by Virna DePaul
I only saw my grin grow in the shiny reflection of the mirrored doors as we rode up to the eleventh floor.
“What are you smiling about?” Raegan whispered.
“Adjoining rooms,” I whispered back.
She shook her head. “You don’t know that they’re adjoining, Dr. Alexander,” she said in the professional tone she’d use with a patient. “And even if they were, I don’t know what you’re implying.”
The elevator dinged, its doors opened, and Raegan marched down the hall without glancing back at me. She inserted her key card into the slot, shoved open her door, and closed it after a curt nod my way and a demure: “Good night, Dr. Alexander.”
I shook my head. “Good night, Dr. Reynolds.”
I lazily slipped my key card into the door and went inside. I haphazardly draped my jacket over the plush chair by the bed and loosened my tie. I glanced at the watch on my wrist and told myself to wait. I’d perused the fully stocked minibar at least ten times before checking the amount of time that had passed on my watch. I could wait, I told myself. I could wait.
I sank into the plush comforter neatly arranged over the bed and methodically untied my dress shoes before pulling them off half an inch at a time, still telling myself I could wait longer. Refusing to stare at the little hand move round and round the face of my watch, I instead counted the number of trees in the hotel painting that hung on the wall, counted the number of vents in the heating system, counted the knobs on the dresser, the flowers on the bedspread, the panels in the blinds. I was about to count each individual hair on my arm when there was a knock.
It was a small knock, barely audible, and it wasn’t coming from the door to my hotel room. No, it was coming from the door that adjoined my room to the one next to it. I grinned. As slowly as my legs would allow, I walked toward the door and the small little knock. I even made myself count to three before turning the knob.
Before the door was even fully open, Raegan was pushing me back into my room and shoving me onto the bed.
“What took you so long?” she growled as she crawled on top of me and tugged at my tie. “You took forever.”
“Why, Dr. Reynolds?” I said, feigning surprise. “What are you doing in my room? This is highly inappropriate. We are colleagues.”
Raegan laughed and cupped my balls through my slacks, raising an eyebrow. “But we’re alone now. Should I stop?” I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from groaning as she rolled my balls between her fingers. “I mean, if the Board at the hospital found out…”
“Oh, they’d be very...” I said.
She slipped my belt end through its buckle.
“Very...” I tried again.
She pulled the latch through the hole.
“Very...” I choked out.
She pulled down my zipper as my fingers gripped the sheets.
“Upset,” I finally choked out.
She traced a finger along my growing erection that strained against my boxer-briefs, and my hips hitched up into her touch. She lifted an eyebrow and grinned at me. “Why, Dr. Alexander, am I turning you on?”
“No,” I ground out between clenched teeth. “I am a professional.”
Her fingers paused at my waistband. “No?” she asked, stepping off the bed. “Well, aren’t you a good, good boy, then.”
She tapped her fingers on her hips. Then, in one swift move, she lifted her sweater up and over her head, leaving her in just a lacy white bralette that was mostly see-through. My dick twitched at the sight of her. A devilish smirk crossed her face. “What about now?”
“I see you only as a colleague, ma’am,” I said, voice tight.
She shrugged casually and unbuttoned her black pants. My throat grew tight as she shimmied out of them and bent over to tug them off her feet. She lifted her head just enough to grin at me.
Oh, she knew just how good she looked, and damn did she look good. Her tits hung like forbidden fruit in that skimpy little bra, and her braid tumbled off her shoulder like she was goddamn Rapunzel. She stood and pretended to stretch, but she knew full well it was to make me squirm. “Still nothing?” she asked, innocence dripping from her voice as she undid her braid.
But I knew better. This woman was pure danger. A stain appeared on my boxer-briefs where the head of my rock-hard cock was leaking precome. Tension flashed between us like a neon sign off the highway, but I remained where I was, gripping fistfuls of the hotel comforter.
“Nothing,” I gasped. “Nothing at all, Dr. Reynolds.”
“That’s unfortunate.” Her golden hair cascaded down in soft, glowing waves around her shoulders. “Because I, Dr. Alexander, am very turned on.”
She unclipped her bra and shrugged it from her shoulders. I bit my lip as it fell to the floor and she leaned against the wall opposite me with her chest exposed.
I wanted a picture just like this. The way she looked in that dim hotel lighting, naked and confident and looking at me with those blue eyes dark with overwhelming lust. Lust for me. I’d add it to my collection of the photos I took on our trip to that waterfall. The pictures I’d looked at daily after she’d left me. The ones I’d said I’d delete but I didn’t, couldn’t, since they were all I’d had left of her.
“What’s a poor girl to do?” she pouted. Her hand slid down between her tits and across the smooth plain of her stomach. I held my breath as her fingers disappeared into her panties, but I couldn’t help exhaling a low “fuck” when her eyes fluttered closed and she sagged against the wall.
Whatever remaining self-control I had flew straight out the window at the sight of Raegan pleasuring herself.
I dragged myself off the bed and crossed the short distance to her. She opened her eyes to watch me take off my shirt and nearly rip off my pants and my constricting boxer-briefs. I stroked my cock. Her eyes dipped down toward my groin and she licked her lips.
“I thought I wasn’t turning you on, Dr. Alexander?” she whispered.
My eyes drank in her body from head to toe and all the way back up. I squeezed the base of my shaft to keep from exploding just at the sight of her. Our eyes met, and my voice was dark and low when I spoke. “Dr. Reynolds, you know you drive me fucking wild.”
I grabbed her wrist from her panties where she’d been touching herself and spun her around so she was facing the wall.
I tugged her panties roughly and hastily to her ankles, and she planted her hands flat against the wall and shoved her ass back into my crotch. I slapped the round swells of tanned flesh and admired the red mark of my fingers as I lined up my cock with her blissfully wet pussy.
When I’d only gotten as deep as the head, she gave a little purr in the back of her throat and pushed back against me. I chuckled darkly. “Someone’s needy.”
Her fingers curled against the hotel wallpaper, and she growled, “Just shut up and fuck me already.”
Neither of us lasted long after that. I thrust fast and deep inside her as she ground her ass against me. My fingernails left indentations from gripping her waist, clawing greedily for more of her. The hotel room filled with the sound of my balls slapping against her ass and our heavy, rough breaths that sounded like we were sprinting a fucking marathon. Sweat dripped down my chest, down her arched spine, down the wall as her palms slipped and tore at the wall.
When we came within moments of each other, the room filled with screams muted by hands shoved into mouths. Raegan half turned to give me panting, desperate, sloppy kisses and press her breasts against my hands. Strained bedsprings sounded as we fell onto the bed and held each other as tightly as we could in one another’s arms.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” Raegan whispered against my side. She traced circles across my chest in the darkness of the hotel room. “I was just worried about tomorrow.”
I kissed the top of her head and rubbed my hand up and down her arm, but other than that, I held still, as if the circles she traced were rare butterflies that would fly away at the smallest movement.
“It’s just... I’m not sure I want all this to end,” she said, though the words sounded like they were being dragged out of her.
I exhaled slowly. They were the words I’d wanted to hear this whole time. And yet I was paralyzed. Something was…off. What was it?
I looked over at Raegan. She was staring up at the ceiling and chewing at her lip. I waited.
“I want to see where this could go,” she continued, softly. “With you, Noah.”
I’d expected to feel joy if I ever heard those words fall from her lips. But right now, I certainly wasn’t feeling joy. It was as if the puzzle was complete, but I still missed a single, crucial piece.
After a moment of uneasy silence, I asked a question in slow measured words. “What about Graton’s Gift?”
Raegan fidgeted next to me. “I’ll withdraw. We both know you’re perfect for it. The public loves you and you’re a wonderful surgeon. Donations will flood through those doors the second you walk through them. We both know I’m not the right one for the job.”
“Raegan.”
“No, listen,” she said, shifting so she was resting on her elbow. “I’ll find something else here in Denver. Something with less pressure, something more…out of sight. A clinic, maybe.”
I found her hand, so small and delicate and perfect, and held it. She was scared. I knew why. I had just believed she’d be able to overcome it. Just like I had.
But that was the problem. I hadn’t overcome my fear, either. Not really. I’d just masked it, the same way she had with her traveling. With her penance.
We each had to find a way to deal with it, that fear, that stress, that unrelenting pressure. We had to deal with it in a way that was real. Until we did, we couldn’t ever have something as serious as a committed relationship with another person.
I sighed unsteadily. “You can’t hide anymore, Raegan. You have a gift the world needs. You’re meant to save lives, lives that only a talent like you could save.”
I held her and tried to communicate through my touch that I’d be there. I understood what she was going through. I could help her. Together we could be strong, so that when we needed to, we could be weak.
But Raegan wiggled out of my grasp and sat up in bed. She shook her head. “This is for the best, Noah,” she said, her voice wavering. “You take the job and I’ll find something else and we can be together. That’s what you want, right?”
If only she knew. If only she knew it was everything, absolutely everything I wanted. I wanted her with an urgency I’d never experienced before. But, more than my own happiness, I wanted her happiness.
“All right,” I murmured, guiding her back down to bed. I lay her head on my chest and tangled my fingers through her silky hair. “All right, let’s just talk about it in the morning, okay? We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
She nodded against my chest, and I felt the flutter of her heart grow steady. She was soon asleep, and long afterward I was still staring up at the ceiling.
I wasn’t going to be her excuse anymore.
It was time for Raegan Reynolds to live the life she’d always dreamed of, even if in the end, it didn’t include me.
Chapter 19
Raegan
I suppose I deserved it.
Really, if there’s anything I deserved in this world, it was this. I’d awoken with a smile on my face and a lightness in my chest and I’d rolled over to share my happiness with Noah and found the sheets next to me empty.
I’d reassured myself he was in the bathroom, the shower, the dining room downstairs for breakfast, or even my room next door for a quick phone call. He just didn’t want to wake me, that’s all.
I’d wanted to believe that. I really did. But even then, as I sat in the bed we’d shared the night before, I knew it was a lie.
The bathroom was empty. The shower was dry. He wasn’t in my room next door. He wasn’t at the ice machine, the hotel gym, or the dining room downstairs. There was no note, no text message, and no sign of his luggage. The shirt he’d thrown on the floor was no longer there. The pants tossed in a heap had been packed into a suitcase that was out of sight.
He’d opened up to me in the Dominican Republic and I’d left him. Now he’d returned the favor. Fair was fair.
“Dr. Reynolds?”
I blinked and glanced across the small sitting area of Graton’s Gift. A young girl held open the door. “They’re ready for you,” she said with a smile.
I cleared my throat, rearranged my skirt, and forced a smile as I followed her inside the spacious conference room.
Even as the door clicked closed behind me, I considered politely saying this was a mistake. Right now, it certainly felt like a mistake. One of the biggest of my life. But when I came out of the hotel this morning, and there was a car ready to take me to Graton’s Gift hospital, I’d just thanked the driver and got in.
I hadn’t really known what else to do after Noah left. I’d felt like I was moving through water, my motions heavy and uncertain. I hadn’t even arranged to meet up with an old friend of mine from medical school, Dr. Lauren Decker. Lauren had recently started a relationship with a resident, a man ten years her junior. To say we had catching up to do was an understatement, but the last thing I wanted was to talk about love with someone who’d met her Prince Charming. So maybe I had thought of meeting with Lauren but had deliberately chosen not to, bitter woman that I am.
“Dr. Reynolds, it’s a pleasure to meet you face to face.” Rebecca McPherson, the hospital president, greeted me and shook my hand. “This is Dr. Marcus Pierre, our current chief surgeon who’s retiring once we’ve filled his position.”
Rebecca introduced a few more people seated at the end of the conference table. I was usually good with names, but I promptly forgot each of the doctors and their titles. When I took my seat, I realized Rebecca had been speaking and I hadn’t heard a word.
“I’m sorry,” I said, interrupting her. “Can I have a glass of water?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
Rebecca nodded towards her assistant, who slipped quietly out of the conference room. My throat was bone dry and yet my palms felt like they were dripping puddles onto the carpet.
What was I doing here? I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t walk back inside a hospital. I couldn’t walk back inside an operating room. Why did I think I could?
It had been years. I’d probably forgotten everything. My hands weren’t steady like they were before. How could I hold a scalpel with my palms so slippery? And that’s not even considering the bad press I’d bring by accepting a job here.
I was selfish, and a surgeon couldn’t be selfish.
By the time the assistant returned with a glass of water, I’d made up my mind. Being here was a mistake. I would take a sip so I could speak, and then I’d profusely apologize for wasting their time. But as I took a drink, Rebecca spoke up again, and this time I heard her.
“So, as I was saying, we are so happy to have you here for what is now really just a formality.”
I frowned. “A formality?”
Rebecca smiled. “Well, yes. We disqualified one candidate based on workplace behavior that we don’t want as a part of our culture here at Graton’s Gift. And as I was about to say, our other candidate called this morning to withdraw.”
I nearly choked on my water.
“Dr. Reynolds?”
“No, no, I’m fine,” I said. “Withdraw? Who withdrew?”
Rebecca shifted some files across the desk. “We shouldn’t disclose that—”
“Noah.”
Every head at the table lifted at the same moment and looked at me with the same raised eyebrow.
“Dr. Noah Alexander, yes,” Rebecca said slowly.
My mind reeled as I gripped the glass of water with my sweaty hands. “Um, why? Why exactly did he–just this morning?” I stammered. “He withdrew just this morning? Did he…uh…did he say why?”
Rebecca glanced towards a woman at the end of the table.
I struggled to remember who that woman was, but my mind was shocked and blank.
“We honestly aren’t sure how you both knew the other candidate,” she said carefully, “as that was kept confidential. But Dr. Noah Alexander informed us, yes, this morning that he believed you would be the better candidate for the job. He said we would be fools to hire anyone other than you, Dr. Reynolds.”
“He withdrew,” I muttered to myself before taking another shaky sip of water.
Rebecca slid a stack of paperwork with a pen on top of it across the desk.
“We believe you’ll do wonderful things here at Graton’s Gift. On behalf of the board and Dr. Pierre, it’s my pleasure to officially offer you the position of Chief Surgeon of Cardiology.”
I stared at Rebecca. I stared at the paperwork. I stared at my own hands gripping the glass of water.
He did this for me.
Noah gave up the position of a lifetime for me. He gave up more money, more visibility, more fame, for me.
But that wasn’t what struck me. Noah believed I was the best one for the job.
He didn’t judge me for my past. For partying. For dating Oliver. For getting swept up in the brutal world of fame and money. He didn’t see me the way other people saw me, how I started to see myself. Selfish. Greedy. A doctor who cared more for red carpets and champagne toasts than her patients. A woman who used her beauty over her brains. A surgeon who couldn’t be trusted, who people expected to fail.
If he saw me differently, could I see myself differently? As a woman devoted to her patients, committed to her practice, skillful in her art? Could I again be who I knew I always was? Could I drop this mask, this role, this play pretend? Could I be brave again, strong again? Could I be Dr. Reynolds?
“Dr. Reynolds?”
As everyone stared at me, I picked up the pen and tapped it against the offer paperwork in front of me. “I’ll take the position.”
