Chapter 7
I ’m angry. I’m frustrated. I’m annoyingly horny, which only seems to add to the angry and frustrated side of me.
So when my mother finishes her speech and I deliver mine—I’m not good at speeches, I’m good at operating on tiny human hearts—and the room is left staring at me with owl eyes, all I can do is think about fleeing for the exit.
Hospital. Hospital. Hospital .
My brain is single-minded because if it wasn’t, I’d be thinking about the troublesome woman I had some weird showdown with. My new assistant. The woman my mother is trying to usher into her office for a tête-à-tête. Bianca has questions. My mother has been skirting answers.
I need to leave them to it.
But as I cast a stupid glance back over my shoulder, my eyes snag straight on hers. Why you ? I want to ask. Why did my mother hire you? And why do you have to be the one person I find fucking interesting?
Being the eldest in a family of billionaires is impossible.
I’m interminably trying to be set up by EVERYONE!
They think I need to be married. They think that will solve all the world’s problems. Like a single billionaire is why there is still hunger and homelessness and smog.
People cannot handle it. They couldn’t handle it for my brothers either, but they’re not me.
They’re not the heir. The next in line. The one with the biggest bank account or largest yacht—thanks, Dad, for finding my one and only weakness in this world and hand delivering it if I agreed to this position and considered a betrothal or simply settling down and getting married.
Yeah, he got in on that too.
I am a surgeon of tiny humans. I fix their broken hearts.
So being here… having to deal with her…
“Kaplan, I’m so glad I caught you before you left.”
My head whips back around, regretfully abandoning the dark antagonism of my new assistant. Blonde. Tall. Rail thin. Surgically redefined nose. Fake tits and lashes. Pretty, if you’re into that sort of thing. Which I outwardly am but inwardly am not.
“Um. Yeah, I’m just leaving.”
She juts in front of me, thwarting my escape as I attempt to make it. “I understand. But I wanted to let you know that when things with Bianca don’t work out, I’m available.”
I blink about fifty times too many. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”
She frowns in disappointment for a hot second before righting her features. “Jenny. I was supposed to be your new assistant, but now you’re stuck with Chubby Brunette Rapunzel.”
Did this woman honestly just call Bianca Chubby Brunette Rapunzel?
“And you think I want you as my assistant after you just openly degraded a fellow employee to my face and clearly show zero lack of appropriate workplace decorum?”
Her cheeks grow a blotchy red and she shifts her position.
“No. I mean, that’s not how I meant it.” She huffs when she sees I’m unamused.
“She’s underqualified for this job. I’ve been here five years.
I know all the ins and outs of this foundation.
The only reason your mother didn’t promote me to the role I’ve earned is because I’m beautiful and she was afraid you’d fall for me, and we’d create a scandal. ”
I continue to stare, nonplussed. My mother wasn’t kidding with this one.
“And this is what my mother told you?” I laugh mirthlessly, perplexed by how brazen she is about this.
“No. She didn’t tell me anything, but it’s not difficult to read between the lines.”
“I’m sorry. You’ve completely lost me and I’m late.” I shift to go around her when she sidesteps in front of me, intercepting me again.
“I’m your type,” she practically demands, her tone growing urgent. “All the women you’ve been seen dating in the past look exactly as I do.”
“And this was your design in looking this way?” I give her a quick, derisive once-over that she completely misreads as me checking her out.
She smiles suggestively at me, twirling a piece of hair directly over her breasts as if that will snag my eye and suddenly make me fall so stupidly, blindly in lust that I can no longer think straight.
This shit. This shit right here. This is why I don’t fucking date anymore.
Why I’ve stopped spending time with people and women. Why alone is the way I like to be.
She reaches out with her other hand, touching my chest and her touch feels nothing like Bianca’s did.
Her touch feels like acid singeing through my suit and leaching into my flesh.
I step back, causing her hand to fall and a frown to hit her too-pink lips.
My gold-digger alarm is firing so loud I’m shocked the room isn’t clearing out, thinking it’s the fire alarm instead.
“Look,” she says insistently, edging back into my personal space until her chest is now practically touching mine.
“I’m very good at my job. And I was expecting to be promoted so I could do this job for you.
If something else happened along the way between us, all the better.
We both know it’d be amazing, and I’d never betray you.
I’m a faithful employee and I’d be faithful to you.
I promise. Your mother never liked me and certainly never liked me for you, which is why she hired that other girl . ”
Because my mother has excellent instincts , I’m about to say only to hold my tongue. She hired Bianca after all and as if I summoned her from my mind, she appears at my side.
“You forgot your coat, Doctor.” Bianca hands me my black wool coat and I do my best not to look at her.
“Thank you,” I begrudgingly murmur.
“Jenny, Harold also asked me to remind you that we have a no-fraternization policy here and that extends to unwanted advances. He said properly reading uncomfortable body language and taking the word no at face value was outlined in the sexual harassment video all employees are required to watch as part of compliance. So, if you’re done trying to get fired for sexually harassing your new boss, you’re needed downstairs. ”
“Jealous?” she snarls.
“That you’re trying to get yourself fired by making your boss uncomfortable while sexually harassing him? No.”
A shrill shriek hits my left eardrum, practically perforating it before Malibu Barbie storms off, muttering things I’m grateful I can’t quite discern under her breath.
I turn back to Bianca. “What just happened?”
She shrugs smugly at me. “Jenny’s after your dick and bank account, in case you missed that, and you looked like you were either suddenly constipated or a man in need of an escape. I supplied that for you. As a good assistant would. I think that also makes us even now.”
“And you felt I couldn’t do that on my own? Supply my own escape from Kelly.”
She smirks at the obvious name blunder, dragging a fleshy piece of red lip between her teeth. It’s not an attempt to be seductive, but hell if it’s not that anyway. “Did you?”
“I was getting there.”
She gives me a disbelieving look. “Uh-huh. Well, Harold didn’t actually ask me to say any of those things and I don’t even know if there is a no-fraternization policy here or not, but since she didn’t call me out on it, I’m guessing she doesn’t know either.
” Another shrug. “What she just did with you is the reason I was hired. She’s thin and beautiful and again, after your dick and zeros. I’m fat and ugly and not.”
“What?” My back snaps straight, my fists and jaw clenching. “Who the hell said that?”
Bianca rolls her eyes. “Read between the carbs, Kaplan Fritz. I was hired for a reason and keeping Jenny from you is one of them. Honestly, that just came spur of the moment and was likely not the best tactic. There might have also been a touch of cattiness left over from my interaction with her this morning, so for that, I apologize if I was unprofessional at all. But hopefully she’ll mope and pout but leave you alone. ”
“I should hire you to be my fake fiancée to keep all the other women away, but that didn’t work out so well for my baby brother, Oliver, when he tried it.”
“Isn’t he in love and engaged to someone now?”
“Exactly.” I shudder. “Sounds horrible.”
She sarcastically snorts. “Have a nice rest of your day, Doctor. See you next Monday.”
“Not if I fire you before that.” I slide on my coat.
“You won’t.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“No. Your mother informed me you can’t fire me.” I get a cheeky grin as she rolls up in my direction onto the balls of her feet. “Monday. I’ll try to be polite next time we meet. This morning caught me a bit off guard. I was sort of hoping I wouldn’t see you again after Saturday.”
And then she’s gone, skipping—shit, for real fucking skipping—across the office in her boots, back toward my mother’s office.
Jenny The Viper is nowhere to be seen and with any luck, gone for good, though I doubt that.
Women like her with years-long plans don’t just go away at the suggestion of some made-up policy.
Speaking of, I definitely need to find a way to get Bianca to quit. Before my dick and eyes start growing attached to the sight of her.
I make my way to the hospital, all the while ignoring calls from the press and business associates and charities looking for sound bites and to congratulate me.
The official press release went out this morning around the same time my mother and I were making our speeches.
Truth, I have no idea what to say because I have no idea how I’m going to make this work, assistant or no assistant.
All I know is I can’t fuck it up when fucking it up feels inevitable.
By the time I reach my office in the hospital, I’m ready to put my morning behind me. Only my wish isn’t entirely granted when I find my brothers Carter and Luca there waiting for me. I point at Carter. “I know why he’s here, but why are you?”
Luca works here at Boston Children’s Hospital with me two days a week as a pediatric neurosurgeon, but Carter is an OB-GYN across town at MGH.