Chapter 32 Nadia
NADIA
I’m just finishing a surgery when the page comes through.
Chief Kellerman requests to see you.
The secretary barely glances up when I arrive. “You can go in, Dr. Reed. They’re expecting you.”
They.
The word lands wrong.
Inside, the air feels too still.
Kellerman sits behind his desk, perfectly composed. By the window, Senator Graves lounges with his hands in his pockets, wearing a politician’s smile that’s perfectly shaped but utterly empty.
“Ah, Nadia,” Kellerman says, voice smooth as varnish. “Come in. Have a seat.”
I stay standing. “You wanted to see me?”
The senator looks my way. “Always a pleasure, Doctor. I was just telling Chief Kellerman you’re the best this hospital has to offer. Truly exceptional.”
The compliment slides off me. “That’s kind of you,” I say, “but unnecessary.”
“On the contrary,” Kellerman cuts in, fingers steepled. “The senator has been impressed with your professionalism and compassion. He tells me he invited you to dinner as a gesture of thanks.”
I keep my voice steady. “And I explained that it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Kellerman’s smile doesn’t falter, but something colder flickers behind it. “I think we can make an exception. The senator is one of our most generous benefactors. His continued support keeps this hospital running.”
Graves chuckles, pretending modesty. “Just doing my part to give back.”
“I appreciate that,” I say, “but my answer remains the same. I don’t like to socialize.”
Kellerman leans back, tapping his pen. “Nadia, this isn’t a request. Optics matter. The press has been circling since last year’s malpractice suit. A public dinner shows goodwill. It reflects well on all of us.”
My chest tightens. “So this is PR more than it is gratitude.”
“Don’t be cynical,” he says lightly. “It’s dinner.”
The senator steps closer, the scent of his cologne crowding my lungs. “The hospital could use a little positive press,” he adds, too smooth to sound casual.
I take a step back before I can stop myself. “It’s not necessary.”
Kellerman clears his throat, slicing through the tension. “The arrangements are made. Seven o’clock Friday night. The senator’s driver will collect you.”
I stare at him. “You can’t be serious.”
He tilts his head, that condescending smile settling in. “Cooperation goes a long way here, Dr. Reed. The senator’s support ensures we can all keep doing our jobs to the best of our ability.”
And there it is. Polite phrasing to mask his threat.
“I’d prefer not to,” I say, voice thin but even.
Kellerman exhales, feigning disappointment. “Sometimes we all do things we’d rather not. Consider it part of your professional duties.”
Heat rises up my throat; anger, humiliation, disbelief. “My duties don’t include entertaining politicians.”
Silence stretches, taut as wire.
Then Kellerman smiles. Small. Sharp. Final.
“They do now.”
The senator presses a hand to his chest, mock-sincere. “I promise I won’t keep you long, Doctor.”
Something in me fractures.
I nod because there’s nothing else to do. Because anything else will cost me more than my license.
“Good,” Kellerman says, already turning back to his paperwork. “That’ll be all.”
I walk out before they see my hands shake.
The hallway feels colder. The fluorescent lights hum too loud. Every step echoes like a heartbeat that doesn’t belong to me anymore.
By the time I reach the stairwell, I can finally breathe. I press my palms to the wall and stare at the faint shimmer of my reflection in the metal door.
They cornered me. Smiled while they did it. And left me with no choice but to go along with their plan.
The hum of fluorescent lights needles at the edges of my skull. I’m walking fast, too fast, but if I stop, I’ll crumble.
Kellerman’s words keep looping in my head. It’s dinner. That’s all.
Except it isn’t.
Nothing about Senator Graves feels like just dinner.
My chest feels tight. I can still see his smile and the way it didn’t reach his eyes. I can still hear the soft, patronizing tone Kellerman used, like I was a child who needed coaxing instead of a woman being cornered.
Dinner. With a man who could probably ruin my career if I say no.
I press a hand to my ribs, trying to calm the tremor beneath my skin. The air feels too thin, too sharp. Every thought is a blur, colliding and reforming into the same question: Why me?
There are dozens of other doctors in this hospital. Better-connected, more senior. So why invite me? What could a senator possibly want with me? Besides whatever ego boost comes from watching a woman squirm across the dinner table?
My shoes click down the corridor, each sound too loud, too fast. I need to sit. I need air. My fingers twitch against the clipboard I don’t remember picking up.
By the time I turn the corner, the walls are starting to close in. The smell of disinfectant is suddenly unbearable. The hum of machines, the chatter of nurses all melts into white noise. My breath comes too quick, shallow and uneven.
I shouldn’t have to feel afraid of dinner. But fear doesn’t listen to logic. Fear remembers. It crawls up from the places you thought you’d sealed shut.
My vision wavers for a second from the bright lights, sterile halls, and the echo of my own heartbeat in my ears. I’m halfway to the nurses’ station, focused only on getting to the break room, when someone steps into my path.
I don’t see him until impact.
My shoulder collides with solid muscle. My clipboard clatters to the floor.
“Oh - sorry - ” I start automatically, but the word sticks halfway up my throat.
Because when I look up, everything stops.
He looks exactly the same, yet somehow nothing like the man I met two days ago.
His phone slips into his pocket as his gaze lifts, steady and deliberate. Those eyes… they hold a quiet gravity, the kind that pins you in place and makes the air feel too thick.
For a heartbeat, neither of us speaks. The corridor noise fades, swallowed by a familiar tension that sits between us - unspoken, electric, real.
“Jude,” I breathe, his name slipping out before I can catch it.
He smiles, faint and cautious, like he’s trying not to show relief. “You remembered my name.”
Just like that—four words—and the world steadies.
It shouldn’t. Not after the day I’ve had. Not after Kellerman. Not when I’m one dinner away from drowning in political small talk with a man who makes my skin crawl. But something about Jude’s his voice, his calm, cuts through the static in my head.
He gives me a half-smile, cautious. “Visiting my aunt. She’s on this floor.” He nods toward the private rooms. It’s a smooth lie; I see it in the way his gaze flickers to the chart board. Probably the same kind of lie he told when he tried to convince me he was a serial killer.
Haha girlfriend, the joke’s on you. What are the chances that you would meet not one, but two serial killers in your lifetime?
I brush off my internal voice and cross my arms. “Your aunt, huh?”
He shrugs, the corner of his mouth curving. “What can I say? I’m a family man.”
“You look tired,” he says softly, studying me the way surgeons study wounds.
I laugh, brittle. “You should see the others.”
His smile turns real. “Coffee?”
The word hits like oxygen. I shouldn’t. But I nod anyway. “There’s a place down the street, if you don’t mind leaving the hospital?”
We walk out together, the hospital lights giving way to the hum of the city. The café is small, warm, the kind of place that offers peace in a city bustling with noise. When he holds the door open, our hands brush. It’s nothing, yet it’s everything.
I’m halfway through ordering when a familiar voice cuts through the air.
“So this is why you won’t talk to me, huh?”
Michael.
My blood runs cold. He’s standing at the doorway, making a fool of himself as he raises his voice. “Who’s the guy, Nadia? Another one of your projects?”
I start to speak, but Jude steps between us and his presence shifts the room. “Leave. If you know what’s good for you, turn around and walk away.”
Michael lets out a sharp, high-pitched laugh - one that’s more like disbelief than humor. “Back off, hero.”
It happens fast. Michael stalks in and grabs for my arm. Jude catches his wrist before I can react. His movement is clean, silent, controlled. Michael jerks back, hissing.
“Leave,” Jude says quietly.
This time it’s enough. Michael stumbles out, throwing curses over his shoulder that no one listens to. The café hums again, pretending nothing happened.
My hands shake. Jude notices but doesn’t call me on it. He just takes off his jacket and rolls his sleeves up, like violence is something that can be folded away neatly.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “You don’t owe me an apology.” His voice drops lower. “He shouldn’t have touched you.”
Something in my chest breaks loose. The kindness in his tone is worse than my anger at Michael, and it undoes me.
“You okay?” he asks, as we take our seats.
“I will be,” I lie.
He studies me, quiet, unreadable, and yet everything in him feels achingly familiar.
Outside, the city keeps moving. Inside, it’s just us—two people sitting too close, pretending this is nothing. But when he looks at me again, I know it could be something.