CHAPTER ONE
Agreeing to wear the shoes was a mistake.
Although I worked as a cocktail waitress during my undergrad and wore heels for years, once I started my Masters degree and worked as a teaching assistant instead, I'd been dressing casual and was out of practice.
My best friend Dawn ignored my protests, insisting on choosing my outfit for the fundraiser my father was hosting for Doctors Without Borders, his favorite charity. I went to her apartment before the event so she could style me. After she did my makeup, she selected a dress from her collection instead of my own sorry closet, choosing a little black wrap dress that only made my already-slightly-too-ample chest more obvious. I even wore real nylons with a seam up the back and her garter belt instead of pantyhose because the only pair I had ripped as I pulled them on, a fingernail snagging them along the calf and all she had were nurse's white stockings.
"Use these," she said, pulling them out of a drawer. "They're Brenda's."
"I can't wear those," I said, making a face. Brenda was Dawn's sister, who moved out to get married a few months earlier, leaving Dawn with the clothes she no longer wanted.
"Why not? It's all women used to wear. I think they're pretty."
"What if I had to go to the ER and the nurses and doctors saw them?"
She laughed. "They'd think you were a sexy little thing. Listen," she said, handing them to me. "In the middle of a trauma, the last thing the ER doctors and nurses are thinking of is your clothes except how to cut them off as quickly as possible."
I sighed and put them on. They did look nice. I felt a bit like Greta Garbo as I turned back and forth in the mirror. Then, she fixed my hair, straightening it with a flatiron so that it hung long and straight down my back. But it was the shoes that did it.
Super high and sexy.
With four-inch stiletto heels and black leather straps, they were a tiny bit too big and I wobbled when I walked.
"I don't know about these," I said in meek protest as I walked across her hardwood floors, feeling like I was walking a tightrope. I looked at myself in the full-length mirror, adjusting the neckline. "I haven't worn high heels since I quit waitressing at O'Hanlan's."
"Doc Martens and lumberjack shirts won't get you and Nigel donations, Kate. Those shoes and that dress will."
I pulled down the hem of the dress, feeling like it could spring up at any moment and reveal my garters. "I'm not so sure I'm appropriately dressed for a charity fundraiser."
"Nonsense," she said and gave me the once-over, her head tilted to one side. "You look marvelous. I feel like Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady. The stuffed suits will want to donate money just to get next to you so it's all for a great cause."
I sighed, giving myself over to her as she did her best to transform me from an ordinary twenty-four year old woman into someone who belonged at a Manhattan fundraiser.
Going to a local pub before the fundraiser was another mistake. Located in the Upper East Side, it was a few blocks from NY Presbyterian and a lot of staff went after their shifts for a drink. Not too far from my father's brownstone on Park Avenue where the fundraiser was being held, it would be a quick cab ride once I was ready. I needed a drink or two before seeing my father. We'd been at odds because I changed focus for my Master's thesis from politics to pop-culture. We didn't argue openly but he had a way of letting his displeasure be known.
Since I'd changed my focus, I'd kept under his radar, being a good girl, not making waves. When he specifically invited me to the fundraiser, I couldn't say no. Going was my chance to mend fences. Dawn agreed to come to the pub with me and help me loosen up. Then, I'd face him and his crowd of philanthropic doctors and Wall Street money managers.
So add two strawberry daiquiris to overly-high-heels and you have a train wreck in the making.
On our second round of drinks, we scoped out the men in the pub, rating them, deciding which ones we'd hook up with, given the chance. Except of course, that we were both total geeks and didn't do that kind of thing. I had The Hangin' Judge as a dad and she was a mostly-good Catholic and had just spent six months in Calcutta volunteering for Mother Theresa's charity. But it was fun and a way to let off a bit of steam. With deadlines looming on several papers I was working on, and Dawn with nursing clinical exams coming up, we both needed some fun.
"He's trouble." Dawn leaned down to whisper in my ear, her frizzy blonde curls poking my face. "Stay away from him."
"Oh, oh," I said, glancing over at the bar. "You know those are the wrong words to say to me." I checked out the man she pointed to. "Why is he trouble?"
"The OR nurses call him either Dr. Delish or Dr. Dangerous, depending on who you talk to. Look at him." Her brown eyes twinkled. She waved her cocktail towards him. "He's gorgeous with those blue eyes and dark hair. And that jaw…" She smacked her lips. "Definitely dangerous." She glanced at me and shot the rest of her drink down in one gulp. "He," she said and pointed her finger. "He's a lady killer and a bona fide bad boy."
"Who is he? How do you know him?"
"Some surgeon at NY Presbyterian. I saw him during orientation when I volunteered there. He was playing 60s Brit Invasion music in his O.R. during surgery. Can you believe it? The Yardbirds, Heart Full of Soul or something. The nurses say he's a bit of a controlling bastard."