Harlow heard the words, but somehow, she couldn’t wrestle her brain into true understanding. Probably because the whole thing was plum fucking crazy. “My father is the one who made the original donation for the clinic. Is he expressing concern?”
“He’s not,” Langston quickly assured her. “But I’m sure you see that with many other donors losing faith in the hospital’s ability to manage large gifts, it’s a problem.”
Harlow opened her mouth to argue, but then let her lips fall closed. She did see the problem, and it was the size of a goddamned ocean liner. Just because she and Connor hadn’t created the debt or mismanaged the clinic for the ten months preceding their placement there, didn’t mean they weren’t on the hook for fixing things efficiently. And if donors were already expressing their concern in the way the hospital was managing the problems there, how on earth were she and Connor going to convince someone into donating so much as a dime?
“I do understand,” she said, hating how little power her voice carried, but knowing she had to say something. Langston had championed the clinic from the start. Surely, he could give her some leverage. “But the clinic is important to this community. People rely on the doctors there. They rely on the services, sometimes to save their lives. It’s worth saving.”
Langston looked at her. Harlow’s pulse rushed on a tide of hope at his barely there nod, at the I know woven into his stare.
Joanne crushed the moment in a single breath. “The CEO disagrees, and so do the majority of the members of this board. Yes, the clinic’s purpose is to provide care, but not at such a high cost. We’ve run through our options, not to mention, more money than we should have, to try and save the clinic. Now the time has come for more drastic measures.”
And just like that, Harlow’s hope disintegrated.
28
Harlow’s first inclination when she auto-piloted out of the boardroom was to throw up. Her second was to find Connor, fling herself into his strong, wide-open, loving arms until the ache in her chest subsided and an answer magically presented itself. But since a) Connor was going to be as upset as she was over the board’s ultimatum, and b) she knew goddamn well that if she wanted something fixed, she had to do it herself. Business wasn’t for the weak, and waiting wasn’t going to cut it.
She needed the mother of all strategies, and that meant calling in the big guns.
“Thanks for meeting me on such short notice,” Harlow said to her father as he slid into the seat across from her.
He spun a pointed look around the diner she’d chosen, raising a gray-blond brow. “Interesting choice of venue.”
“I know. But the pie is fantastic.” That, and she hadn’t wanted to go anywhere they’d risk being overheard by a colleague or one of Davenport Industries’ VPs. Or, worse, someone from the hospital.
Harlow rubbed a hand over the center of her blouse, although the last twenty times she’d tried, it hadn’t relieved the squeeze that seemed to have taken up permanent residence there. Her father—being her father—got directly to the point.
“Somehow, I don’t think that after five days of dodging my calls, you’ve asked me here for pie.”
Her heart pitched. “No.”
The waitress appeared, and her father ordered two slices of cherry pie and a pot of coffee anyway, waiting for the young woman to bring both before saying, “Would you like to tell me what this is about, then?”
Of course, he knew. Joanne had said she and Langston had spoken to him, albeit briefly. But her father could fill in the blanks better than anyone. God, he’d probably seen the board’s ultimatum coming from light years away. No wonder he’d been blowing up her phone.
Harlow sank a little further in defeat. “The clinic is in serious trouble.”
Knowing she had no other option, she unloaded the whole story. Her voice got a little wavery when she got to the Evie part of things, and her father’s eyes darkened in concern until she promised him that everything with her abusive ex had been resolved. But Harlow outlined everything about the clinic in detail, from the friction that had kept her and Connor from working together at the beginning, to the way they’d slowly figured things out, to the plan they’d come up with to try and find a donor. Her father listened carefully, and only when she was done did he steeple his fingers over his empty coffee cup and nearly clean plate, and speak.
“Well, that does make this complicated,” he said, and Harlow bit her lip.
“Yeah. Speaking of complicated, I should probably tell you that Connor and I are, um. Involved.”
Her father’s shoulders hit the back of the booth with a thump. “You’re seeing each other?”
Harlow nodded, although “seeing each other” seemed a far cry from how she felt about Connor. Considering the circumstances, though, it would do. “Yes. And he’s—we’re both—really invested in the clinic. Not just as a job, but emotionally. You should see the way the staff there responds to him, Dad. He’s taught them all so much, and they rely on their jobs.”
She thought of Macie, with her adorable little boy at home, and Dana, who was about to marry her long-time girlfriend. Alejandro, who cared for his aging grandmother, both physically and financially, and God, how could the board not see how valuable the clinic was?
“We inherited a massive amount of debt, and I know that’s more than the board realized,” Harlow continued past the lump in her throat. “I fully understand their concern. But if they’d just listen to the pitch Connor and I put together—”
“Harlow, do me a favor.” Although he’d interrupted, her father’s tone was oddly soft. “Knowing what you know right now, walk me through that pitch.”
“I’m sorry?” She barely got the words past her shock.
Her father, though? Totally unruffled. “Convince me, the way you would a potential donor, why a gift that large is a worthy investment.”
“I…” Harlow’s heart crashed into her gut as both sank like stones. “I can’t.”
“There’s no winning strategy there,” her father said, gently reiterating what she already knew. “The first thing that anyone you pitch to is going to do is ask other donors whether they feel the clinic, as an extension of the hospital, is a smart place to gift their money, and the first thing those donors are going to say is no. Remington’s elite stick together. You know this.”
She nodded, her chin feeling like lead. She did know. She’d used it to her advantage in dozens of pitches and mergers. Circles were small, and people with money talked. No matter how thick she and Connor laid on the good the clinic offered to the community, they’d never get a donor to agree to a gift that big. Not now. Not with the CEO and the board doubting the clinic’s solvency, too.
“I just don’t know what to do,” Harlow whispered. “I’ve been over the budget so many times.”
Her father tilted his head to look at her, his stare certain. “I know you have, and I know you’ve done everything within your power to right things at the clinic. The truth is, the job was a long shot when I agreed to it.”
Uh… “What?” Her father never, ever, ever agreed to take over a business he wasn’t certain they could make lucrative.
His brows lifted, and hey, now they were both surprised. “Of course it was. You saw the financials. The staffing plan. The lack of leadership. I’m impressed that you and Connor got as far as you did, truth be told, and I agree that if circumstances were different with the board, this pitch would be the way to go. It’s really rather brilliant. Then again, I knew that if anyone could make headway at the clinic, it was you.”
Harlow was sure she’d be able to pick her jaw up off the floor someday. Today? Not her day. Tomorrow? Not looking too promising, either. Holy fuck. “You put me at the clinic because you believed in me?”
“Of course,” her father said. “The clinic might have been a long shot, and perhaps it wasn’t a huge contract. But it was…is…special to me.”
At that, he cleared his throat, making it necessary for Harlow to b
link back the heat growing in her eyes. “I should have been more proactive about the clinic’s management to begin with, but…well, I suppose I was grieving, and the only way I knew how to reconcile that was to shut out the pain of seeing her name on all of the paperwork. Of thinking of how much she’d have loved the idea of a wellness clinic that would help so many people. And so I did.”
“I know that feeling, actually,” she admitted. “I pushed down a lot of my emotions, too.”
Her father nodded, his smile small and bittersweet. “When the hospital came to me and asked Davenport Industries to turn the clinic around, I knew the job might not be feasible. It’s why I insisted on two directors. I knew we’d need strength in both operations and on the business end. It’s also why I put my very best person in one of those roles.”
“You put me there because I’m your best person?” Harlow’s shock moved over her in a prickle.
But her father’s reply was one hundred percent steady. “Of course. Why else would I have put you there?”
“I thought it was a punishment. That maybe”—she dropped her chin—“you didn’t believe in me to do a bigger job.”
For a minute, the only sound between them was the clinking of silverware and the muted strains of an early 60’s-era ballad drifting down from the speakers, high overhead. Then, “I have always believed in you, Harlow. You are a smart, capable, and wonderful woman.”
“I don’t feel so wonderful right now,” she said. “In fact, I feel pretty shitty.”
Her father looked at her. “You came to me tonight for business advice, but you don’t need me to tell you what to do. You already know, don’t you?”
The ache in Harlow’s chest became full-on pain, then. Because she did know what she needed to do. She only had one choice, and as much as she hated what that choice involved, she knew she had to do it.
Even though it would cost her everything.
Connor was going to lose his fucking mind. Six hours had passed since this afternoon’s board meeting, and all he’d gotten from Harlow was a weirdly terse text saying that she was dealing with something urgent, and that she’d text as soon as she could. After confirming that she was physically okay (okay, fine, so he’d texted twice about that to be totally sure. He was falling in love with her. So sue him), he’d turned his attention to the clinic, where it belonged. But the doors had closed two hours ago, and now that he’d gone to the gym, showered, and picked his way through a burrito he’d barely tasted, he was pretty much out of sanity options.
Something was wrong.
Picking up his phone, he scrolled through his contacts until he saw Harlow’s pretty face smiling up at him. Before he could tap the icon to call, a knock sounded off on his apartment door.
“Jesus,” Connor murmured, his surprise colliding with relief at the sight of Harlow on the other side of the peephole. He swung the door wide. “Hey. What’s going…” The shadows beneath her eyes and the seriousness of her expression stopped the rest in his throat.
“We need to talk.”
She didn’t move, and after a couple of awkward beats, he realized she was waiting for him to invite her in.
Okay, he was officially done with this being-in-the-dark bullshit. “God, come in. What in the hell is going on? What’s the matter?”
Connor wanted to hug her, to run his hands over every last inch of her to make sure she was, in fact, okay, but something about her expression told him not to push.
Like if he did, she might break.
“I have some bad news from the board,” Harlow said, making his stomach twist. But come on, their idea had been fucking bulletproof. How bad could it be?
“Alright.” He took a cautious step toward her. Even if the news wasn’t ideal, they’d face it together. “I’m sure whatever it is, we’ll figure out how to handle it.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think we will. The hospital’s CEO reached out to the board this morning with concerns—valid ones—about the clinic’s financial solvency. It seems the current donors, whose gifts to the hospital account for a substantial amount of the money that goes toward funding things like cutting-edge MRI machines and new wings to the peds ward, are worried that the clinic is a bad use of the hospital’s capital.”
“Okay,” Connor said, his brain spinning to catch up with his pulse, which had taken off like the goddamned Space Shuttle as soon as she’d uttered the word concerns. “But the donors don’t get any say over how the hospital’s money gets spent, or what programs the hospital chooses to invest in.”
Harlow surprised him by scoffing. “Not on paper, no. But in reality? That’s business. Money is power, and the donors have both.”
The reality of it, of how right it was while being so fucking wrong at the same time, slid into his chest like a dark, oily stain. “Fine. So, we’ll just get a donor of our own and then they can shove their concerns up their asses.”
“That’s not how any of this works, Connor.” Jamming a hand through her already disheveled hair, Harlow looked at him. “The donors have made it clear that they’re second-guessing the hospital because of how horribly mismanaged the clinic has been—”
“We didn’t do that!” he protested, but true to form, she stood firm.
“It doesn’t matter who did it, only that it’s not changing. The debt is massive, and we can’t fix it without a large influx of cash. No one will give us that cash if the concerns aren’t effectively addressed. It’s a never-ending cycle, and there’s no solution.”
Dread moved up Connor’s spine with clammy fingers. “What do you mean, there’s no solution? Of course there’s a solution.” There had to be. They just had to find it. “Don’t be so pessimistic.”
Harlow’s brows shot upward, and shit, that had come out all wrong. “I just meant—”
“I know what you meant. That there’s hope, right? That all we have to do is believe it’ll all work out, and things will be fine?”
“It’s better than giving up,” Connor snapped. Yeah, he was mad, and yeah again, his anger wasn’t really directed at her as much as the board and the CEO. But for Chrissake, couldn’t she see that the clinic was worth fighting for?
Her joyless laugh sliced through him, making the air in his apartment feel at least ten degrees cooler. “Giving up? Are you kidding? That clinic has my mother’s name on it!”
“Then fight for it,” he countered, matching the edge in her words. “Have a little hope.”
“Hope.” Harlow spat the word at him as if it tasted rotten. “I walked into that board meeting with hope, and it was a fucking mistake! I should’ve been better prepared. All that time I wasted on happy-happy feelings when I should’ve known better. Good business is born of strategy, not emotion.”
Something snapped in Connor’s belly, pushing his reply up and out. “The clinic isn’t just some goddamned business.”
“Yes, Connor, it is,” Harlow said. “And you not treating it as such is exactly the problem. You’re so focused on what you want that you didn’t stop to consider what the clinic needed.”
He mirrored the way she’d knotted her arms over her chest. “Oh, really? And what exactly is that, since you seem to have all the fucking answers that I’m too dense to see?”
“Someone who realized that taking care of people isn’t just something you do with your heart. You have to do it with your head, too. That’s just good business. I lost sight of that”—she paused for a breath, the frosty demeanor that Connor hadn’t seen for weeks on end making a swift and sickening comeback—“but it won’t happen again. The board has requested that we close the clinic, effective immediately.”
Connor’s head whipped back, as surely as if she’d slapped him. In truth, it would have hurt a hell of a lot less. “They what? No. The answer is no!”
“Connor, look at the facts. There’s no way we can find a donor for the clinic. Not with the CEO and the board and the current donors all against us. We just can’t. There’s no win strategy. We don’t have
a choice,” Harlow said. But her voice hitched by the barest margin, and screw it, Connor stepped in until there was barely any space left between them.
“There’s always a choice, Harlow.”
For a single heartbeat, she said nothing, and his own hope sparked, soft and deep in his chest.
But then she shook her head and stepped back. “Not this time. The board will notify the staff members of the closure in the morning, and Langston will speak to you about returning to your nursing position in the ED.”
“I don’t want my nursing position,” he argued, his anger lighting a fast path through him. “I’m a director, too, with power equal to yours, right? What if I don’t agree to the board’s request? Then what?”
“Then nothing,” Harlow said quietly. “They only need one of us to agree, and I emailed the board an hour ago.”
All the oxygen seemed to leave the room in a single, terrible instant. “You consented to the closure of the clinic? Without even asking me?”
“I had to. We both know their request wasn’t a request at all. With no way to fix the budget, we’d have had a few days, maybe a week, before they shut us down on their own. This is the smarter move.”
All of Connor’s anger, all his frustration and sadness and dread, exploded past his lips. “This isn’t a goddamned game! Christ, I should’ve known better than to trust you.”
An audible sound puffed past Harlow’s lips. “Connor—”
“No.” He cut her off, his anger beating out the rest of his emotions like a heavyweight boxer on fight night. He’d already been taken for a fool once with his father.
He’d be damned if he’d let that happen again.
“All you’ve given a rat’s ass about for your entire life is business,” Connor bit out. “Of course you wouldn’t change your stripes when everything was on the line. Shit happens, right? Oh, well. Maybe the next contract will work out.” His shoulders jerked under the power of his shrug. “But you can’t worry about any of the people affected by the clinic’s closing, can you? You’ll be too busy in your corner office, taking over some other company and betraying the dumb schmuck you’re partnered with.”
Between Me & You: An Enemies to Lovers Workplace Romance (Remington Medical Book 3) Page 28