The Last Donation

Chapter 3 Peeling Back the Layers

My phone buzzed for the third time in ten minutes. I left it on the counter and spread butter over a piece of toast in my tiny kitchen.

The first text had been an angry demand: *Where are my silver cufflinks? The ones for the quarterly report?*

The second, more frantic: *My entire schedule is a mess. Did you cancel my 3 p.m. with the board? Answer me.*

For a decade, I had kept his appointments, chosen his clothes, and handled his social obligations. I had even written the passive-aggressive birthday cards he sent his mother.

Julian had used me as an external hard drive and never bothered to keep a backup. Now he could not find his cufflinks or remember his own board meeting.

Three days without me, and he had already missed a board meeting.

A new message popped up, the one I had been expecting. *Stop this nonsense and come home. Mia needs you to cheer her up.*

I laughed. There was no apology and no question about where I had slept. Just another order concerning Mia, as if I had wandered off during a shift.

I typed two words.

*Go to hell.*

Then I blocked his number and finished my toast.

Alexander’s private clinic had polished concrete, warm wood, and windows overlooking a secluded bamboo garden.

There was no crowded waiting room, no chorus of beeping machines, and no hurried footsteps.

A receptionist checked my name and led me straight to his office. The place was so quiet that I could hear my own shoes against the floor.

He was waiting in a white coat, his sleeves buttoned neatly at the wrists. His chart lay open beside the sink.

In the hospital and the Rolls-Royce, he had seemed to fill every room. Here, his attention narrowed to the examination and the results in front of him.

“Please, sit.” He washed his hands at the sink.

The examination was thorough and clinical. He listened to my heart with the cold disc of his stethoscope and studied the readings beside him.

He noted the tremor in my fingers, the purple shadows beneath my eyes, and the pallor of my skin. Julian had spent ten years beside me without noticing any of them.

Alexander pressed two cool fingers to the pulse in my neck and watched the monitor.

“Your iron levels are dangerously low. Chronic anemia, severe vitamin deficiencies.” His tone stayed professional, although his jaw tightened as he read the numbers again.

“How long have you felt dizzy spells? Heart palpitations?”

“On and off for years. Eleanor said it was nerves.”

His thumb shifted against my skin. My pulse jumped under it, and he withdrew his hand at once.

He turned to write on my chart, every movement controlled again. The white coat, the neat handwriting, and the careful distance between us all belonged to a man who kept himself under strict control.

For ten years I had done exactly what I was told.

The urge to do one reckless thing came so fast that I acted before I could talk myself out of it. I wanted to know whether Alexander’s control had a limit.

I caught his silk tie in my fist.

I gave it a small, unmistakable tug.

His pen stopped above the paper. He turned, close enough for me to see the gold flecks in his gray eyes and the sudden widening of his pupils.

“Tell me, Doctor.” My voice came out lower than I expected. “Does your heart always beat this fast when you examine a patient?”

He stared at my hand around his tie. His breathing changed, and the room felt smaller.

He removed his glasses and set them on the desk. The soft click sounded much too loud.

One hand closed around the back of my neck. With the other, he reached past me and locked the office door.

He looked straight at me, and when he spoke, his voice was rough.

“Chloe,” he rasped. “You started this.”