He was waiting and I was thinking too much.
“All of them.” I thought the best answer to give was the same as him, but heat crept up my cheeks as soon as the words left my mouth.
“Wow, really? You like all too?”
“I think so. But, not at the same time.”
He chuckled and it sounded like the best sound I’d ever heard. “No?”
“I haven’t tried yet.” It was time to shut up. I accomplished the mission and needed to flee. Except, my legs couldn’t move.
“Does that work?”
“What?”
“My answer, does that help your game?”
I blinked. “Yes, that’s perfect.” Time to go. I couldn’t think of anything else to say after that. Nothing I’d said was remotely close to a conversation starter from which we could continue—and if we did continue the conversation, what would we talk about? “Thanks so much.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes, nice to meet you.” I turned and rushed away before he could say anything else. I did look back just once over my shoulder and saw he was looking at me.
With my focus on I went back to Kelly and grabbed her arm.
“You little minx. I hope you saw what I just did,” I hissed tugging her along.
“Good girl. Let’s grab a taxi and have some wine. You made it Paige! You are going to be the most amazing surgeon. Dreams. It deserves one more drink.”
When she put it like that I had to agree.
What was one more drink ?
Chapter 2
Paige
It made you late, that was what it did.
One more drink made me late. Made me late for probably the most important day of my life.
Why did I think it was a good idea to continue the drink-fest when we got home?
I didn’t just have one more drink, it was more like a few.
I was over an hour late already and so far from ready to leave.
I woke up on the kitchen floor with my head resting on a cushion.
I couldn’t remember how I got there.
What kind of a fool was I to be late, today of all days? It was fine to celebrate but what if I’d ruined the thing I was supposed to be celebrating?
It was a year and a month ago now that I’d had my accident.
An accident that took Lizzie’s life and robbed me of one whole year of my residency.
Instead of today being the first day of my second year, like Kelly, I was a year behind. I spent six months of that year in and out of the hospital. At first recovering from my injuries, then having to go through physical therapy.
Today was my fresh start and I was late.
And where was Kelly?
When I rushed up to the bathroom I got my answer.
Kelly was asleep in the bathtub.
And, she wasn’t alone. She was lying on top of a blond-haired guy I’d never seen before, wrapped in a tartan-patterned sheet. And they both seemed to be naked.
“What the hell,” I breathed.
Questions swirled in my head. Who was this guy? Where did he come from? As far as I remembered when Kelly and I both got home it was just us.
No time for the answer.
I leaned forward and poked her hard in her shoulder. “Kelly wake up.”
She actually growled at me and swatted away my hands. “Don’t tell the cats,” she snapped.
“What? Kelly we’re late.”
“Not going.”
I couldn’t do this. She was already in the bosom of the powers that be at St. Michaels. I was the newbie, not her. It would be worse for me to be later than I already was.
The most she would probably get is a slap on the wrist while I could potentially have my contract terminated. On that thought I got myself ready as quickly as I could and left.
I drove my little Miata. It served me well and I trusted it. It may sound odd to people when I explained things like that but I had my reasons, unfounded though they may be. It was me who was driving the car at the time of my accident. A drunk driver came straight at us. I got serious injuries but Lizzie died at the scene.
After the whole incident I found myself having all manner of thoughts. All based on guilt and fear. It was hard for me to drive again, and when I did start again, I had to bond with the car first. It didn’t matter what brand it was. Anxiety robbed me of a social life and it transferred to my driving too.
I’d always found myself wondering what would have happened if I’d had a faster car or a car that was more maneuverable. Anything that could have helped me move the car quick enough out of harm’s way when the drunk driver crashed into us.
Anything.
Twenty minutes later I pulled up in the staff parking lot at St. Michaels and rushed into the building. Thank God I’d missed the rush hour traffic. That would have added another half an hour on to my journey.
Kelly and I had done our internship here but we were located at the site in Pittsburgh. It was a smaller site and set up more like how the campus was at Stanford. This was the New York site in a bigger general hospital that had access to many services.
For both Kelly and me it meant being closer to family and closer to where we wanted to live. When we went to Stanford we got our moving away and living life experience. Now we were home and back at the place we wanted to settle down.
I whipped out my schedule from my bag and scanned over it.
I’d missed the orientation meeting. That had been the first thing at seven. I also missed the teaching conference at eight. What I was late for was the huddle with my mentor, Ryan Dawson.
That was in one of the small lecture theaters in the east wing. The east wing that would have to be east, as in on the other side of the building.
I started running down the corridor, doing my best not to bump into anybody I might have looked insane to.
I made it to the hall five minutes later. I got there and stopped outside the door with my anxiety starting to rise with each second.
I was now fifteen minutes late for this huddle. Maybe Ryan Dawson was a nice guy and he’d be forgiving of my lateness, as it was the first day.
The mentor I had on the first day of my internship was as nice as pie. She even bought her intern group little gift bags. Maybe he would be the same.
On a deep breath I opened the door and it creaked open, disturbing the people inside who all turned around. Ten of them were seated and looked like first-year residents. There were another two middle-aged-looking doctors in the corner, but my gaze landed on the guy who was standing at the front of the room holding a folder.
It was Mr. Hollywood Gorgeous from last night. Mr. Hollywood Gorgeous who I asked what his favorite sex position was and he’d answered all.
The thing was the guy from last night seemed like a casual, laid back guy. This person in front of me looked like he never smiled, ever.
“Good morning.” I thought I should be the first to talk since it was me who interrupted the class. “I’m so sorry I’m late. I—”
He held up his hand to stop me from continuing.
“No apologies necessary,” he began. “I have no time for time-wasters who clearly have no concept of the importance of this program. Consider this one strike, Dr. Taylor.”
He knew my name.
My poor self. If there were a time I wished for a black hole it was now.
It was definitely right now, and damn it to hell this topped the embarrassment I felt last night. Last night I fled thinking he was one guy I wouldn’t see again.
This today was humiliating, and in front of everyone.
“But I—” I attempted but he cut me off again.
“No, whatever it is you have to say it’s a no. You can leave now. And just for the record I am a prick with no compassion.”
I’m pretty sure my whole body blushed.
Thankfully my brain was still working enough to get my feet moving back the way I’
d come.
I closed the door.
So much for the first day of the rest of my life.
The first day was already shit. Did I want to know what happened next?
Chapter 3
Ryan
A prick with no compassion…
Yes, that about summed me up just right.
Better for her to think of me like that than the way I was last night.
Me, the guy who was so hyped up on wild sexual curiosity after that little conversation of ours.
I didn’t know what the hell kind of game she was playing last night, but it left me with a hard-on and the need for a cold shower as I watched her practically flee from me.
No man alive would have acted any different than how I did.
Last night I’d thought I hit the damn jackpot when I first saw her. Her platinum-blonde hair hanging down her shoulders in long graceful waves and that pouty mouth that got me thinking about what else those lips would be good for.
I’d absolutely thought I’d hit the jackpot. That was the truth. I’d met up with my best friend, Ben, and he was called away as usual by Amanda, his crazy girlfriend. I went to the bar to order one last drink before heading home. Then I turned and saw Paige coming toward me and our eyes locked.
A woman in the bar wouldn’t be off limits to me. Not like the women within the walls of every site that could be deemed property of St. Michael’s. That was how my father put it.
Admittedly my heart sunk when she informed me she was a resident. It just brought right on back that off-limits flag to me, and the fact that it was her first year solidified it.
But not enough to free me from thoughts of imagining her naked, enjoying all the sexual positions she said she loved.
What a strange conversation to have, and I was so stuck on her beauty that the wonder of who her mentor was only crossed my mind after she walked away.
That I was the prick she was talking about in her little story signaled that the universe had to definitely be screwing with me.
Prick without compassion. Yes.
Except…
Except I wasn’t normally like that at work. Not normally but should have been. If only for the sake of preserving my family name.
I would have gladly chosen to be the Ryan I was today over the one in the past who was more suited to be called a manwhore.
The manwhore who abused everything and had so much freedom in the hospital because his father was the governor of the board, as well as the medical director.
I’d sailed through the last four years of my residency barely getting by and knowing Dad would take care of it. He’d turn a blind eye, he’d look the other way and let me continue the way I was. Living la vida loca.
Then it all blew up in my face and I got a very rude awakening. The kind that shook me. The kind that could make you change or break you.
What happened was Celina.
Speak that name to anyone and they’d know the whole story because it was the biggest scandal to hit St. Michael’s.
Celina was a junior doctor in the first year of her residency. I never realized what the fuck I was getting into when I got involved with her. We hooked up a few times and then I broke it off when the next hot nurse came my way.
Celina decided to get me back by claiming I raped her at a house party. Lies concocted to destroy me.
Me…the guy who, as wild as I was, would never even kiss a woman when she was drunk.
The problem was I never had a leg to stand on because I got wasted out of my mind and had no memory of what happened. I remembered being at the party, talking to her, and her trying to seduce me. The drinking started from then, and then I woke up at my house the next day with the cops barging in to arrest me.
Me who had no clue as to why I was being arrested or what had happened.
The scandal spread everywhere and my parents went apeshit.
My saving grace was a receipt from a bar I apparently went to. The receipt was in my pocket. It was the lawyers my dad hired that made that possible. From the information on that receipt, footage of me was accessed from the bar and showed I’d stayed there all night and it was one of the bartenders who’d ordered a taxi to get me home in the early hours of the morning.
The truth clashed with all of Celina’s accusations. From the time we were supposedly together to the time she apparently escaped from me. None of which was verified because I’d been at the bar.
That whole experience was my eye-opener and as innocent as I was, Dad gave me the ultimatum.
I was on a six-year residency there. I’d served four of those years already. I was thirty years old and my father had given me an ultimatum.
Shape up or get out.
I deserved it. What happened was all my fault.
This year was my last chance. The last chance at being who I’d wanted to be and not this person I’d become with Dad watching my every move so I didn’t embarrass the family any more than I had.
I worked at St. Michael’s with him and Cole, my older brother, both in senior positions, so I had them watching me worse than a hawk would over its prey.
The watching and supervising started the moment Dad hit me with the ultimatum. The in-depth supervision of my work began two weeks ago when I was given a lecture on what was expected from me this year. The expectations of me and my mentees.
The bottom line was Dad was giving me a chance to stay on the residency and a chance to do more from the potential he saw in me. I got the mentor position because of my breakthrough research on radiation therapy on thoracic tumors. Research I’d undertaken from the start of my first year of residency. Research that was starting to get noticed by the medical world at large. It was all based on trying to centralize and isolate the radiation treatment on the affected area so it wouldn’t cause damage to the other vital organs and tissue in the thoracic cavity. My idea was to hone in the assistance of nanotechnology. That was what it all was.
Dad was giving me a chance because of that, and he didn’t want any shit happening this year to make him look bad.
He’d get rid of my ass at the first sign of trouble. That was it, and he said as much at the same time he gave me the list of my mentees.
How I wished that list came with photos. If they had I would have known to watch for the woman who would be the first to entice me into trouble.
I would have spotted Dr. Paige Taylor as she made her way over to me at the bar and I would have headed the opposite way. I wouldn’t have allowed myself to indulge in her and her beauty.
It was definitely the change in me that kicked into overdrive this morning when I knew I embarrassed the hell out of her.
And, yes I did mean to do that. Along with the other mentees in the lecture hall with me was Dr. Barry. My supervisor. He was supervising but I also knew he was watching and reporting back to Dad.
So while Dr. Taylor may have stirred something inside me, that something would be something I’d have to shove to the back of my mind because the new Ryan was thinking with his brain and not his dick.
There was a little knock on my door. The knock seemed almost tentative and cautious.
I knew who it was before I gave the okay to come in.
The door opened similar to how it had earlier in the lecture theatre and there she stood.
Dr. Paige Taylor.
She was wearing scrubs and carried a little cotton shoulder bag. Her mass of white-blonde hair was piled up on top of her head in a messy bun and her bright green eyes looked me over with caution.
I’d actually come back to the office because I was expecting her.
It was just after lunch and she’d missed out on a host of things I’d done with the group.
“Hi, I’m sorry to bother you,” she said straightening up a little.
“What can I do to help you?”
“I was told I had to see you to get my personalized worksheet and new starter pack.”
I’d already had those things out waiting on my desk. Since she was the only one who was late this morning I’d kept them in my personal folder.
I reached for them and walked over to hand them to her.
“Thank you.” She took them. “Look, um Dr. Dawson I’m truly sorry about this morning…and…last night. That was not me at all.”
I believed her. The records matched the impression of the person she appeared to be in front of me.
She looked like the astute and studious type and her records said the same. Graduated from Stanford with a high GPA. Everything seemed perfect. She even had a few scholarships thrown in too. I’d had her on my mind because I was aware of her situation. Last year she was supposed to start with us but was involved in a car accident that killed her twin. I was aware that I may have to show some sensitivity but there was a line between sensitivity and pity. Sensitivity and sympathy even.
“Well Dr. Taylor I’m sure you know you don’t get to make a first impression twice. This is the third time we’ve spoken in the last twenty-four hours and neither time has impressed me. Although I will say that the first encounter was definitely the most memorable.” I was such a hypocrite, one who was lying through his teeth.
“I swear I’m not like that and I’m serious about being here.” She gave me a firm nod. “I’m…a year behind and I want to catch up. I know it’s no excuse but I didn’t know who you were last night. I had too much to drink and wasn’t thinking. That is not something that will be a regular occurrence.”
“It better not be because this year is about learning. You want to be a surgeon? Start acting like one. The hours are long and it’s more hands on. More practical work you have to do. You can’t just roll into work whenever you feel like it.” Not the way I did through my whole internship, and the last few years. Most weeks saw me doing an average of about fifteen hours.
“I understand and I assure you it won’t happen again. I’m sure you must be aware of the reasons for my year out. This year matters to me.”
I looked at her as she stared at me with expectancy. It was like she was waiting for me to tell her it was all okay.
Dr Dawson Page 2
