by Parker, Ali
“Shane, what have you got for me?” There was no need for niceties with the lawyer. I was paying him by the hour, I wasn’t wasting a minute of that time. “Is it ready?”
“Everything you asked me for is ready for Monday,” he replied curtly. “Good luck, Dr. Page.”
“Thank you.” I ended the call after saying goodbye, staring down at the phone for a second too long after hanging up. A part of me wondered if I had made a mistake in not bringing up the rule to him while I’d already had him on the phone. I didn’t know if it would have made a damned bit of a difference clearing that up with him now,
Hearing from Shane had brought Olive back to the front and center of my mind, not that she had been very far away from it. Already holding my phone with my call log open, I scrolled until I found the last call I had received from Olive.
Her contact details were right there. All it would take—to open the lines of communication between us and to tell her everything—was the push of one button, but I couldn’t do it. It was too dangerous, and I didn’t have the go-ahead from her bosses.
Fighting the urge to call her anyway, I shoved the phone back in my pocket and stalked out of the cafeteria. I had a fucking surgery to get to.
Chapter 34
Olive
Shane walked into my office with a tweed jacket hanging over his arm and an old school cap on his head. “Pack your things, dear. We’re going to lunch.”
He walked through my office to the outer door, holding it open and looking at me expectantly. “Well, are you coming? I’ve made a reservation, and I’d hate to be late.”
Seated at my desk, I frowned and looked around my office. “Are you talking to me?”
“Yes.” He wagged his brows at me. “I haven’t lost all my marbles quite yet. I’m well aware that there’s no one else in this office with us.”
I laughed, lifting my hands with my palms up. “You never know. That might not be a good thing. There could be a gorgeous, charming lady ghost standing right behind me that you could have invited with you instead.”
“Alas, my dear.” He grinned and waved his left hand in the air, a ray of sunlight catching on the thin golden band around his ring finger. “The only gorgeous, charming lady in my life now is my wife. And you, of course.”
I smiled and inclined my head, having learned that there was no point arguing with a person who litigated and literally argued for a living. “Thanks, Shane. Thank you for the invitation as well, but I really can’t go out to lunch today. Too much work.”
I gestured at the stacks of files and briefs covering my desk. “My boss keeps me insanely busy, so I don’t have any time to go off and gallivant.”
“What an asshole.” He winked. “He’s my boss, too, so I know he can be a slave driver. Let’s duck out before he comes back.”
“I really can’t, Shane. You said you needed that discovery done by this afternoon and I’m nowhere near ready with it.”
He walked to my desk, closing the file I was busy with. “I won’t take no for an answer, my dear. You can finish the discovery when we get back. If you don’t manage to get it done today, tomorrow will also do.”
“I—” He didn’t hear my next protest out, simply motioning for me to follow him. I sighed quietly, not wanting him to hear it.
Shane was still the best boss I’d ever had by a large margin, but I just wasn’t up for going out and making small talk. The gaping hole in my chest was still throbbing and raw. My eyes burned from crying so much at night and not getting a decent amount of sleep, and my brain felt like mush.
The only thoughts it felt like I could conjure up with perfect clarity were those of Rylen. I could remember the way the gold swirls in his eyes lightened the green and the blue so vividly that if I had been an artist, I would have been able to paint them flawlessly.
I remembered how his voice was smooth when he was happy and turned just a little hoarser when he was turned on. I could practically hear his laughter in my ears.
Of course, none of those things were things that were actually useful in real life. In real life, my brain felt like it was reaching for thoughts, but it would spin and forget them before I got there. It was frustrating and it was slowing me down.
As much as I would have liked to have been invited to lunch with Shane a week ago, I didn’t want to go today. He was still looking at me with a stern, yet kind expression and was clearly waiting for me to move my butt.
Nodding at him as I exhaled another deep breath, I bent down to retrieve my purse and slung it over my shoulder. Following Shane out of the office and onto the sidewalk, I was surprised to find a town car and driver waiting for us.
“Good afternoon, Mikey,” Shane said cheerfully, stopping when he reached the driver and motioning me into the car ahead of him. “Are you well?”
“Very well, sir.” The driver, who I assumed was named Mikey, grinned and nodded at Shane. The two of them chatted as I slid onto the leather back seat. Shane climbed in a moment later.
“I’m so glad you’re joining me today, Olive.” He smiled and patted my hand with his much softer one. “You look like you need something to cheer up and if Pascali’s steaks don’t cheer you up, we may as well take you out to the pasture and put a bullet in your brain.”
“What?” I frowned, searching my hazy brain for the reference he was making. “Oh, right. Because then I’d have had it?”
He nodded, seeming pleased that I’d gotten there myself in the end. “Exactly. That man in a true master at cooking meat. Eating one of his meals always cheers me right up, no matter what is going on in my life.”
“Had you been going there before you met your wife?”
Shane looked surprised by the question, but then he nodded. “Yes. I still go there for dinner whenever we’ve had a tiff. I’m telling you, his food will cheer you up.”
“Why do you think I need cheering up?”
He cocked his head, lifting a silver eyebrow. “My powers of observation and deduction are rather astute, my dear girl. Judging by the way your eyes have been watery and red all week, your mood mopey and that question you just asked, I’m sensing you’re having some issues with your relationship.”
“I’m not in a relationship.” It hurt to say it out loud. Even though Rylen and I had been careful about spelling out exactly what we were to each other, we had been something. There had been a relationship between us, and now there wasn’t. Admitting that was difficult. “Not anymore, anyway.”
“What happened?” Shane asked, his tone gentle. It was nothing like the way I’d heard him asking questions in court. This was kind, fatherly, and caring. It very nearly made me burst out in tears again. Although, making me burst into tears didn’t take much these days.
Breathing in a few deep gulps of air to avoid making myself look like an overly emotional cry baby in front of my boss, I leaned my head back against the soft leather and closed my eyes. “The guy I thought was everything I ever wanted, the only one I’ve ever wanted everything with, turned out to be a liar. He would rather hide things and keep secrets than be with me, so we broke up. Also, he became a client so everything else is moot anyway. I know there is a rule against getting involved with clients.”
We must have arrived at Pascali’s, because the car slowed just as my sentence ended. Shane gave me a sympathetic smile and patted my hand again, not saying anything until we were seated and had a basket of fresh bread between us.
He placed our order without looking at the menu and turned to face me when the waiter left. “Setting aside the fact that he’s a client for the moment, this boyfriend of yours, do you know what it is that he was hiding?”
I shook my head, lifting my shoulders. “No, but it doesn’t matter what it was. I can’t be involved with someone who is lying to me or keeping things from me.”
Shane’s eyes narrowed, but not in a mean way. It was more like he was thinking about what I’d said and was carefully considering his answer. Eventually, he started nodding
slowly, tapping his fingers on the linen tablecloth and making sounds of affirmation.
“Have you considered the possibility that keeping secrets isn’t always a bad thing?” He tilted his head, his eyes sincere but serious.
“I haven’t, no. In my experience, it’s always been a bad thing. The reasons for keeping a secret are usually only justifications for doing something you know you shouldn’t be doing.”
His bowed his head a little, but then looked back at me. “Justification also isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, by its very definition, it is the act of showing something to be right and reasonable.”
“You just knew that? Like right off the top of your head?”
Nodding, he flashed me a small smile. “You would be surprised at the amount of times that very definition has been useful in my personal and my professional lives. The point is that showing something to be right and reasonable is a good thing, is it not?”
“I guess it can be, but it doesn’t matter in my situation anyway. He wouldn’t tell me anything, not even a justification or an excuse.”
I had asked myself time and again whether it would have mattered if he had. I had asked him to give me anything, after all. It didn’t feel like anything he could have said would have made a difference, though—not when he wouldn’t tell me the truth.
Shane rubbed the stubble on his chin and cheeks, searching for something in my eyes. “I keep many things from many people. I don’t tell them a single thing about what I’m keeping from them or others. Does that make me a bad person?”
“It’s part of your job to keep things confidential,” I said. “This isn’t the same.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s not a lawyer.”
“There are other professions that have to keep things confidential. Doctors, for instance. They subscribe to rules of privilege and confidentiality that are as stringent as ours are.”
Something about the way he said it made me feel like he hadn’t chosen the medical profession as an example randomly. I’d never told him anything about Rylen, though. I didn’t even think I’d ever mentioned his name to Shane.
Although to be fair, it might have been Shane that Rylen had seen that day. In fact, given that Shane had told me to go out for lunch and stay out for longer, I was willing to bet it was him.
“Rylen isn’t the person you think he is right now, Olive,” Shane said, confirming my suspicions. I still didn’t know how he knew that Rylen was the guy I had been seeing, but I was assuming it must have come up in their conversation. “As for the rule against getting involved with clients, your situation is different than the one we envisioned when the rule was made. He was your boyfriend before he became a client of the firm. You’re not running around jumping into bed with clients that you met at the firm. That is why the rule exists to guard against, not to prevent anyone our employees may be involved with to seek out our services in the same way the general public does.”
Shane kept talking, unaffected by everything he had just given away. “Tell you what, my dear, why don’t you take the rest of the week off? It seems to me like you need some personal time. Now, here’s our food. You’ll see, you’ll feel so much better by the time we walk out of here.”
Chapter 35
Rylen
Edgar walked out of the operating room with me, apparently at a loss for words. Since I happened to know that he wasn’t one to be rendered speechless easily, it was a sign that I wasn’t the only one feeling traumatized over what had just happened.
He didn’t say anything while we were getting cleaned up and he didn’t say a word as we headed for our lockers. The surgery we had just walked out of had been our last for the day and for that, I was grateful. I didn’t think I’d have the wherewithal to perform another surgery right away.
As it was, I was going to be having nightmares about the one we’d just had for a long time coming. Edgar walked into the changing rooms behind me and uttered the first word that had been spoken by either of us since the machines had gone silent.
“Coffee when we’re done?”
I gave my head a firm shake. “I’m going to go to my office. I need to get the paperwork for this done and then I’m heading home.”
“Okay.” He fell silent again, changing out of his scrubs and into his casual clothes. I did the same thing, but as I sat down to tie my shoes, I found my head in my hands and the shoes forgotten.
Tugging at the strands that were matted from the length of time I’d worn the surgical cap, I tried to make sense of everything that had happened. If there was an inquiry into the patient’s surgery, I was so fucked.
I’d done everything medically and surgically possible for him, but I hadn’t done enough. Obviously.
My brain felt like it had left the building and for the first time in my life, I truly understood what was meant by the term airhead. I sure as hell felt like one right now.
My stomach was rolling and tightening, but I wasn’t nauseated. I was confused and not quite sure where I was supposed to go from here. And I didn’t mean literally.
The trajectory my career had been following had been based on my streak, and now it was over. So what the fuck now?
Edgar sat down next to me, close enough that I felt the wood slats shift under my butt. A heavy hand landed on my shoulders, beefy fingers squeezing. “You couldn’t keep up your streak forever, man. How many times have you told me that?”
“I know,” I mumbled into my hands, my head shaking as I lifted it and looked into Edgar’s brown eyes. “I just don’t really know what to do with this, you know? Knowing it was going to come to an end was different from having it actually happen.”
“As the guy who has been standing right there next to you during every one of your surgeries, I think I know better than probably anyone how you feel. You did your best, though, okay? No second-guessing yourself. It won’t change the outcome, and I was there. I can tell you that no one would have done a better job in there than you did.”
Oh, I did my best all right. Just not in the way he was talking about. “I know. I did what I had to do in there.”
I really had. I just wasn’t sure if what I’d had to do was something I should have gotten myself into, in the first place. As Edgar had said, though, there was no point second-guessing myself now.
It was all said and done. All I had left to do was to file the official paperwork after making sure I had dotted my i’s and crossed my t’s, and then I had to hope that I had done a good enough job that no one could point a finger at me.
Until that paperwork was filed, however, I was going to be tense as fuck. With that in mind, I stood up from the bench and gave Edgar a thud on the back. “I’d better get to my office. I want to get everything done while it’s still fresh in my mind.”
“I get it.” He stood up, too, following me to the door. “If you need any details, just give me a call. I could come to your office with you now too. Just in case you need me.”
“I should be fine.” There was no way I wanted Edgar anywhere near the paperwork. Besides, it was my signature at the bottom and I had been the one to call it, no reason to drag someone else into it now.
Well, no more “someone else’s” than had already been dragged into it. No one from my side, anyway. “Thanks for the offer, but I want to be alone for now.”
He nodded. “Okay. I’m here if you need me.”
“Thanks, man.” We said our goodbyes and went in our separate directions. I was more desperate than I could remember being in a long time to go home, pour myself a stiff drink, and to just be. But I couldn’t do that, not yet.
Paperwork had always been the bane of my existence. I wasn’t usually much good at it, even if I was thorough and provided all the necessary details. I just didn’t really have a head for administrative stuff.
This report was different, though. It was the first time I had to fill out a report of this nature and it was fucking crucial that I did it properly. There could be no
cutting corners, no vagueness, and not even the smallest detail could be forgotten.
Painstakingly slow, I filled out the required paperwork. As it turned out, it was much more of a mission to get it done when the patient had died than if they’d lived. Even if our patient hadn’t had any family members listed or present, the hospital still wanted to make sure that everyone’s asses were covered.
When I was finally done, I sat back and signed my name on the last dotted line. Right above my signature were three words that could change my life forever, “Rayce Phillips. Deceased.”
I sighed, noting that my breath came out staggered. Pressing my hands to my tired eyes, I rubbed as I shook my head. I still couldn’t believe everything that happened.
Rayce. Fuck.
The certificate may have him at thirty-five, but I remembered Rayce as a teenager. There would always be a part of me that would think of him that way: as the brooding, dark-haired little punk who tried to act like he didn’t give a shit.
Rayce Phillips had always tried to act that way, but the truth was that no one had ever given more shits than that guy. All the little kids were like his army, and they were under his protection.
I hadn’t grown up in the foster system like Rayce and Will had, but I had grown up in the same neighborhood. Those foster kids had been my best friends, my brothers even.
Some of them didn’t know their biological parents, but I had the misfortune of knowing mine. I’d often wondered if I wouldn’t have been better off in the system than I was in my home. I knew what those kids went through in the group homes, but I had gone through a lot of the same stuff in my house.
Will and I had bonded over a shared love of frogs one day when we had been about seven years old. Rayce had come to the pond near the house to look for Will at some point, and at first, he’d told me to stay the fuck away from them.
