The break room door closes behind her, and as I walk deeper into the room, I quickly realize that I’m not alone. Dr. Harding sits across the room on the old, worn couch, watching me like an eagle.
“Oh,” I say, speeding up my strides. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were in here. I’ll just grab my lunch and go.”
Dr. Harding stands. “What? You think so low of me that you assume I need an empty room just to eat a meal?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I … I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I had assumed you were after some peace and quiet,” I explain, looking anywhere but at him. “I heard about the difficulties you had with your patient this morning …”
The walk to the fridge seems to take forever, but when I finally reach it, I couldn’t be happier. I all but dive through it, quickly searching for my lunch so I can get the hell out of here before it gets any more awkward.
“You’re that student fucking around with Dr. Mayson, aren’t you?” he asks, his voice coming a lot closer behind me than I realized.
I straighten out from the fridge and glance back over my shoulder to find Dr. Harding standing right behind me, his eyes roaming hungrily over my body before focusing solely on my ass. “Excuse me?” I question, forcing his eyes to snap up to mine.
“That’s right,” he says, his voice lowering to a chilling whisper as he subtly adjusts himself to leave me no room for escape. “I’ve heard all about you, trading favors for grades.”
“I—”
“Shhh,” he cuts me off, moving in closer and forcing me to step back into the open door of the fridge. “You’re in a world of trouble,” he says, almost as though he’s trying to tease me. “If the big guys upstairs hear about this, you can wave goodbye to your shiny new career, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
“You need to move away from me—right now,” I warn, my heart racing as my palms begin to sweat. My eyes flick back to the door, desperately wishing to be on the other side of it.
Dr. Harding’s hand comes up to the side of my face as he takes that final step, closing the gap between us. “Come on, baby,” he tells me. “No one has to know. We can both win here.”
I bring my hands up and shove them against his chest, but he resists, keeping on top of me as he tries to slide his hand inside my scrubs. “Get off me,” I demand.
“What’s the matter, huh?” he spits, pulling faster at my clothes as I desperately struggle against his tight grip. “You’ll be a little whore for Mayson, but you won’t touch me?”
“You’re a pig,” I say, slamming my hands against him again, this time more forceful with all my strength. He stumbles back a step, but it only makes the darkness in his eyes shine that much brighter.
“Oh, you like it rough, huh?” he says. I try to run, but his hand snaps out, gripping my elbow and slamming me back against the open fridge. I half tumble inside it, the contents from the door falling out and dropping around my feet.
My back aches as it slams against one of the shelves of the fridge and I scream out. “HELP.”
Dr. Harding’s hand is pressed against my mouth, but as I struggle against his hold while trying to save myself from having the whole fucking fridge fall on top of me, he frees himself from the confines of his scrubs. “Stop making this harder than it needs to be,” he says, leaning into me and making the fridge rock back and forth.
Harding dives for my scrubs again but as his hand is removed from my mouth, I scream again. “HELP,” I yell, my vocal cords straining as I desperately try to fight him off.
The door is thrown open and Thorne comes racing in with Suzi and two other nurses right on his tail. Dr. Harding whips around, his eyes going wide, but he hardly gets a chance to even let go of me before Thorne is on him.
He grabs Harding and tears him away from me as Suzi rushes into my side, checking over me. She asks me something, but all I can focus on is the way Thorne throws Harding down to the ground and starts pounding his strong fists against his face, intent to cause as much damage as possible.
Thorne grunts and roars with each delivered blow and it’s not until he gets at least five punches in before I realize that a move like this could cost him his career, no matter what the circumstance.
“THORNE,” I yell, racing in behind him and grabbing his arm as he pulls it back to throw another punch. “Stop. You need to stop.”