"Eventually, Sir, I will take her with me, yes."

"And you believe I'll just let her go with you? Paying the bills doesn't make you any wiser than me, Callum. She's on the last legs of her time frame. You don't have enough chances left to learn and get it right."

"Then compromise with me," I snapped. "Let me at the very least love her before time runs out."

Timothy's jaw clenched, his hands fell to his sides. "Are you really so blind? Why do you think you're not facing a slew of charges right now? Kicked out of school?"

"Because you like games of manipulation," I answered tiredly. I was so done with this argument.

His feet stopped just before mine. We were about the same height but his shoulders spanned wider, making his presence loom over mine. "I gave you three times as much work as any other student and the worst rotations of any student I have made suffer in nearly five years. I gave you a differential that was impossible to solve. I threatened your future and your family. Today you will graduate at the top of your class and have a spot guaranteed in Atlanta. If you had left my daughter alone I would have happily offered you a job at Presbyterian. So tell me something, were my brutal efforts to make you better in vain?"

"I don't owe you anything," I argued, "because you weren't the one who pushed me to become a better doctor. Just as you aren't responsible for Everly being alive-not completely-it's her spirit. It's her fighter's heart. It's her hope, an anchor that you care nothing about."

"That's why you're green," he fumed, "You haven't listened to a thing I've said! The point is why have I given you the chance to prove me wrong over and over again? I could easily get rid of you, Callum. That isn't the problem. The problem is what to do with you now. You proved me wrong . . . so what do I do with you, Trovatto? I'm obviously not going to just hand you my daughter, and you're too stupid and unwilling to back down. Duplicity is not an option, either."

"Well if you are the great groomer you profess, why not allow Everly to choose? She's been under your influence for twenty years. Let her decide."

Timothy laughed mockingly under his breath. "It has nothing to do with my ability. Love clouds the mind. So whatever I have instilled in her would be lost to fairytale type mentality." He stepped around me. "The truth is that I have allowed you to do exactly what you wanted. I let you love her at minimum. Wish granted, Callum."

All I could think was, "Why is he goading me?" He wasn't trying to win. He was leading.

Marta's words from Christmas Eve found me.

I looked at him and declared, "I want to offer her everything that you can't. Dr. Brighton."

He faced the fish tank again. "Then perhaps my counter offer should be that I would have to offer her what you can't provide, Callum."

"And how would that work?" I asked.

"Firstly, she'll be staying in New York. And I'll remain in charge of her medical care."

My hands trembled. "And secondly, Sir?"

"If . . . if Everly surpasses her twenty-first birthday . . . she can go with you."

Nervously I asked, "Go with me where, Sir?"

"She's no longer mine after that age. I never dreamed she'd live past three let alone twenty-one, so . . . those years belong to her. She can do with them what she wishes." He faced me. "I'd like to see you prove me wrong once again-that her life isn't a simple string of science and meticulous routines and rules that have kept her alive."

I leaned closer. "There is only one thing I love more in this world than proving you wrong, Dr. Brighton."

He turned toward the hall and took several steps before he paused. "And be sure to tell your idiot friend to keep both hands on the wheel."

I smiled to myself, but then called back to him, "What did Arthur say when you told him you'd hired me?"

Tim paused, and then angled toward me. "Why would I have told him that?"

"You just said I passed all of your tests . . . and Everly is staying here, so . . . why wouldn't you hire me?"

"Well firstly, Callum, you didn't ask to be hired by me. You went behind my back and applied for a-as you said-guaranteed position."

I already knew the trap I walked into. "I actually believed you had a shadow in your chest."

"Pardon?" He said.

"A suggestion of where your heart must have once lived," I expanded with fire. "But you don't believe Everly will ever see her twenty-first birthday, so you've offered me nothing."

"I told Arthur you were the best student in my class. You have a job. That was what you wanted and you got it. Well done."

I shook with anger. "No, all I did was walk into a trap."

"I told you Callum," he said, "you're green. You should have known better than to ever cross me." He tucked his hands into his coat pockets as he said, "But my word is true. If she lives, she's free to go."

"And if she dies?" I snapped. "If the last year of her life is spent being heartbroken rather than loved beyond measure . . . what does that prove?" I stepped to him on the verge of wiping him off the map. "Why are you so afraid for someone to love her-because you can't?"