Page 35 of Billionaire Corruption

I asked a colleague and they said she wasn’t in today, a family emergency.

All day, I had kept myself from reaching out, and now I could no longer hold back.

Everything okay?

She answered almost straight away.

My brother is in hospital

I asked: Is he OK?

They are running tests. Not sure

I dialed her number and called her.

“Yes?”

“What do the doctors say?”

Her voice sounded small. “They don’t know yet. He collapsed at school and seemed disorientated. It could be anything at this point.”

“Have you seen him?”

“He seems better now but they wouldn’t let him go.”

She said the doctors had recommended a range of tests but there was a problem with the medical insurance, and this had to be cleared up first.

“Go ahead and book the tests. I’ll pay for them.”

There was a silence on the other end of the line.

Then she said. “I couldn’t possibly accept that.”

“Don’t tell me you’re too proud to let me help your brother?”

“It’s not about pride… it’s about principle,” she said, but I could hear her voice shake a bit.

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” It was a bit of a gamble, going this route with Grace. But I knew that having slept together made us something, if not quite friends, it would be better in her book, than being lovers.

“I don’t know.”

“We survived an elevator fall,” I pointed out.

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Look, I’ll give it to you in cash, then there is no way to know where the money came from.”

“Paul, it’s going to be a lot,” she said, her voice sounding firmer now.

“I spent $5 000 on a burger a few months ago,” I told her. “It was supposed to be the most expensive burger in the world. I wanted to see what it was like.”

“$5 000 for a burger?” she repeated, incredulous.

“I know. It was a good burger, but I prefer Balthazar’s.”

After a moment, I said, “I’ll bring double that to the hospital tomorrow.”

When she didn’t respond, I said, “Let me do this for you, Grace, you’ve done so much for me.”

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