Chapter Five #2
“You can call me Moskins,” I cut her off. “I hate the formal bullshit.”
Her head tilts inquisitively. “Not Thomas?”
“No.”
“Not Tommy?”
“Absolutely not.” That reply comes out harder than I intend.
Her eyes light up. “Okay then.”
Something tells me she’s going to use that name regardless of my hatred for it. “What do you go by? Winter? Certainly not Ms. Bronte.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not one for formality either. Ms. Bronte sounds so…old.” It’s a reminder to me of how young she really is.
Twenty-five, I tell myself.
“Most people call me Win or Winnie,” she finally says, lifting her shoulder. “I don’t have a preference.”
Win has a nice ring to it. Then again, I’ve always liked that word. It’s been ingrained into my blood ever since I started playing hockey as a kid. Losing isn’t an option. I’m competitive and cold-hearted, and I have no regrets about what I do in order to secure a victory.
Something shifts in her, and her nerves are back.
She shifts in her seat and twiddles with her wrapper again.
“If we’re going to work together,” she says softly, “I’m going to need to get to know you a bit better.
I can’t help you unless I understand you.
If the world is going to believe that you’re trying, it needs to be genuine. ”
Isn’t PR fake? “Do you get to know all your clients so…personally?”
She wets her lips, and dammit, I follow that movement a little too closely. “You’re my first client,” she admits, wincing as if it’s information she hadn’t planned to share.
I already knew it, but I understand. That information puts her at a disadvantage. Some people would probably want her off their case because of her lack of experience. But not me.
My lips curve. “So I’m popping your cherry.”
Her eyes snap up to me and widen.
I can’t help but laugh at the face she makes as she spits and sputters a response that never comes.
“Calm down, Bronte,” I muse, sipping my water and leaning back. “I don’t do virgins.”
*
I barely get any information out of the twenty-five-year-old over the hour and a half I keep her at the restaurant.
I watch her split her food in half, knowing she’s taking the leftovers home to have another meal tomorrow.
I slip the waiter a fifty to put an extra meal in the bag without her knowledge—chicken parmesan, because the only valuable thing I did learn from her is that poultry is her favorite, especially when it’s smothered in cheese and sauce.
I spend the short drive home white-knuckling the steering wheel, angry that I care about her past with her coworker.
It was one date, so why the hell do I care?
I’ve been on plenty of dates, if you call what I do “dating.” I suppose it’s more casual than that.
Sex, mostly. It’s probably my lack of sex that’s aggravating me so much.
My appetite for a good orgasm tends to steer my thoughts in directions it wouldn’t usually go if I’m without a decent lay for a while.
One thing is true. I’m attracted to Winter. More than I should be. Hell, more than I want to be. She’s ten years younger than me, with a lot less experience if her embarrassment over the word “virgin” is any indication.
Her innocence makes me hate my body for reacting to her—for liking when she mouths off or dishes out sass. She doesn’t look her age. She isn’t baby-faced or lacking curves where I like them most, but it still feels dirty.
The shit I’ve gone through has aged me in ways I don’t wish on anybody.
My time in foster care shaped me, but not as much as the years I spent with my biological parents in that trailer park.
I suppose asking about her past is hypocritical, since I have no intention of divulging anything about mine.
It’s why I’m cautious about those I let around me.
The fewer people who ask questions, the more secrets I can hold on to.
And people like Winter, young and curious, would definitely ask questions.
Plus, choosing not to surround myself with younger people means there isn’t a constant reminder that I have one foot out the proverbial door in this career.
I’m not sixty, but even Tom Brady was considered geriatric before he retired from football in his early forties.
Hockey is a brutal sport that does serious damage to the body, and I know my time is coming to an end soon enough.
I don’t feel like being reminded that I’m not twenty-five anymore and full of hope that the world has more to offer me.
Emaly bombards me with questions the second I walk into my house, breaking me from my train of thought. “How did the interrogation go? Do we like her? What do we know?”
We. She’s always considered us a team, even when she’s twice removed from a situation. “I didn’t interrogate her,” I state, eyeing her as I toss my keys into the bowl in the foyer and head to the kitchen with her hot on my heels. “And we didn’t learn anything.”
Besides her favorite food, which I add to the mental folder with her name on it. Alongside her love for poultry is her appreciation for caffeine and how clumsy she apparently is. Hardly anything to go on.
The long sigh that comes after that is full of defeat. What did I expect? I’d hoped to get information directly from the source before hiring someone to dig into her for me. Is it any of my business? Absolutely not. Has she captured my interest enough to spend the money? Yes.
“Other than her having bad taste in men,” I mumble more as an afterthought before chugging half a bottle of water and wiping my mouth off with the back of my hand. I look around. “Did you reorganize my kitchen?”
“It was messy,” she says, shrugging. “But back to her bad taste in men. I’d like details. It sounds juicy.”
I deadpan, “You need a hobby, Em.”
She smiles. “Gossiping is my hobby outside of saving kids’ lives. And Ronnie is in surgery all day, so you’re stuck entertaining me for now.”
Lucky me. “I take it you haven’t spoken to your parents yet, Dr. Moskins-Yokav? Do they even know you’re in town?”
She rolls her eyes at my mocking tone, then frowns when my question sinks in. Emaly claims she’s here for me, but I can tell there’s something more to her story. She loves me and cares for me, but I recognize the brokenness hiding behind her smile. She’s hurting.
So, I indulge her in conversation. “Winter,” I tell her, when she makes no effort to give me an answer, “has a coworker who reminds me a little too much of Dr. Porter.”
Her wince at the asshat’s name who cornered her makes me nod. “Oh.”
My jaw clenches as I think about the asswipe’s comment mumbled under his breath.
I hate the kind of people who assume the only way for women to build their careers is by sleeping with the higher-ups for sway.
I hate even more that Winter looked mortified and glassy-eyed from it.
He was going to make her cry, and I’m not okay with that.
“She went out with him for food,” I muse. If he realized that, it probably wasn’t a great stroke to his ego. It also didn’t stop him from trying to get more from the deal. “Doesn’t seem to realize that she’s not interested.”
Emaly watches me carefully before a small, secretive smile tilts her lips. “And what about you?”
I stand up and give her my back to go through the fridge for nothing in particular. “What about me?”
She snickers. “Are you interested? She’s blond, isn’t she? You like blondes.”
My attention whips to her to see her eyebrows wiggle suggestively. “How do you know what her hair color is?”
I’m not about to admit I tried finding her social media to no avail, so I can’t help but wonder how she managed to.
“Starrs Strategy’s website has professional shots of all their employees,” she states, leaning her shin on her propped palm that’s leaning on the counter.
“I wasn’t totally sure if it was Winter you were all bent out of shape over, but I had a feeling.
You said she was younger, and the other two women on their team list aren’t your type. ”
I swear, this woman could join the FBI and track people down faster than most trained agents. It’s a superpower I’ll never understand. “I don’t know if I’m impressed or not that you even bothered looking.”
“I was curious.”
“Why?”
“Because you hate when PR people come into your life and try dictating what you can and can’t do,” she replies with a knowing look.
I can’t argue with her, and she knows it.
“How many times have Ashton and Scott tried convincing you it was the best idea to clean up your online footprint? You always told them to screw off.”
I did do that. Scott, my manager, was never happy when I’d hang up after he suggested involving a professional to handle what I liked to call a “hazard spill.” Whenever I did something stupid, whether it was being seen out with a woman or getting into fights at bars when guys would be a little too handsy with women, my team would call me up and tell me their plans to get it taken off the internet.
Not an easy feat in this day and age. Most people I know hire companies to manage all of their social media pages, but not me. I’m a control freak.
“But you’re allowing her to,” she concludes, her smile growing into an annoying one.
I hate to point out the obvious, but I do. “I’m allowing them to step in because my career is on the line, Em. Your dad is pissed. And while the board might decide to keep me, they still consider me a risk between my age and the fact that they’re too new to be riddled with scandal.”
The smile on her face drops, along with her shoulders. “But there is no scandal.”
I wet my lips. “They don’t know that.”
They don’t know a lot.
I walk around the island and pull her into me. Emaly’s mood is shifting to dark territory, and I don’t want her to make herself sick. “It’s okay,” I murmur, kissing the crown of her skull. “It’s going to be okay.”
She starts shaking her head, but I don’t want her to argue.
We’re quiet for a long time.
Until she hefts out a breath against me and peels away. “I’m sor—”
“Don’t,” I cut her off. “Don’t apologize. This whole thing was my idea, right? We both agreed. What’s happening now is the consequence of my actions. This isn’t your fault.”
She wants to disagree, but she’s smart enough not to. Instead, she says, “Are you really going to pretend you’re not a tiny bit into Winter, though? I can totally see it.”
I glare at her.
She blinks up innocently at me. “I’m just saying, I could make that happen for you.”
“Emaly,” I growl.
She holds up her hands. “Fine, fine. I’ll leave it for now. But I expect all the juicy details the next time you see her.”
That is one hundred percent not going to happen.
Now is a good time to turn the tables. “Are you going to tell me the other reason you came? You’ve barely talked about work, and I know how much you love your kids.”
Her kids are her patients. As a surgical oncologist in the pediatric unit in San Diego’s best children’s hospital, she’s surrounded by illness and death.
But there are times, not as often as she’d like, where she’s also surrounded by remission and hope.
The weight on her shoulders has to do with something that happened with a patient, if I had to put money on it.
She evades my eyes. “I don’t know if I want to talk about it yet.” Her voice is quieter than usual, so I don’t push her.
“Okay.”
She lets out a small, contemplative sigh before she picks her gaze up. “Work has been…difficult lately. And things with Ronnie have been hard because of it. It’s my own fault. I make everything more challenging than it needs to be.”
I start to disagree, but she doesn’t let me.
“I do,” she insists. “Ronnie is upset because I can’t be honest with my parents. And I’m upset because I can’t help my patients or their families more than I already do. It leaves a lot of strain on our relationship. And then there’s you—”
“I’m fine,” I remind her.
“Your career is on the line,” she says. “Another obstacle because of me.”
This time, I don’t let her finish. “Things with Ronnie will work out. And I know you. You go above and beyond for every single patient you have. Their families are lucky to have you assigned to their child’s case. And I am okay. It will all be fine, Em. I promise.”
Sadness dwells in her eyes.
I rub her arm. “It will work out,” I repeat one more time, as softly as possible.
Eventually, she nods. And I can see that she’s starting to believe it too. “I just needed some space to breathe. To…”
I understand. “You’re always welcome here.”
“Even if I pester you about cute blondes?”
My cheek twitches. “Even then.”
“And make you do facial scrubs with me?”
My skin has never been softer. “Yes.”
“And—”
I laugh at her insistence. “You’re always welcome here, even when you annoy the hell out of me. Like right now.”
“You love me,” she replies with a bright smile that washes away the shadows previously on her face.
“Whatever you say, wife.”
Her laugh echoes in the hall as she goes to the bedroom she claimed upstairs. “You know I’m right, husband.”