Chapter 2 - The Man Who Called Her His
“Reese.”
Julian said her name as though he had left her apartment that morning instead of abandoning her beneath a mountain of bills.
He stopped beside the table, handsome and comfortable in a tuxedo she suspected someone else had purchased.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“You have my email,” she said.
“You blocked my number.”
“After your seventeenth request for money.”
A woman at the next table glanced over.
Julian lowered his voice.
“Can we talk privately?”
“No.”
His smile tightened. Then his attention shifted to Matteo.
“We haven’t met.”
“Matteo Brandt.”
Julian’s hand paused halfway forward.
Only a second. Reese might once have missed it.
Now she saw everything.
“Julian Mercer,” he said, recovering. “Reese and I have a complicated history.”
“Our history is over,” Reese replied.
Julian ignored her.
“She’s upset about some financial misunderstandings.”
Matteo did not take his offered hand.
“Then you should address her concerns through her attorney.”
Julian laughed softly.
“You don’t know Reese. When she gets overwhelmed, she makes things sound worse than they are.”
There it was.
The voice he used when waiters questioned a bill. When she found a new charge on her credit card. When she asked why the title to her car had been transferred.
Calm. Reasonable. Designed to make her feel loud before she had raised her voice.
“I know what my statements say,” she told him.
His gaze snapped back.
“Careful.”
Matteo stood.
He did not touch Julian or threaten him. He simply rose, and suddenly the space beside their table belonged to someone else.
“She asked you to leave.”
Julian looked around, calculating the audience.
“This isn’t finished, sweetheart.”
Reese’s stomach turned.
“Don’t call me that.”
After he walked away, she realized her hands were trembling.
Matteo sat without commenting.
“Water?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He passed the glass.
Across the room, Julian joined an older man with silver hair and a red pocket square. They spoke briefly. The older man’s expression hardened.
Reese recognized him from hospital newsletters.
Graham Vale. Chairman of Mercy General’s capital campaign.
“Who’s that?” Matteo asked.
She told him.
His eyes remained on the other table.
“What?”
“Vale’s foundation guarantees several loans through a company my uncle manages.”
The room seemed to tilt slightly.
“Your uncle?”
“Victor Brandt.”
“Is that why Julian knew your name?”
“Possibly.”
Matteo took out his phone, typed a short message, and placed it facedown.
Reese turned toward him.
“Tell me.”
He hesitated.
“Please don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t decide how much truth I can handle.”
He nodded.
“The receiving account for your payments belongs to a consulting company called Harbor Advisory.”
She stared at him.
Julian had once told her Harbor Advisory was launching his career.
He had asked her to invest.
When she refused, he accused her of not believing in him.
“That’s his company.”
Matteo’s expression went still.
“Are you certain?”
“I paid its registration fee.”
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Reese stood.
“I need air.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
They left through a side entrance and stepped onto a terrace overlooking the river. Music followed them through the doors, muffled and distant.
Reese gripped the stone railing.
“I thought I was paying Owen’s debt.”
“You were following the instructions you were given.”
“Julian helped me set up the transfers.”
The words tasted sickening.
He had sat beside her at her kitchen table, reassuring her that he knew someone who could negotiate better terms.
He had kissed her forehead afterward.
She pressed a hand over her mouth.
Matteo stayed a few feet away.
“Reese.”
“I’m a surgeon.”
“Yes.”
“I recognize internal bleeding before a scan sometimes. I can tell when someone is lying about how they got injured.”
“That doesn’t make you responsible for someone choosing to deceive you.”
She looked at him.
He said it without pity.
That nearly undid her.
The terrace door opened.
A hospital administrator appeared, searching the shadows.
“Dr. Callahan? I’m sorry. There’s a concern.”
Reese straightened automatically.
“A patient?”
“No.” The woman looked embarrassed. “Someone submitted a complaint regarding financial misconduct connected to the emergency department fund.”
Reese felt cold spread beneath her skin.
“What misconduct?”
“The complaint names you.”
Behind the administrator, inside the ballroom, Julian raised a champagne glass.
Not toward Matteo.
Toward her.
Her phone lit up.
An unknown number had sent a photograph of a transfer authorization bearing her signature.
Beneath it was a message.
You should have come outside alone.
Reese stared at the signature.
It was hers.
But she had never seen the document before.
Matteo read the message over her shoulder only after she handed him the phone.
His jaw tightened.
“Do you want to leave?”
For one terrible moment, she wanted to run.
Then she looked through the glass at the ballroom, at the donors applauding a man who had stolen from her and now expected her silence.
“No,” she said.
May you like
She opened her camera and saved the evidence.
“I want a lawyer.”
