Husband Stay (Husband #2) Read Online Free PDF

saw
that money.
    So how could I
survive the coming weeks with five hundred dollars and no job?
    I couldn’t.
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
    I stared at the
accounts clerk behind her counter and she simply stared back at me, as if she
had all day to wait while I stressed about money. I’d been counting on singing
and deli work to keep my buffer of five thousand dollars intact. Paying this
bill and having less than a thousand felt like a terrifyingly vulnerable
situation to be in.
    “I don’t have that
amount...readily accessible,” I added, so I wouldn’t look like a charity case.
“Can I take an account and—”
    “I’m sorry, no.”
She pointed at a sign next to the reception desk. All accounts must be finalized
on departure.
    “But I came in
through emergency. In an ambulance. I didn’t see that.”
    “You asked for
private medical treatment. If you’d gone to the public section of the
hospital—”
    “Okay. I
understand.”
    I suddenly felt
very tired. It was nearly seven am and I’d been awake for twenty-four hours.
    “I’ll have to call
someone.” I reached into my handbag for my phone. “I’ll get a credit card
number for you.”
    The clerk nodded
and went back to typing, as if I’d ceased to exist. In her defense, that could
have been to give me space so I wouldn’t feel embarrassed. But it made me feel
even more alone than I actually was.
    I looked at my
contacts list, wondering if I could bring myself to ask one of my friends to front
the money so I’d still have my safety buffer. Jill had ploughed most of her
savings into her tea shop Bohemian Brew, which Fritha was managing, and
Fritha lived week to week.
    Louella was rich,
but she and I had been in competition since we’d both married. Admittedly, we
were both in the process of divorcing, so neither of us was going to win a
‘perfect wife’ contest. And neither of us were mothers. Yet. The only
thing that separated us irrevocably was money. Danny and I had been ‘middle
class’. Louella and Marcus were wealthy.
    I hadn’t let that
get to me, and in fact, I’d told myself money was irrelevant. But if I asked
her to bail me out, that would mean she’d won. I knew it was stupid to feel
that way—Jill would kick me up the backside if I dared mention it—but I simply
couldn’t do it. I couldn’t ring Louella and listen to mock sympathy covering
triumph. It would ruin us as friends.
    There had to be
another way. So to buy myself time I said, “I’m just going to the toilet. I’ll
be back in a minute.”
    The clerk nodded
absently and watched me for a few second to be sure I wasn’t heading for the exit.
Then she returned to her computer and I decided to distract myself with a first
toilet experience in a plaster cast. I had to do it sometime. And Jill had always
told me a good pee clears the mind.
    Before I reached
the ladies’ rest room, however, I saw the sturdy nurse who’d bossed me into
visiting Jack.
    She nodded in
recognition. “Good job of cheering him up,” she said, completely straight
faced.
    I blinked in
surprise. Was she reprimanding me? “I beg your pardon. That creep—”
    “Was spaced out on
morphine. He would have said anything.”
    Oh. Okay.
    That wasn’t what
I’d expected.
    But still, I
rallied. “He was drunk when I met him, so excuse me for not realizing—”
    “He wasn’t drunk,”
she snapped. “He was having an allergic reaction to antibiotics. He barely
drinks at all, according to his chart. He’s an athlete. An Olympic Gold medalist.”
    “Oh.” Oh. I
didn’t know where to go from there, until good manners forced me to say, “I’m
sorry. No one told me.”
    She nodded again, an
abrupt jerk of the head, reminding me of my mother’s old white corgi. “His
parents are elderly and they live out west. They can’t come in. So he’s alone.”
    I stared at her
disbelievingly. Did she want me to go back in there? No way. Of course I
felt a pang of sympathy for his parents being so far away from