Chapter 2
P ressing my back into the wall, I straighten my spine while adjusting the phone against my ear. My back is freaking killing me and if I don’t take a moment to relax and realign myself, bad things can happen. I know that firsthand.
“What time do you think you’ll be home?” I ask Tony, closing my eyes and doing my deep breathing exercises.
“I have no idea. You know how long these stupid dinners can go. Especially when they turn into drinks afterward. I’m just hoping before the bars close.”
I grin at the way he says that. Like he hates it when he actually loves it. Tony is nothing if not the life of the party. He loves the dinners and drinks after. He loves schmoozing clients and networking. If he hadn’t become a lawyer, he would have been a brilliant salesman.
“What about you?”
“Not late. You know me. It’s just some drinks and dinner with the girls.”
“Drinks?” he presses, concern in his voice.
I lean my head back against the wall and take another deep breath. “Just one and I’ll nurse it. It’s been a long week and I don’t want to push anything.”
“That’s why I worry about you having a drink.
Have you had any auras like the one you had last week?”
“No, but I’ve been doing my deep breathing and eating well and whenever I can sleep, I have been. I’m fine.”
What Tony means by auras are actually focal awareness seizures and with me, they tend to be a precursor to a tonic-clonic seizure or what used to be referred to as grand mal seizures.
Tony hasn’t actually ever seen me have one.
Hence why the man sounds nervous now. Then again, I haven’t had one in four years, almost to the day.
My last was on my birthday when I got wasted with friends in medical school.
Oliver saved my ass that night and I woke up in the hospital with his stony face right in mine.
It was stupid. I knew better. Too much alcohol, too much caffeine, too little sleep, too much stress—whatever bad thing you can throw at your body—always triggers my epilepsy.
Since then I’ve put myself on a strict regimen.
Very little alcohol. Regular—when I can get it—sleep.
And when I can’t, relaxation techniques, medication, yoga, stretches, exercise, whatever I have to do to keep my mind and body balanced.
Managing my menstrual cycles—hormones were nasty fuckers during adolescence and I’m not talking about with my moods or my skin.
“Did that asshole, Carter, actually put you on scut all day?”
Yeah, there isn’t a lot of love between Carter and Tony. Not a lot of love between Tony and any of my friends, for that matter. Tony likes to put off the alpha male, she’s mine and no one else can have her vibe when he’s around people. But with me, he’s a sweet, loving teddy bear.
I snort out a laugh. “Of course, he did. I embarrassed him in the OR. There was no way he was going to let me get away with that. Today was my penance.”
“I still don’t understand your thing with him.”
“He’s my attending. My boss, for lack of a better term, but he’s also Oliver’s older brother and has known me since birth. It makes for a weird dynamic.”
“As long as that’s all it makes for.”
I smirk, pushing away from the wall and checking my watch. “You have nothing to worry about. I gotta go shower if I’m going to meet up with the girls.”
“Okay. I have to roll out too. Have fun tonight. I’ll try not to wake you when I come in. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
I disconnect the call, slipping my phone back into my pocket, and glance down the hall toward the nurses’ station.
I can hear some of them laughing, Carter’s voice present as the ringleader, and I roll my eyes.
I bet he’s not even saying anything funny.
He’s like all the Fritz men, and there are five of them.
Smart. Sexy. Charismatic. Gorgeous beyond all sin and reason. Those bastards can make a woman’s panties wet with a simple glance or quirk of their lips.
Women swoon while swarming around them.
Men too for that matter.
But Carter, for all his cocky swagger and charming bravado, has this thing about him.
This thing that makes every woman do a double-take and then stare whenever he enters a room.
A commanding presence you can’t help but acknowledge and admire.
The very textbook definition of tall, dark, and irresistibly handsome.
Imposing. The kind of imposing that makes your nipples tighten and your skin buzz.
Maybe that comes naturally when you’re born brilliant, gorgeous, famous, and a billionaire, but it doesn’t do much for me. Well, at least not the latter two. Something about the first two on him always makes me want to ruffle his feathers. Chip away at that obnoxious arrogance and perfect facade.
Discover the man hidden beneath.
And look where it got you today.
Yeah. On scut. Not that I mind checking in on all our post-partum patients.
I love seeing the new parents and babies.
I love answering their questions and helping them through what is easily the hardest transition of their lives.
But I live and breathe and die for the OR.
For the rush I get every damn time I step foot in that room and Carter knows it.
I hear him start to make his escape and that’s when I make mine, rushing down the hall to the locker room. I’ve been dodging my attending all day and so far, it’s worked out well for me. With any luck, I won’t have to see him again until Monday since I’m not working this weekend—a rarity for me.
The door to the locker room shuts behind me and I go for the showers, needing to wash a week of long hours and fatigue away.
I wish I had time to go home before meeting the girls, but I don’t, so this will have to do.
After getting myself dressed in a red tube top with a shelf bra—because my girls have been crammed in a bra for the last thirteen hours, I just can’t do it to them now—white ripped capri jeans and flats because heels can suck a dick, I blow out my long, blonde hair and apply whatever will cover my bags and make me shine pretty.
By the time I exit the locker room, I feel like a million bucks.
That is until I run into an asshole.
Carter is leaning casually against the wall on the opposite side of the entrance to the women’s locker room, staring at his phone like he hasn’t a care in the world and isn’t waiting on me when we both know he is.
“Trolling the women’s locker room, Fritz? That’s kinda skeevie.”
Dark chocolate eyes skip away from his phone, making a slow trip, landing on my feet before gliding up, taking in every inch of my primped appearance until he meets my eyes, his just a touch darker and his cheeks suddenly flushed.
And before I know what the hell is happening, my stomach hiccups with a strange tingle.
He licks his lips and clears his throat. “You’ve been avoiding me all day.”
I mirror his pose on the wall across from him, giving us a good ten feet of much-needed space.
“Yep.”
“Things go smoothly with your patients or just pissed at your attending?”
“Yes.”
He nods, pushing away from the wall, stalking like a lion in my direction until he’s mere inches away. I straighten my position, meeting his eyes and trying to resist the urge to look away from their pounding intensity.
“Make sure my sister gets home okay tonight,” he purrs, his warm, minty breath fanning across my face. “Brecken is with me, Oliver, Luca, and Kaplan at the Sox game.”
Brecken is Rina’s live-in boyfriend.
“No Landon?”
“Landon is home with Stella and Layla. My mom isn’t up for watching them tonight and since Amelia is out with you, Landon offered to play babysitter.”
The matriarch of the Fritz family, Octavia, is battling a recurrence of breast cancer.
She had a double mastectomy a couple of months back and has been undergoing chemo since.
Her five sons and daughter have been doing all they can to help, but Landon is very careful who he allows to watch his thirteen-year-old daughter, Stella.
Amelia is the guardian of her younger sister Layla, who is fourteen and close friends with Stella, but I guess since Amelia is with us Landon is in charge of the teenagers.
“How is your mom? I was meaning to stop by, but this week got away from me.” Octavia is also like a mother to me. More of a mother to me than my own.
“She’s hanging in there. Two more rounds of chemo and then more scans.”
I sigh, my gut twisting like someone punched it. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed. She’s always in my prayers.”
Carter reaches out, taking an errant strand of hair that must be plastered to my forehead and tucks it behind my ear. And just like yesterday when he was standing behind me, I explode into chills, the rush of heat simmering beneath my skin doing nothing to warm them away.
His hand falls almost instantly, but it’s too late. He spots my reaction to him. The self-satisfied grin on his face tells me so. He chuckles lightly, running a hand through his perfectly messed hair.
“I have a patient with stage IV endometriosis,” he announces, his voice smooth as silk as it falls over me. “She has a large number of cysts and severe adhesions. She’s thirty-two and looking to get pregnant.”
“So uterine wall, cervical lining as well as fallopian tube and ovary preservation are key?”
“Exactly.” He grins at my quick response, his head tilting in my direction as he folds his arms over his chest. “You interested? Seven a.m. Monday? Laparoscopic. I might use the robot if I can get it.”
Is it weird that that just totally turned me on?
“I’m in.”
Another step and now he’s towering over me. My heart skips a beat as my back presses deeper into the wall. “I’ll send you the patient file. I expect you to have memorized it as well as the procedure forwards and backward before stepping foot in my OR.”
“Of course.”