Chapter Seven
Emma still couldn’t believe Vince was going through with the exam just to help her out. Her. A nobody. She was practically a total stranger. That was so far above and beyond anything she’d ever expected, he practically lived on Mars.
He deserved a thank you. When she got home from work, she was making him the biggest, best peach pie of her life.
“Girlfriend, you have got to tell me your secret,” Macy said, staring down the hall at the closed exam room door Vince was in. “What did you do to get that gorgeous man to agree to let your doctor fist his goods?”
“Macy!” Emma sucked in a breath as she glanced around to see if anyone had heard. Thankfully, reception was too far away, and none of the nurses were in the hall or at their station. “Shh…and you know the doctors don’t do that.”
“No, they just probe where the sun doesn’t shine.”
Emma shook her head. Better to just shut up, then her friend would move on to another subject.
“Wait.” Macy tipped her chin. “Maybe that’s how Vince swings. I mean, maybe that’s why he suggested it.”
“Maybe we should change the subject,” Emma said, glancing around again.
Her friend exhaled and waved a hand. “All right. Fine. You can tell me what you’re going to do to make it up to the guy.”
“Make him a pie.”
“The poor man deserves a hell of a lot more than pie for putting his ass on the line. Literally.” Macy smirked. “But, since your peach pie is to die for, I’d say it’s cool. Even if he fell into the other category.”
Emma narrowed her gaze and cocked her head. “What other category?”
“The one where the guy didn’t know what kind of doctor you worked for,” Macy replied.
Didn’t know?
“Nah.” Emma shook her head. “He knew.”
“So you did tell him.” Macy raised a brow. “That’s good. Could you imagine if he didn’t know?” Her friend slapped a hand to her chest and shook with glee.
Macy was right. It was a good thing Emma told him. Only, she couldn’t quite recall doing that. But, she must have…at some point. Probably.
Her heart sank.
What if she hadn’t?
The exam room door opened, putting an end to her dire thoughts and sending her pulse into orbit.
She needed to…what? Play it cool with Stephan, but smile at Vince? Ignore them both? Or maybe hide in the bathroom and hyperventilate.
She exhaled slowly. No. If she wanted to hook up with Stephan, she needed to stay put and see this through.
Since Vince was supposed to be someone she was interested in, it would probably appear odd if she didn’t at least smile at the guy.
She watched as the two men walked out. They were shaking hands and laughing like old friends.
Okay, so maybe she was in the clear. Vince had to know what kind of exam—
“Maybe he did like it,” Macy mumbled, the smile evident in her tone as she broke through Emma’s thoughts.
Ignoring her friend, she waited, heart pounding out of her chest as Stephan walked Vince down the hall toward the billing desk, then returned alone.
Setting the folder in the basket on the counter, he smiled down at them. “That patient went to basic with my brother.”
Which explained the comradery.
“Don’t that beat all?” Macy said. “Emma knows him, too.”
Son of a beeswax.
Her heart lurched, and even though she wanted to smack her friend, she refrained.
Barely.
“You know him?” Stephan frowned, interest and—dare she label the other emotion in his eyes as…apprehension? “How?”
Blurting out Vince was interested in her and vice versa seemed a little weird, so she decided to ease into it. “He’s my neighbor’s brother.”
Macy kicked her shin.
She swallowed a curse and was about to add the interested in each other part when her phone vibrated in her pocket.
“It’s a small world.” Stephan straightened from the counter. “I’d better get back to work. See you ladies later.”
Nodding, she pulled out her phone to find a text from Vince asking if she could take a quick break and meet him in the corridor outside the practice.
Shoot. Trying not to panic, she watched Stephan disappear into another exam room. What if Macy was right and he hadn’t known this was a proctology practice? Her stomach knotted. Was he breaking up with her before they even started to pretend date?
That’d be just her luck.
She stood, ready to face the music, whatever it may be. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she told Macy before heading to Vince.
By the time she reached the corridor, anxiety beat an erratic tune in her chest. She studied his features for signs of anger, but only found a friendly expression.
Probably acting since people were mulling about. She noted a few females smiling at him as they passed. But he didn’t notice. He straightened from the wall when he spotted her.
“Hey.” Smiling, he grabbed her hand to draw her closer.
Emma hid her surprise behind her own smile and fought to get her racing pulse under control.
“Thanks for meeting me,” he said, still holding her hand. “I needed to talk to you.”
Here it comes. He was breaking up with her.
“Oh?” she said through a suddenly dry throat.
He leaned his shoulder against the wall and nodded. “I wanted to let you know we’re going bowling tonight with Stephan.”
She blinked. He wasn’t backing out?
Her apprehension disappeared and then the rest of his words sunk in. “He invited us to bowl?”
“Not exactly.” Vince chuckled. “Once we both realized I went to basic with his brother, we got to talking, and when I asked him what he did around here for fun, he mentioned he was bowling tonight. A perfect opportunity to surprise him.”
He wasn’t the only one surprised. Why did it have to be bowling? Emma hadn’t bowled a day in her life. Any chance of impressing the guy just hit the gutter.
Still, Vince just went above and beyond for her, and seemed so happy to put her in close proximity to Stephan outside of work, she couldn’t burst his bubble.
“Yeah, it’ll be great.” She smiled and squeezed his hand. “For a minute there, I thought you were calling me out here to back out.”
A frown creased his brow. “Why would I do that?”
Good one, Emma, now you have to talk about the exam.
Idiot.
She cleared her throat and stared at his neck. A sexy, lickable birthmark sat at the base. Damn. And if that wasn’t enough, little sprigs of hair were visible where his shirt buttoned. But that didn’t mean anything, she told herself. She swung either way on the chest-hair debate.
Stephan’s was smooth. Emma knew thanks to a charity softball game their practice participated in two months ago. He’d removed his shirt in the dugout to don the team’s T-shirt. He had a lean, well-defined frame.
Vince, on the other hand, was an Acardi, and like his brother, Dom, he had too much testosterone not to have hair on his chest. And since she refused to think of her fake boyfriend in a sexy light, Emma pictured that hair wrapping around to cover his back and shoulders, too.
That dimmed the sexy light. A little.
“Emma?” he said. “Look at me.”
She forced her gaze to meet his. “Yeah?”
His eyes weren’t strictly brown. There were little flecks of gold surrounding the pupils, which…wasn’t mesmerizing at all. Nope. Not at all.
“When I give my word, I keep it,” he said, those gold flecks deepening several shades as his gaze turned earnest. “I won’t back out. I promise.”
No man had ever really had Emma’s back before. Dom and his buddies were trustworthy, of course, but she knew better than to count on them, because they deployed on a moment’s notice and weren’t always around.
So for this man, a man she barely knew, to stand here with honesty in his gaze and a promise to help on his lips, it said a lot for his character…and threw her for a loop.
A huge one.
Overcome with the strongest urge to hug the man, she squeezed his hand instead. Emma wasn’t a hugger. It was an act she never took or gave lightly. It required investment and trust. Even though she was starting to trust Vince, she knew he wasn’t sticking around. He lived in Texas. Had a job and a life in Texas. Plus, he was military. They’re wired a certain way, a way which, for some reason, never seemed to include her. No. She had no plans to drop her guard to let him in deep enough to reach the “hug zone.”
Fake hugs for performance sake, sure. But not real ones. She was saving those for someone who “stuck.”
A nonmilitary guy with no intention of leaving town.
A guy like Stephan.
“Okay,” she said, then cleared her throat because her voice sounded hoarse.
He smiled, and his gaze brightened. “Good. Now, tell me why you thought I’d leave you in the lurch.”
Dropping her gaze back to his neck, she shrugged. “It dawned on me when you were in the exam room that I…uh…never told you what kind of specialists I work for.” Finding the courage, she lifted her gaze to his again. “Did you know?”
“No.”
Her stomach lurched. “Oh my God, Vince. I’m so sorry.” Without thinking, she set her forehead to his chest, unsure whether to cry, or curse, or laugh. “I don’t know why I thought you knew. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Grasping her upper arms, he gently pulled her back and dipped down to meet her gaze. “I don’t blame you. My brother, on the other hand…him I blame.”
She widened her eyes. “Dom knew you were coming here and didn’t say anything?”
“Not about the practice. But he did say things, all right.” A scowl rippled across Vince’s face. “He told me it was a good idea, and a great way to get to know Stephan. Intimately.”
I’m gonna kill him.
Sucking in a sharp breath, she slapped a hand over her mouth, torn between laughing and cursing. And she rarely cursed.
Vince released her to lean back against the wall and shove a hand through his hair. “Bastard was grinning all morning long.” His scowl deepened. “I thought maybe it was the pain meds making him loopy. Now, I know different.”
Emma removed her hand from her mouth. “Sorry. It’s my fault. I didn’t think about it. I assumed—”
“Hey.” He grinned. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t get mad, I get even. That’s the other reason I asked you to meet me out here.”
“Oh?” She raised a brow.
“Seems to me my brother is going to need a sitter while we go bowling tonight.” His grin turned devious. “Do you still have Chelsea’s number?”
She laughed, loving where his mind dwelled. “Yes, I do.”
It was time to show it went both ways.
“I’ve got you covered, Vince.” Emma winked at him and scrolled through her contacts. “Leave this to me.”