Dr. Tempt Me - A Possessive Doctor Romance

“So what do you say, got a second to help us out?”

“Sorry, I wish I could, but you really need to take it to billing. They’ll handle whatever problem you guys have, okay?”

Dean made a show of sighing dramatically. “Fine, okay. I appreciate it anyway, Maria.”

“Right. Good luck.” She gave me an odd smile then looked back at her phone and strode off.

Dean smashed the call button and the doors opened immediately. We stepped inside and rode it back down.

I let out a shaky breath and stared up at him. “That was good.”

“Thanks.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. “That was too damn close though.”

“I thought you said she’d be busy.”

“I thought she would be.” He grunted and looked down at me. “Now she knows we were up there.”

“She won’t know.”

“You’re probably right.” He tilted his head. “Thanks for coming along. You saved my ass.”

“I freaked out mostly. You did all the hard work.”

He shrugged and draped an arm across my shoulders. I was too surprised to pull away. “We make a good team,” he said. The elevator dinged, the doors opened, and he removed his arm. He stepped out into the hall, then turned and held the doors open. “You should give me your number.”

“My phone number?”

“We need to talk.” He glanced to the side. “Somewhere away from the hospital.”

“Business only. This isn’t an invitation to call me whenever you want.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

I hesitated, then sighed and rattled my number off. He took out his phone, typed it in, and sent me a text. I watched him walk off without a word, hurrying toward—wherever the hell he was supposed to be, probably on rounds.

I lingered before hitting the button for the lower floor and watched the door slide shut.

That was, without a doubt, the dumbest thing I’d ever done in my whole life, but my heart was still racing and I felt like I was buzzing off the adrenaline of almost getting caught, and that touch at the end—so innocent, almost a friendly hug—drove me wild with something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Dean was going to be trouble, I knew it, and yet I wanted that trouble.4DeanI spent the rest of that afternoon thinking about that office.

It was a typical office. Awards, papers, little statues, pictures of her family—a sister, maybe a nephew, her parents—all the crap you’d imagine would be there.

Except for the stack of hundred-dollar bills.

I hadn’t gotten to go through the rest of it as thoroughly as I wanted. The filing cabinet remained untouched, and I figured that if there were going to be any incriminating documents, they’d be stuck inside. We got interrupted way faster than I expected.

I thought I had that all planned out. Maria’s calendar was public, sitting there for anyone to find if they felt like looking for it, and I knew the secretary always took lunch around then because that was when I ate lunch down in the cafeteria. I’d see her sitting alone, reading a book, eating soup, almost every single day. And yet today had been different.

It was a close call, but that money kept bothering me. Why the hell did a hospital administrator have so much cash lying around in her desk? It made no sense, and I couldn’t think up a plausible reason for it, unless that guy had given it to her the other night, and she hadn’t had a chance to deposit it yet.

Or maybe she wouldn’t deposit it at all. Once it went into a bank, the feds could track it, but cash was almost invisible.

I resisted the temptation to text Fiona that night, ignored her at the hospital the next day even though our shifts lined up again, and finally called her that evening as I stood out on my tiny cramped concrete balcony that overlooked Rittenhouse. She answered on the second ring, sounding harried and tired.

“I hope this is business,” she said.

“Nice to hear from you, too.”

She sighed. “I just got home. It was a long day.”

“I bet it was. Want to talk about it?”

“Not with you.”

I laughed. “Come on. How about over dinner?”

She didn’t speak for a long moment. “I don’t date doctors.”

“It’s not a date.” I paused, looking out over the street, at the people moving down below me. “We need to talk.”

“Fine,” she said, sounding put out, as if dinner with me would be so bad. “When and where?”

“An hour, there’s a place called Tria Cafe.”

“I know it. Fancy little place.”

“I’m buying.”

“Works for me. See you soon.”

I was tempted to tell her to wear something cute for me, but I figured that would only piss her off—although it wasn’t exactly hard to drive her wild. Fiona had a temper unlike anyone I’d ever met, but she was fiercely protective of her patients and she was a damn good nurse, so she pretty much got away with being a total spitfire. I liked that she stood up to me and all the other doctors, and I loved that she didn’t take shit from anyone, but it did make this a little more difficult.