Page 4 of BillionHeir
“Now, you need to get some more sleep, Mr. Banks. Stress is not good for your recovery.”
“What if worrying is all that I know how to do?”
“You seem like a competent man,” she says, looking me up and down as she pushes her chair away from the computer and stands, coming to the side of my bed to mess with a bag of fluid that is slowly dripping into my IV. “All you have to do is let go and accept that you are not in control.”
“Katrina, no offense, but I am the owner and CEO of an international conglomerate. I don’t have the luxury of ‘letting go’.”
“What I am hearing is that you are very rich. Are you telling me that with all that money you have, you can’t pay someone else to worry for you?”
My thoughts grind to a halt as I think about what she just said. Could it really be that easy? Pay someone else to do all the work I am missing?
But no. No one else can hold it together the way I can.
Katrina chuckles as she walks toward the door, somehow fully aware of how deeply her question cuts to the core of my insecurities. “I will be back to check on you in a couple of hours. Good night, Mr. Banks.”
She dims the lights and closes my door quietly on her way out.
I give myself some space to process everything that I just learned in the last twenty minutes. The news flashes through my brain.
Helicopter crash.
Pilot died.
Surgery.
Two-week coma.
It is all so heavy and grim.
And one thought rings true in my head.
I do not deserve to be alive.
Chapter 2
_______________________
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 area 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 myoversized 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?
