Page 119 of Undeniably Enemies

“It’s just chief,” I tell her as she throws on her coat and heads for the door.

“It’s more than that. It’s your career. It’s your reputation. It’s mine too.”

“Thanks for the pep talk,” I mutter dryly.

She comes back over to me and wraps her arms around my neck. “But no matter what, we’ll figure it out.”

“Thanks.” I chuckle. “That was a little better.”

She reaches up on her toes and kisses me. “I love you, and it’ll be okay.”

I kiss her back, but then she’s gone, flying out the door, and it feels… off. She feels off. More than just anxious or upset or worried. She feels off with me, and I can’t do this again. I can’t lose everything all at once, but more than that, under no circumstances can I lose her.

My shoes feel like they’re lined with lead as I walk into the hospital and onto the elevator. Callan told me to meet him at eight, and I’m here a solid ten minutes early because there’s only so much time a person can kill before they go insane. The board meeting started at seven, and I already asked the administrative assistant if I could have a few minutes of the board’s time at the end of it.

At three minutes before eight, Callan joins me, and right at eight, the assistant tells us we can enter.

“You ready?” he asks.

“As I’ll ever be.”

He claps me on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine.”

I hope so. But I’m not so sure.

Only the moment we walk in, armed with our battle plan, I freeze. Not at all prepared for what’s waiting for me.

35

“Wren? What are you doing here?”

Wren is sitting calmly at the table, her expression stoic and unreadable, even with her eyes on me. Usually, I can read her. She’s an open book, but not right now. Something odd and uncomfortable twists inside of me. I don’t know what to make of her being in here. She didn’t mention anything to me this morning. Not a word about this.

And she wasn’t herself with me.

She doesn’t answer me, and the sick knot of dread that had been living in my stomach since last night in the store cinches tighter.

“Jack, Callan,” Dr. Harvey Heinmiller, the chairman of the board, greets us. “Good timing. Why don’t you both come in and have a seat?”

I don’t remove my gaze from her as I walk to the other side of the table and sit in the chair that was offered to me. My heart thunders, but with a dozen board members watching me carefully, I can’t do anything about the myriad of questions shooting through my brain like a barrage of bullets.

“Jack, let me start by saying that this is not how we expectedour morning to begin,” Harvey says, taking his seat at the head of the table.

I pull my focus from Wren and turn it over to him. I’m going to assume he already knows everything. Why else would Wren be here, and why else would he have said that to me? “Yes, sir. Trust me when I tell you, it’s not how I wanted my morning to begin either.”

“No,” he agrees in a low voice. “I imagine it’s not. First things first, I suppose. It is our understanding that you are in a relationship with Miss Fritz. Is that correct?”

I swallow and glance over at her, again wondering what the fuck is going on before I turn back to him. “Yes, sir. That’s correct.”

“Miss Fritz has graciously and rather candidly answered all our questions, but just for checks and balances sake, we’d like to ask you some of them as well. Do you have any objections to that?”

I shake my head. “No, sir. Ask me anything.”

“When did you and Miss Fritz begin your relationship?”

“November eighth.”

“Can you elaborate on how your relationship began?”

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