Sheikh's Fake Fiancee by Jessica Brooke, Ella Brooke Read Free Book Online Page B

legs go weak beneath her. It felt like the most impossible task on Earth to even walk to the elevator. Rose was supporting her covertly under one arm. Kahn was already out the door, probably off to play golf with the other masters of the universe, or, at least, Wall Street. Michael followed them out, and pressed the elevator for the three of them.
    “So, I look forward to you both working under me,” he said, his voice dripping with innuendo.
    Rose snorted. “Dream on, Huntington. I have standards.”
    “Yes, I’m sure the finest Jersey can offer,” he snapped back. “Besides,” he said, pinching Jennifer’s ass, “I wasn’t talking about you.”
    She stiffened but tried not to acknowledge or react at all to the clumsy pass he’d tried with her. “Not if you were the last man on Earth. I’d start finding out about the wonders of lemurs and gorillas, just saying.”
    “Well, on Monday, just remember I’m the boss.”
    “Oh, how could I forget,” she said, sighing when her phone rang. It was probably Sydney wanting her to bring more DVDs or some other treat. “Hey, sis,” she said. “Meeting’s over so what’s what?”
    It was Mrs. Katz instead. “It’s Sydney. She’s collapsed.”
    ***
    Renal failure .
    The words she understood. Hell, it was a concept that had scared her and her mother for decades—that gnawing fear that one day the insulin problems her sister struggled with would eat through her kidneys. She just didn’t expect that day to ever actually come. Soon she’d have to call her mom, but right now she was numbly trying to process everything that Dr. Singal was telling her. The biggest problem was that her sister would be on dialysis for a long time as she navigated the transplant list. Unfortunately, neither she nor her mom had the right blood type. They’d always joked about being A’s, but her little sister was a B negative.
    “I…but she’ll get one if she’s on the list, right?”
    “That can’t be guaranteed. With dialysis, she can live at least five more years and that might open her up to a donor or to even other advancements in treatment. We’re making them all the time.”
    “That’s not what I asked. What are the odds she’ll get her donor to give her a kidney in time?” she asked, balling her hands up at her side, wishing she could beat up the whole damn world for how unfair everything was, how twisted.
    Dr. Singal looked down at his clipboard and then back at her. “She’s young and she’s managed her condition well. She doesn’t have other complicating factors should she stay compliant. I’d say at least a sixty percent chance.”
    “I…”
    She didn’t even know what to say to that. It was an even greater than one-in-three chance that her sister wouldn’t get better and she’s lose her within the next five years. It was as if someone saw her have five minutes of damn happiness last night and decided that was far too much for Jennifer Wilde to have. God, the devil, Zeus…whoever…had decided to curse her all at once and rip everything out from under her. But a job was just a job. This was her baby sister.
    Suddenly, it was like a jolt of electricity had whizzed through her. Standing up from her chair, her hands still balled into fists at her side, she glared at the doctor. “There has to be another hospital, though, or a foundation that can help her. Syd isn’t going to die.”
    “Miss Wilde, I didn’t say that’s what was going to happen.”
    “But you’re telling me percentages, giving me an estimate of when her time runs out. That’s not good enough,” she said. “There’s got to be something else. Isn’t there any way to get up higher on the list?”
    “No, it’s not manipulated like that.”
    “Then we have to figure out a better treatment, Dr. Singal. I know she’s on Mom’s crappy stuff from working at Walmart, but we have to do something, please.”
    “Miss Wilde, I advise you call your mother and take some time to digest this