But Stellan Vore looked at me like he knew exactly which parts of me were real and which parts were polished for a boardroom.
“My father said you needed a wife,” I repeated, this time colder. “I assume he was joking.”
Stellan picked up the warped board and leaned it against the fence.
“Raymond doesn’t joke when something matters.”
That was the first thing he said that frightened me.
Because it was true.
My father had built Heart Wellness Group from one rented storefront in Fort Collins into a company with fourteen clinics across Colorado. He had survived bad loans, snowstorms, payroll panics, hospital contracts, insurance fights, and my mother’s cancer.
He joked about goat cheese.
He joked about his bad knees.
He did not joke about people.
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