Chapter 36 · Half the Empire

I had my coat on before the nurse finished her sentence.

"Mrs. Vance, the doctor hasn't cleared—"

"It's Ms. And I have." I folded the discharge papers into quarters and jammed them in my bag next to a half-drunk bottle and a nipple shield still in its wrapper. Forty-one years old and my purse rattled like a baby aisle at Target.

The private elevator at the end of the hall chimed. Marcus stepped out with his jacket over one arm and a folder in the other hand, and the whole floor got quieter the way it always does when money walks in.

"Three days," he said. "You were supposed to stay three more."

"I was supposed to stay nothing." I shifted the car seat to my other hip. Six pounds, four ounces, and my shoulder was already filing a complaint. "Move."

He didn't move. He looked at the carrier instead — at the small furred head, the fist curled up against the blanket — and his face did the thing it does, everything going still at once.

Then he held up the folder. "Explain this."

I already knew.