Chapter 3 - THE GHOST
I couldn't tear my eyes away from the bracelet. It looked so small on the massive table. My father had given it to me before he died.
"Where did you get that?" I whispered, the fight draining out of me.
"Marcus said the police found it in the wreckage," Julian replied, his dark eyes studying my every flinch. "He told me you stole money from the company safe, tried to flee the state, and lost control of your car in the rain."
I let out a bitter, broken laugh. "Is that what you believed?"
"I didn't want to. But the safe was empty, Mia. The security footage showed you leaving with a duffel bag. And then... the crash." Julian leaned forward, the polished veneer cracking to reveal raw, unhealed grief. "Why did you run? Why didn't you come to me?"
"Because you were the one who signed the termination papers!" I fired back, the old anger flaring up. "I saw your signature, Julian. Authorizing my immediate dismissal, freezing my bank accounts, and threatening me with embezzlement charges if I ever contacted you again."
Julian went completely still. "I never signed anything like that."
"It had your seal. Your private notary stamp."
"Which was kept in my father's desk," Julian realized, his voice turning deadly cold. "My father and Marcus."
The sudden realization shifted the air in the room. He hadn't abandoned me. He hadn't thrown me to the wolves. We had both been played.
But I couldn't afford to care about the past. My present was hanging by a thread.
"It doesn't matter," I said, backing away from the table. "I need this job. My mother is in the intensive care unit at St. Jude's. She has severe renal failure. If I don't work this shift, I don't get the overtime, and she doesn't get her dialysis. Leave me alone, Julian. You have your contract. Let me have my life."
I didn't wait for his answer. I pushed through the service doors and practically ran to the locker room. I stripped off my apron, my hands shaking so badly I could barely manage the buttons on my coat. I had to get to the hospital. I had to get back to my son, Leo.
I practically sprinted out the back exit of the restaurant into the freezing Chicago wind. I made it exactly one block before a sleek black town car pulled up beside me, blocking the crosswalk.
The rear window rolled down. Julian was sitting in the back, the interior bathed in the soft glow of the streetlights.
"Get in," he said.
"No."
"Mia, I just called St. Jude's," he said smoothly. "I paid your mother's medical bills in full for the next six months."
I froze on the curb. "You did what?"
"I also paid the mortgage on the little apartment in the South Side you're renting under the name Anna Miller. Get in the car."
I stared at him, terror mixing with a strange, exhausting relief. I climbed into the leather seat.
"What do you want from me?" I asked, pulling my cheap coat tight around myself.
"Sterling was Marcus's man. Marcus is trying to sabotage my acquisition so the board will vote me out next week," Julian said, his eyes fixed on me. "You caught the fraud. You're my new executive translator and consultant. You start tomorrow."
"Julian, Marcus will recognize me. He's dangerous."
"He thinks you're dead. Let's let him see a ghost." Julian's jaw tightened. "I need you to help me prove Marcus has been embezzling. And in exchange, your mother lives comfortably. Do we have a deal?"
I hesitated. "There is one condition."
"Name it."
"You never ask about what I did during those twelve years. You stay out of my private life."
Julian searched my eyes, looking for the lie. Finally, he nodded. "Agreed."
May you like
But as the car pulled away, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a text from my babysitter.
Leo is asking for you. He found an old newspaper clipping in your drawer and is asking questions about a man named Julian Vance.
