate... tiers?" My stomach dropped. Occupational reflex. I coughed and shoveled in a mouthful of food. "I hear people in the office talking. They use all these corporate terms. I don't understand half of it. I just repeat things." Grace nodded seriously. "Corporate stuff always sounds complicated." Then she added, "Don't be too hard on yourself." I almost laughed from relief. After dinner she unlocked her phone and held the screen toward me. "Ryan, look." It was a savings account. Balance: $82,500. I stared. "Why are you showing me this?" Grace put the phone away and looked at me calmly. "I can withdraw most of it. I did the math. With the hundred thousand I already sent you, that's a hundred and eighty thousand total. "It's nowhere near seven million, but if creditors are pressuring you, use it first." Wind moved through the trees around us. My hand froze around my fork. That money was her safety net — years of overtime, night shifts, skipped vacations, saved so she'd never have to depend on anyone. And she was offering all of it to me like it was nothing. "Grace..." My throat tightened. "Aren't you afraid I won't be able to pay you back?" She calmly packed away her empty container. "Why would I be? You owe a lot of money, but you didn't run and you didn't fall apart. You took an ordinary job and started working." She looked up at me and smiled. "If you can still stand after losing everything, I believe you'll get back on your feet." My heart started pounding. I wanted to tell her the truth right there. I drew in a breath. My phone chimed, and the words died in my throat. It was our old high school group chat. Daniel Brooks, the former class president, had tagged me. "@Ryan We're doing another reunion dinner next Saturday. You have to be there. "I know the facilities manager at the Grand Royal. I got you a security job. Forty-five hundred a month, room and board included. Better than whatever you're scraping together now. "Consider it a favor from an old friend." Chapter 3 My expression went cold. "Ignore him," Grace said immediately, her brows pulling together. "Daniel's trying to humiliate you. We don't have to go." I locked my phone. Then I looked at the worry in her eyes, and the anger drained out of me almost instantly. I was about to answer when another message came in. Daniel again. "Oh, and Ryan, I hear you've got a girlfriend now. Bring her. Let everyone meet her." Sophia Cole, the girl every guy in our class had wanted, replied right underneath him. "Definitely bring her. I want to see what kind of woman is brave enough to sign up for seven million dollars of debt." The mockery practically dripped off the screen. I was about to put the phone away when Grace caught my wrist. "I'll go with you." I turned toward her. She looked completely serious. "They're obviously planning to make a joke out of you. If you go alone they'll gang up on you. At least if I'm there, somebody's on your side." The night wind lifted a few loose strands of her hair, and warmth spread all the way through me. "Okay." I turned my hand over and held her wrist. That weekend, Grace and I walked into the top-floor private dining room at the Grand Royal. The room went quiet for half a second. Then Sophia laughed. She was sitting beside the head of the table, and she lifted her hand on purpose to show off a diamond big enough to signal aircraft. "Oh, look. Our CEO finally made it." She looked me up and down, contempt all over her face. "In those clothes, I'd have guessed the hotel sent a waiter to the wrong room." A few people snickered. Then her gaze moved to Grace, and she arched a brow. "So it's you. You heard what he said at the last reunion and you're still throwing yourself at him?" Grace's grip tightened around my hand, and she looked Sophia straight in the eye. Daniel came over holding a glass, smiling, playing peacemaker. "All right, that's enough, Sophia. We're all classmates here. Give the guy a break." Then he clapped me on the shoulder with the warm expression of a man handing out charity. "Ryan, I already talked to the facilities manager here. Report next month. Room and board included. It's hard work, but at least you'll eat." Everyone around us chimed in about what a stand-up guy he was. I looked at that phony, self-satisfied smile of his and smiled back. "That's very generous of you." Grace and I took the two empty seats farthest from the center. A few drinks in, the room got louder, and so did Sophia. The wine had put color in her cheeks. "My husband picked up a Porsche Panamera two days ago." She raised her glass. "Insisted it was a birthday present. I told him it was too flashy and he said I don't know how to enjoy life." The compliments came in a wave. Sophia lifted her chin and enjoyed every second of it. Then her eyes went back to Grace in the corner. She carried her wine over to our table, stopped in front of us in her heels, and looked down at Grace. "Grace, I really don't understand you. What do you see in a man buried under seven million dollars of debt? "Stay with him and you'd better get used to being broke." Chapter 4 Before Grace could answer, the door swung open from the outside. Victor Ellis, the hotel's general manager, came in carrying a bottle of vintage Bordeaux, smiling at the room. "Good evening, everyone. I'm—" He stopped mid-sentence. His eyes had gone past the crowd and landed on my face. His whole body went rigid. I gave him one cold look. He'd spent enough years around wealthy clients to understand instantly. Sweat broke across his forehead. "I... came to send over a bottle of wine." He set it down. "Please, enjoy your dinner." Then he left so fast he nearly tripped in the doorway. Everyone stared after him, baffled. Grace slowly put down her fork and stood up. "Sophia. I know exactly what I'm looking at. "Ryan works for every dollar he has. Honestly, and on his own. "Which is more than anyone in this room can say for a man who lives off his parents and struts around like he built an empire. Your husband is a parasite." The room went dead silent. Sophia went red, then white, shaking all over. "Who— who are you calling a parasite?" Grace didn't answer her. She turned to me and took my hand. "Ryan, let's go. This reunion's pointless." I looked at the stubborn set of her profile, and something molten turned over in my chest. I closed my fingers around hers. "Okay. Let's go home." Outside the hotel I stopped and looked down at her. "Were you scared in there?" I asked quietly. Grace pulled in a breath and shook her head. "No. I just can't stand watching them treat you like that." My eyes stung. I reached out and ruffled her hair. "Come on. I'll take you back to the hospital." She was working a night shift, so I flagged a cab and rode with her to Metro General. We'd barely reached the front of the inpatient building when the lobby speaker crackled. Then a fast, frightened voice came over it. "Emergency call. Security to the third-floor surgical nurses' station immediately. Combative visitor with a weapon. Requesting backup now." Third floor. Grace's unit. She took off for the lobby doors. I caught her arm. "Wait here. Don't go up." She came anyway. "I told you to wait downstairs." "I'm a nurse here. Something's happening on my unit. I'm not hiding in the lobby." There was no arguing with her voice. I clenched my teeth, stopped trying, and just walked faster. The closer we got to the third floor, the clearer the smashing became. The air smelled of antiseptic and liquor. A big middle-aged man stood near the nurses' station, drunk, red-faced, screaming. "You people call yourselves doctors? If nobody gives me an answer tonight, I'll tear this whole place apart." Two young nurses were huddled in a corner, too frightened to make a sound. The man grabbed a metal folding chair, lifted it over his head, and started toward them. "Stop!" Grace ran straight at him and put herself between him and the nurses. "Sir, calm down. This is a hospital. What you're doing is a crime." He was too far gone to care. "I don't care what it is." He raised the chair. "I'll take you down with them." Then he swung it straight at her. Chapter 5 Around us, visitors and staff screamed. "Grace!" I lunged forward and pulled her hard against me. At the same time I threw my right arm up into the path of the chair. The impact exploded through my forearm and a deep cut opened across the skin. Blood ran down my hand immediately. "Ryan!" Grace's voice cracked behind me. I pushed her back until she was well out of reach. Then I stopped pretending. I looked at the drunk with no expression at all, and whatever he saw made his arms freeze in the air. Ignoring the blood, I pulled out my phone and called Miles. "Metro General. Third-floor surgical nurses' station. Bring security and legal. Now." I hung up. The corridor had gone dead quiet. The drunk hefted the chair again, trying to talk himself back into courage. "You— you can quit the act. Making a phone call, are you? Tonight I'm going to—" "Move again." My voice was almost calm. "Try it." He met my eyes, and didn't take another step. Less than five minutes later, footsteps came pounding down the far end of the hall. Miles came out of the elevator with four security officers and two attorneys. The officers took the man down without hesitation and pinned him to the floor. He landed with his face against the broken glass, howling. Miles didn't spare him a glance. He came straight to me. Then he saw my arm, and his face changed. "Mr. Hawthorne. I'm sorry, we should have been here sooner." The title went off like a thunderclap in the quiet corridor. The man on the floor stopped struggling, his eyes wide with fear. Every doctor and nurse watching turned to stone. Then more footsteps came up the stairwell. Dr. Alan Pierce, the hospital president, arrived at a run with two senior administrators and a string of department heads behind him, all of them sweating and out of breath. Pierce saw me and his legs nearly went out from under him. He crossed the last few yards in a stumble, dragging out a handkerchief, blotting his forehead, his voice unsteady. "Mr. Hawthorne. Mr. Hawthorne, we had no idea you were coming. If we'd known—" Then he saw the blood and went white. "You're hurt. Get the surgical chief. Get him the best trauma room we have, now. "Mr. Hawthorne, I am so sorry. This is a catastrophic security failure on our part. We will make this right, whatever it takes." I looked at him without a trace of warmth. "My attorneys will discuss what it takes. And if I'm not satisfied, Hawthorne Group's equipment donations and funding for this hospital are canceled for next year." Pierce went gray and started apologizing over and over. The two attorneys had already moved in, spelling out the criminal charges to the man on the floor, and then the hospital's liability to Pierce. The hallway dissolved into noise — apologies, instructions, the drunk begging. Then I remembered. I turned around. Grace was standing less than two feet behind me, completely still, staring at me.