Chapter 5 - The Offer
The corridor was quiet, the midday shift change humming softly in the background.
Callum walked beside me as I carried my clipboard toward the nurses' station, his hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets.
“You risked your job in there,” Callum said quietly. “Malcolm is vindictive. Even if he’s locked out of the trust, he has connections across the city that could make practicing medicine here very difficult for you.”
I stopped at the counter, set my clipboard down, and turned to face him.
“If I worried about powerful men with bruised egos making my life difficult, Callum, I would have quit this profession five years ago,” I said evenly. “People like Malcolm bully because they assume everyone else is as fragile as their own authority. They aren't used to anyone pushing back.”
Callum studied me for a long moment, the intensity in his dark eyes softening into something unreadable, something deep and searching.
“You don't belong in a hospital corridor taking orders from nervous administrators, Audrey,” he said, using my first name for the first time without hesitation.
My heart did a strange, unwanted stutter. “And where do I belong, Mr. Ror? Running a shipping cartel?”
“You belong somewhere you can't be pushed around by boardrooms or bureaucrats,” he said softly, stepping closer. “My father’s security team... my organization... we have need of someone with your kind of backbone. Someone who cannot be bought, intimidated, or broken.”
I stared at him, the offer hanging in the sterile air between us like an electric current. It wasn't a joke. It wasn't a pickup line. It was a genuine, calculated proposition from a man who ruled a world I spent my life avoiding.
“I save lives, Callum,” I said, my voice dropping into a firm, unyielding register. “I don't ruin them.”
“Sometimes,” Callum murmured, his gaze holding mine with a gravitational pull I couldn't escape, “to save the right things, you have to be willing to tear down everything else.”
Before I could formulate a response, the emergency alarm at the central nursing station blared to life with a shrill, piercing shriek.
May you like
Code Blue! Room 304!
My blood turned to ice. I spun around and sprinted down the hallway toward Patrick’s room, Callum right at my heels.
