Who Wants to Marry A Billionaire?(8)
Elsa interrupted her, “I’m just saying, that sometimes…certain things outside our job description are required of us. Don’t ever forget that the team you are playing on is not Team Alves - it’s Team DeVere. Be a team player Nina, and remember, there’s no “I” in team.” The cliché made Nina’s stomach turn just a little as Elsa pontificated. “Think about the greater good. It almost always works to a person’s advantage, but selfish people, selfish people end up on the street.”
It was a threat. Nina felt speechless. Elsa had chosen her words so that she could never be pinned down for speaking inappropriately, but Nina knew a threat when she heard one. Elsa and Daniel were in collusion, she realized, how else to explain why they were playing good cop, bad cop? And she was like a minnow swimming among sharks. The magic beast of DeVere fame and fortune was going to eat her alive.
Elsa switched to her perky, official voice. “Feel better Nina, and work from home tomorrow too, we’ll see you on Friday.”
Clicking her cell phone shut, Nina tossed it on the table. Elsa was the one who had revealed her predicament to Daniel. And Elsa was probably the one who’d cooked up the plan for her to be Daniel’s fake wife.
Her phone rang. She looked at the caller display; of course, with his special gift for disastrous timing, it was Reuben. She took a deep breath, and picked up the phone.
“Hey Bro—what’s up?”
“Nina, I’m really sorry, but I’m kind of in a jam.”
She couldn’t keep the exasperation out of her voice. “What is it now Reuben? Do you want money to go climb Mount Kilimanjaro? Or maybe you’ve decided to take up yoga and go live in an ashram?”
His voice caught, and she realized that he sounded almost ready to cry. “Nina, I’m at Mass General, and I’m in traction.”
“Traction? You mean like hospital, broken bone, kind of traction?”
“Yeah.” He was sniffling. “Can you come Nina? It really hurts.”
Chapter Six
On the way to the hospital, Nina called Rita, so her sister was waiting for her at the main reception. Rita started to give Nina a quick hug, but Nina pulled back. “Save yourself, I’ve got something and I’m probably contagious.”
Rita smiled thinly. “I just got here. He’s in room 1247. I guess it’s the orthopedic wing or something. They said it’s the third bank of elevators.”
Nina looked at her younger sister meaningfully, “If he’s not dying, I may have to kill him.”
Rita tried to laugh. “I know, he’s a knucklehead, but he’s our baby brother.”
Reuben was poking lamely at some florescent orange Jello when they arrived. One leg was hoisted on a rope and pulley system into the air. There were giant pins sticking out of his thigh. He put his spoon down, and pushed the rolling tray away from the bed. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you. I was so out of it, I just scrawled my name on the release forms and didn’t have it together enough to tell anyone to call you. I guess I was in surgery for a good chunk of the night.”
Nina carefully sat on the edge of the bed, softening to her brother. “What the hell happened?”
Reuben looked vacantly toward the ceiling, “I, uh, I slipped in the mustard.”
Rita looked from Reuben to Nina, “He’s delirious, right? That’s the pain killers talking?”
Shaking her head regretfully, Nina just said, “Nope, I’m afraid he’s of entirely sound mind.” Turning back to her brother, she blew him a kiss, “But now, I’m going to have to kill you.”
Back home, Nina leafed through a pile of paperwork someone from the hospital had thrust at her as they left. Rueben’s student health insurance from the university was, thankfully, covering a large part of the cost. But then she saw the fine print: five thousand dollars deductible, no drug coverage, and no physical therapy—and Reuben was going to need a lot of physical therapy. In addition, to keep the coverage on his surgery, hospitalization, and doctor’s bills, he’d have to stay enrolled as a full-time student. Nina felt like her finances were an unsolvable Rubik’s Cube; she kept spinning and spinning, but she could never get anything to line up, even if she did let the IRS take her home.
Nina knew her mom, Vicki, wouldn’t have any money for the bills, but Nina also knew that she’d come from Lowell in a heartbeat to take care of Reuben. That would mean Vicki would have to stay with her, Nina thought with a sigh, but at least she wouldn’t have to worry so much about her brother. Nina reached for the phone to call her mom.
She gave Vicki the rundown, but left out the part about her financial problems.
“Honey, I’ll be there Friday night. I’ve just been working temp jobs. I’ll try to help you out too, while I’m looking after your brother. I know you work really hard, and you look out for Rita and Reuben better than me. That’s not lost on me, Nina.”
“Mom…”
“Yes honey?”
“Thanks for saying that. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
There was nothing else left to do now, except write a report on Central America. Oh, and marry Daniel DeVere.
Chapter Seven
By Friday, Nina’s cold was better, but she had developed laryngitis. She wondered if it were some kind of psychosomatic thing, but no matter how hard she tried, her voice alternated between the merest of whispers, and something sounding like a bullfrog that had been gargling with shards of glass.