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succession of clinics. I didn’t even attend school until I was fifteen. There would have been too many interruptions. My, um, my parents arranged for private tutors to come to me in the hospital. I was fifteen by the time I could stand and walk and even think of leading a normal life.”
    She studied Harry Bolt’s eyes, then switched her gaze to Mike Keillor. It was a toss-up as to who was paying her more attention. She’d rarely been on the receiving end of such intense male scrutiny. It seemed to her that they were listening carefully to her every word and, perhaps, even to the words she wasn’t saying.
    She took a deep breath because the minefield began now.
    “I never thought to ask my parents what happened. My parents were very . . . distant. That’s the only word that really works.” Until the man she knew as her father got all-too-close. “My, um, my father inherited a great deal of money and then he and my mother founded a highly successful real estate business. My mother used to come to visit me a couple of times a month in the hospital, but later she got caught up in the company and didn’t have much time. In the end, she came about once a month to visit. I needed such intense rehabilitation between surgeries, they found it easier to leave me in long-stay hospitals, instead of ferrying me back and forth. They could afford it.”
    And just like that she was pinged back to long, pain-wracked years in luxury clinics, completely alone. The nurses her only human contacts as they rotated in and out of ICU.
    She’d longed desperately for the love of her parents and it was never there. It was just this black hole into which she uselessly poured her love until she learned to stop it.
    She’d waited eagerly for her mother’s visits, every time, all through childhood. Never learning. The visits always followed the same script. Her mother would arrive with an expensive present or two, sit on the edge of the visitor’s chair with her coat on, ask how Chloe was feeling, not listen to the answer, visibly quivering to get away, bolting after a quarter of an hour. Often leaving Chloe in tears until she simply gave up on making her mother care for her, because it just wasn’t going to happen.
    “My parents were these—these distant people who showed up now and again. My mother more than my father. I saw him just a couple of times a year while I was in the clinics. And then finally, when I was fifteen, there were no more surgeries scheduled. The doctors said I was as well as I was ever going to be. I was released, free to go home. My parents had moved houses several times. When I got out of the hospital, I was taken to a home I’d never seen before, in a part of town I didn’t in any way know. A bedroom had been set up for me by an interior decorator. That first week was incredibly strange, as I was in a brand-new setting with parents I barely knew.”
    “Where was this?” Michael Keillor asked quietly.
    “Boston.”
    “And yet you speak with a slight English accent.”
    So far, Harry Bolt hadn’t spoken much. There was no doubt he was listening, though. Chloe had the feeling he was listening intently with every sense he had, not just hearing. And yet, though she had Harry Bolt’s full attention, it was Michael Keillor who was asking her questions.
    The reason she spoke with a faint English accent, which she’d picked up subconsciously, was hard to explain, in every way there was.
    She sat there, trying to put the words together. This was so hard. It was a moment of her life she’d tried to understand, tried to forget, tried to forgive. Nothing worked.
    Chloe took in a deep breath, watching the two men. She was taking up their time but there were absolutely no impatience vibes coming from them. She was familiar with people’s exasperation with her when she needed time to think about what she was saying. One of her many, many failings.
    Only she didn’t feel it was a failing here. Both men were watching