Dr. Tempt Me - A Possessive Doctor Romance

“Oh, shit,” she said, standing up and knocking the chair back.

I jumped up and grabbed the computer. I went to turn it off and flipped it upside down to drain—and hesitated, staring at the spreadsheet that was open on the screen. The numbers still didn’t make sense, not exactly, but I noticed a pattern, a few recurring numbers and letters that were scattered all throughout the space, something I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t flipped it around. But I couldn’t think about that too much. I turned the laptop and wiped as much of the wine off with a towel as I could before turning it upside down to dry out. Fiona paced back and forth, wringing her hands and making a horrified face.

“It’s okay,” I said, “it’ll be okay. It’ll dry out.”

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m so stupid and clumsy. I’m so sorry, I’ll buy you a new one.”

“Seriously, it’s okay.” I laughed a little and took a step toward her. “You must really hate kids, huh?”

Her face turned red. I blinked in surprise as she gulped down the last swallow of wine in her glass and turned away from me. “I should go,” she said.

“Wait, hold on.”

“Really, I’m sorry, but I should go.”

“Fiona—”

She marched to the door. I followed, but not too close as she pulled it open and stepped outside. I wanted to tell her to stop, to grab her wrist and pull her against me, but she didn’t hesitate as she hurried away.

I sighed, watched her step out the main door and onto the sidewalk, then shut my apartment.

“Damn,” I said softly.

Something about kids set her off. I wasn’t sure why or what exactly it meant—but something about children put her on edge.

I walked back into the kitchen and stared at the laptop. I could picture the spreadsheet again, and the pattern remained in my mind, but the letters and numbers were gone. I couldn’t risk turning it back on, not until the alcohol dried out and dripped out of the computer, which meant I’d have to try to hold on to whatever I saw until it was safe to boot back up.

In the meantime, I cleaned up, saved the leftovers, and tried to figure out how the hell I fucked that up so badly.9FionaUnfortunately, I didn’t die of embarrassment as soon as I left Dean’s apartment that night, so I spend the next shift awkwardly trying to avoid him.

It’s not too hard. He doesn’t come to my floor often unless he has a patient, and fortunately he doesn’t have any nearby. I drift from room to room, doing my usual thing, keeping half an eye out on the hallway for any hint of him.

Mary noticed, of course. Bless her heart, but that lady can’t keep to keep herself to herself, no matter how hard she tried—although I sort of doubted that she tried at all.

“What’s with you this evening?” she asked as I sat down after checking in on a patient and kept craning my neck to stare down the hallway.

“What? Uh, nothing.” I leaned forward to stare at the monitor.

She made a face. “Don’t give me that. Something’s up. You’re jumpy.”

“I’m not jumpy.”

“You’re sitting there, ready to get up and run away at any second. Don’t try to tell me you’re not jumpy.”

“I’m fine.” I took a deep breath and gave her a look. “Really. I’m fine.”

She didn’t believe me, of course. The woman was a professional gossip first and a nurse second, which meant she could smell someone trying to hide something from a mile away. She leaned toward me, eyebrows raised with a look of pure innocence in her eyes, and took on a concerned tone.

“You can tell me if it’s one of the doctors,” she said. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Dr. Coarse.”

I grimaced. “It’s got nothing to do with him.”

“But it’s something.”

I stood up abruptly and glared at her. “Mary, I swear, if you—”

I didn’t get to finish that sentence, because the monitor began beeping like crazy, and I shifted into crisis mode.

That was how it happened in a hospital. One second, you’re talking with a coworker, minding your own business, going through the motions of a perfectly normal evening—and the next you’re sprinting to a patient’s room, ready to save a life.

He was an older man, presented with tachycardia and pale lips. We gave him oxygen, got his heart settled, but the doctors wanted to keep him overnight for observation. He seemed to improve throughout the day, but for some reason, his heart decided to give out.

I didn’t think much. My training took over as we got the crash cart and worked on him, Mary moving with practiced precision, knowing what I’d need and when I’d need it as the doctor got called in. I managed to bring the man back in under two minutes, which was good—and we spent the next ten minutes stabilizing him as the doctor ripped through his chart, trying to figure out what the hell happened.