Chapter Fifteen

Lauren

I couldn’t help but feel relieved when I called Marcus’s assistant, Judy, on Monday morning with Ryan sitting on the edge of my desk to make sure I didn’t chicken out and she promptly informed me that Dr. Pierre was out till Thursday at a conference in Tucson.

“Well, that’s that,” I whispered to Ryan with a shrug. “Thanks, Judy. I—”

“No, no,” Ryan interrupted. “Make an appointment for Thursday.”

“We can do that lat—”

“Dr. Decker.” His voice was firm.

I sighed and arranged the meeting with Marcus and hung up. “Happy?” I asked.

He laughed and checked that the door was closed before massaging my neck. “It’s going to be fine,” he insisted though I certainly wasn’t sure. “It’s not a fireable offense. We may get a slap on the hand for not disclosing our relationship earlier and then a punishment of an afternoon of HR paperwork. The only thing we risk is a paper cut.”

He kissed my cheek and grabbed his bag. “I’ve got a simulation training with the OR staff in a couple minutes so I’ve got to run.” He leaned back into my office on his way out. “It’s going to be fine, Laur— Dr. Decker.”

I gave him an unenthusiastic thumbs up and half-heartedly read through my emails from over the weekend. The moment we walked into Marcus’s office things were going to change. This relationship was going to go from being secret glances in the hallway or electrifying hand grazes at my desk to real. It was going to go from being hidden and ours to exposed and theirs. It was going to lose everything that made it ours and ours alone.

But as I sat there and reread a thank you email from a past patient for the fourth time I knew there was another reason I was happy our meeting with Marcus would have to wait till Thursday. As much as I had thought I’d moved past it, it still worried me how it would affect my reputation in the hospital, in the medical world, hell, in the real world, too. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of it. At least I didn’t think I was. But there had to be some reason I hadn’t told either Bonnie or Raegan that I’d found a man I was building something special with. All Bonnie knew was that I’d hooked up with a younger hottie I worked with at that club.

Maybe it was just that I’d worked so hard and so long on developing a professional reputation where people respect me that I wouldn’t want it all destroyed in a single afternoon. And I knew I’d receive more of a backlash than Ryan. He was of course a gorgeous young man. He’d get high fives from his buddies and a free beer at the bar. I’d hear snippets of cougar in the woman’s bathroom and cradle robber in the elevator.

People would say that the only reason he’s fucking me is to get in good with his attending surgeon. I could skyrocket his career, but I could also tank it. People would say he wouldn’t have given me a second glance if I didn’t have that power. Ryan would have gone and found himself a hot twenty-five year old with a tighter ass and fewer fine lines and wrinkles around her eyes.

Word would travel around to my network of colleagues. The world of cardiology wasn’t entirely that big and soon everyone would know Dr. Decker was dating her young resident. How young? Ten fucking years younger. My male peers wouldn’t listen to a single word that came out of my mouth. I wouldn’t be up for medical awards anymore. My climbing of the ladder will have been ended.

With a groan I thudded my head against my desk and told myself I was getting carried away. I was just putting that stuff in my head. It wasn’t real. No one cared who you were in a relationship with. Your hard earned reputation was stronger than that. The people in your field respected you far more than to let something so silly tarnish your perfect record.

I was just nervous. That was it. I was just nervous about speaking with Marcus and my mind was going into hyperdrive. I breathed deeply and repeated it till my palms weren’t quite as sweaty.

I focused on Ryan. No, I focused on us. Like he’d said. Neither of us was strong enough to go through this alone. But together. Together we could do it. I started to imagine what our life could be like together.

Both being in this difficult, taxing field, we'd understand each other. We'd support each other in the tough times and celebrate each other during the highs.

I’d pour his coffee while he gathered up our briefcases and then we’d travel together to the hospital. We'd be there, together. And it wouldn't be the together that Samuel and I had been.

With him I’d been lucky if we ran into each other in the doctor's lounge just by total happenstance. With Ryan it would be different. It'd be loving and caring and close. It'd be warm. It'd be everything I'd wanted. Everything I'd never had.

And even as those thoughts brought a smile to my face and eased the headache that was looming in my forehead, there was still the little voice that whispered all of that was impossible. It just couldn't be.

I shook my head and whispered, "It will be. It will be."

"What will be?"

I looked up in surprise to find Samuel leaning against the doorframe of my office. He wore a smug smirk across his face with his hands stuffed casually into the deep pockets of his medical coat.

"Who let you in?" I asked.

I tried to recover from my shock and pulled my shoulders back straight. But under the table I'm sure my knees were red where my hands gripped them.

"Let me in?" Samuel grinned and slowly closed the door behind him as he walked to sit on the edge of my desk. "Everyone knows me here, Lauren. You should know that."

"That's not the point. You don’t work here anymore.”

“No, I don’t. You made sure of that.”

I sighed. “You made the choice to leave, Samuel. You said you were doing it to make things easier for me after you broke our wedding vows, but that was your choice. Just like you’re making the choice to interview for a job that will bring you back here.”

“I shouldn’t have left in the first place. I let my guilt, your overreaction, sway me. I should have fought for you. Fought for this job. Becoming chief surgeon will correct that mistake.”

He almost sucked me in saying I’d overreacted to him fucking around on me. Somehow, however, I managed to keep my calm. He’s no longer my husband. He no longer has any power over me, just the power I give him. "Look, Samuel, I'm sorry, but I have work to do."

I pushed my chair back and moved to stand up, but then Samuel's hand was on my thigh and he was pushing me back down into the chair.

"I've heard a lot about this new resident of yours," he said and I sank back into the chair.

"What's his name again?" Samuel asked. "Robert? Rex?"

I stared up at Samuel and kept my face straight. Maybe he was just fishing. Maybe he didn't know what was going on between us.

"Dr. Ryan Castle is a welcome addition to our team," I said. “Or rather, he will be once he accepts Graton’s offer to take him on as our new chief resident.”

"Hmm, yes. Ryan. A welcome addition." He laughed again like only he was in on some sort of private joke and I cringed. "How old is he again?"

My heart sank at the dark flash in Samuel's eyes. I had been fooling myself. Of course he knew. I swiveled in my chair and clicked on a random email even though I could barely see straight.

"That's really not important information for you to know, is it now, Samuel?"

I felt his hands on the back of my chair and felt his breath on my neck as he leaned over to whisper. "And how old are you, Dr. Decker?"

I pushed my chair back so it collided into him and stood up. "You need to get out of my office." I pointed to the door and held my ground as Samuel just stood there and grinned.

"Does Marcus know?" he asked.

"Get out."

Samuel walked to my bookshelves and picked up an award I’d won the year before.

"I wonder what he would think about his favorite surgeon robbing the cradle with his up and coming star resident. I wonder what he would think about the press it would bring to the highly esteemed Graton's Gift."

My shoulders sagged and I felt like I hadn't slept in days. I just wanted to turn out the lights, curl up underneath my desk, and block out the world until Ryan returned and found me and held me.

"What do you want, Samuel?" I asked. "What more could you possibly take from me that you haven't already taken from me?"

Even to my own ears my voice sounded defeated.

"You took away what was most precious to me last year, Lauren, dear. You took away my reputation in this hospital. You took away the respect of my coworkers. You took away what I loved above all else..."

For just the briefest second I thought he would say me. In the flash before reason could sink in I seriously expected my name to fall from his lips. Blinded briefly by delusion, I convinced myself the thing he loved above all else was me. But that was stupid.

"... my job here."

As we’d just clarified a minute ago, leaving Graton’s had been Samuel’s choice. What little he could do, he’d said, to make things right between us. But somehow, his own selfless act after cheating on me had now been turned around. Somehow, he blamed me for it. Somehow, he blamed me for everything, including the damage to his reputation that had occurred from him cheating on me.

I could see the hate in his face as he stood there less than an arm's length away. I could also see the complete delusion. He actually thought what happened because of his affair was my fault. He wanted me to pay and never, never would see it was he who brought this on himself, he who did the crime, he who deserved to pay.

Hell, I wasn't even there when he fucked that nurse. But his eyes held only hate for me.

"So what," I said softly, realizing I was dealing with more of a wounded animal than a reasonable human being, "you're going to take my job from me in retaliation?"

That despicable sound lurched from his lips again and I wanted to reach forward and strangle that laugh from his black lungs. But that's all I needed. Dating a subordinate was probably at the very least frowned upon. Physical violence was most certainly cause for firing.

"No," Samuel said. "I'm not going to take your precious job from you."

I frowned in confusion. He was saying I took his job. What else could he want? How else could he try to hurt me?

"No," he continued, slipping into my chair and propping his feet on my desk, right on top of my stack of papers to be signed. "You took what I loved most and I'm going to do the same to you."

He knew he had my attention and he played it up like an actor on a stage. Samuel was the villain of this play. That much was clear to me as I stood there silently, helplessly, pitifully.

"See, I know you, Lauren. You might not want to think that I do, but I know you. And I know that the thing you love most is not your career."

I stared at him as I processed what he had just said.

"Surprised?" he scoffed. "Well, be surprised, because I'm not sure even you knew that about yourself. You probably thought your career was everything. You thought it was your reputation and the respect of your colleagues and accolades and awards and rounds of applause at keynote speeches and the highest surgery success rate among your peers and the prestige of your name printed outside this office and the trajectory of your promotions and raises. But I've known this whole time it isn't. I've known this whole time we are different people, Lauren."

I almost sensed a sadness in his voice. He looked at me like you look at something you know you’ll never have: longing, resignation, acceptance all wrapped up in one look.

"From the moment we got married, Lauren, I knew I couldn't give you what you really wanted. Because I loved above all else work and you loved above all else me."

I opened my mouth to protest, but I found the words weren't there. The argument I thought I'd always had wasn't there. I stared at Samuel and I knew in that moment it was true.

"You want love. I couldn't give it to you and you punished me for that by taking away my career. Or at least trying. If you’d only forgiven me for my indiscretion… If you hadn’t made it such a public affair…"

Whatever honest, open, human moment we were sharing was shattered with one shiver inducing laugh and then the hateful, spiteful, bitter man was back in my chair.

"Before Marcus left town, he told me I had the Chief Surgeon position in the bag, Lauren.”

I took a step back and bumped into my shelves causing a framed award to fall and shatter on the floor.

“You tried to take my job away from me. I got a better one. And as soon as I start, I'm going to take away your newest little, and I mean little, toy."

"The plans have already been put in motion to hire Ryan. You can't fire him without cause," I said, trying to hide the desperation from my voice. "Even if you're Chief Surgeon you can't just get rid of him because you want to."

Samuel shrugged. "I'll find cause," he said.

My mouth hung open as Samuel casually stood up, grabbed his briefcase, and walked toward the door of my office.

"You know what you should do, Lauren," he said. He tapped his nose. "You know."

He left the door open and I heard him cheerfully say goodbye to all the nurses and office staff.

"Be seeing you all very soon," I heard him say as the elevator dinged.