Chapter 28 #2
I try to answer, I do. But my breath hitches instead, and I press the heel of my hand to my eye.
“I—” My voice catches. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Hey…” The tone in his voice changes instantly—still sharp, but quieter now. “What happened?”
I sink into the chair behind my desk, curling forward over my stomach, thinking maybe if I make myself smaller, I can hold it all in.
“They knew,” I whisper. “About us. Jenny told the board. They—I tried to explain, I did explain, but they’ve placed me on leave. Effective immediately. They’re calling it an inquiry, and—”
“Where are you?”
I blink. “What?”
“Where are you, Carina?”
“My office. Still—still packing some things—”
“I’m coming. Right now.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Already on my way, baby.”
The line goes dead, and this time, I let the tears fall.
After a few moments, I inhale deeply, stroke one palm across my bump as the baby kicks, then stand up. Clip my hair back. Unclip it. Then pack the rest of my shit into my bag and box.
A message pops through pretty quickly.
Reid: I’m here
My stomach clenches as I grab my bag and gather the last of my things.
The hallway feels longer than usual as I head for the exit. Everything in me wants to disappear through the side staff door and avoid the front altogether, but I don’t take the side door.
I walk through reception. Head held high and chin level.
That’s when I see him.
Reid strides through the main entrance like a storm breaking glass—broad shoulders, dark hoodie, jaw locked, and very much not waiting in the car.
His gaze scans once, and when it lands on me, everything sharpens.
Because Jenny is at the front desk, pretending not to notice. And Moreno stands just beside her, murmuring something clinical about a rehab intake form.
When they both look up, it’s Moreno who startles first, but he schools his features with that smooth professionalism he’s known for. I see it, though—the faintest glimmer of unease.
Jenny’s fingers go still on her keyboard, and her eyes dart from Reid to me, and back again.
“Hello, Mr. Hutchi—”
Reid walks straight past her without a look. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t speak. Doesn’t raise his voice despite the furious look on his face.
He just keeps walking, right through reception and right toward me.
I straighten my shoulders as he reaches for the file box in my arms.
“I can carry it,” I say quietly, voice steadier than I feel.
Reid doesn’t answer. He just lifts the box out of my arms like it weighs nothing, then slides his other hand around my back.
“You’re carrying our daughter. I can carry a fucking box.”
I suck in a breath, and my eyes burn again, but I don’t cry. He clocks it immediately, of course, and the hand on my back flexes instinctively as he leans in and murmurs quietly, just for me.
“I got you, Havoc.”
Then he turns slightly, just enough to catch both Moreno and Jenny in his periphery.
“And I hope the inquiry moves fast,” he says flatly. “Because if this clinic’s stupid enough to push her out from gossip at the front desk, the rest of the league’s gonna hear about it.”
Jenny’s smile tightens, but instead of backing down, she leans into it.
“This isn’t gossip,” she says, her voice cool and carrying just enough to make it clear she doesn’t intend to be intimidated.
“It’s optics. When a resident becomes personally involved with a high-profile professional athlete, people are going to question motivations.
That’s not malicious, it’s just reality. ”
My stomach drops, and Moreno shifts beside her. “Jenny—”
She ignores him.
“We have donors who expect discretion. Sponsors who expect professionalism. And when boundaries blur with elite players, it can look…” She tilts her head slightly, faux-thoughtful. “Opportunistic.”
The word lands between us, and I feel it everywhere. In my spine. In my throat. In the way my hands tighten around the strap of my bag.
Opportunistic. Like I calculated this and I targeted him. As if this baby is leverage instead of love.
Reid goes very still beside me. The kind of stillness that pulls oxygen from a room.
He turns fully now, and for the first time since he walked in, he isn’t looking at me. He’s looking directly at Jenny.
“You wanna talk about optics?” he says quietly. “Let’s talk about how it looks when a brilliant surgeon is being questioned by someone who answers phones and speculates for sport.”
Jenny’s chin lifts. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
Moreno steps forward. “Mr Hutchison, that’s unnecessary—”
“No,” Reid cuts in, not raising his voice. “What’s unnecessary is you letting her stand there and imply that Carina built her career on proximity to men with contracts.”
Jenny flushes faintly.
“I’m implying nothing,” she says sharply. “But high-profile athletes do attract attention, and sometimes people align themselves accordingly.”
There it is again, the insinuation.
Reid steps closer, not invading her space, but close enough that she has to tilt her head up to meet his eyes.
“Let’s be very clear,” he says quietly, eyes holding hers. “You can question the timeline. You can review the charts and protect your precious optics.”
Jenny opens her mouth. “I—”
“But no one—no one—gets to speak about the mother of my child like she built her career on anything less than integrity.”
Reid holds her gaze for another beat, before his eyes dart to Moreno’s.
“And I’d think very carefully about how your staff phrase things going forward,” he adds. “Because if this turns into anything beyond a procedural review, I won’t be the only one asking questions.”
Silence swallows the reception area, and Jenny doesn’t try to fill it. Moreno inhales carefully, and even he looks unsettled now.
Reid doesn’t wait for a reply. He turns back to me, his hand firm at my back again, guiding me toward the exit.
“Let’s go, baby.”
By the time we get home, I’m vibrating. Not with fear—fuck that. Not even with grief.
With rage.
It hums low in my chest like a live wire, bitter and bright. My hands won’t stop shaking with the fury of being cornered and handled and sent away like some cautionary tale instead of a surgeon building a goddamn legacy.
I march into the house without waiting for Reid, change into leggings and an old shirt of his, then storm straight into the kitchen. I need to do something. Control something.
The cutting board slaps onto the counter, and I grab a knife and an onion, and go to war.
Behind me, the front door clicks shut, and I hear his keys clang.
But Reid doesn’t say anything, just lingers in the doorway while I finish murdering the onion then grab a red bell pepper to quarter.
“I swear to God, if you tell me to calm down right now, I will”—I glance up. The tip of the knife is angled toward him—“accidentally stab you, apparently.” I lower it. “Sorry.”
He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed and lips twitching, but still says nothing. I turn back to the cutting board, pick up another pepper, and resume battle.
“I’m so pissed,” I snap, blade slicing down hard before I look back up at him. “And I’ve had to work twice as hard for half the respect.”
“You’re pointing that knife at me again,” he says finally, nodding at where it’s clutched in my hand. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s giving less MasterChef, more stabbing spree.”
I snort. “You’re there like you’re not enjoying it.”
He walks in slowly and leans a hip against the far counter. “I’m just saying, maybe whatever that bell pepper did to you… it’s suffered enough.”
I turn to the stove and slam everything into a pan anyway, and for a while, the only sound is the click of the burner and the hiss of oil heating the vegetables. My pulse thrums in my ears, and I can feel him watching me, still waiting.
“Jenny wants to bury me,” I mutter, spinning to pace with knife still in one hand. “That’s what this is. Not ethics or integrity. It's control.”
Reid doesn’t answer.
“She’s always hated that I wouldn’t kiss ass and still had Moreno's attention, that I’m better than half the ortho team, and I don’t apologize for it. And now she’s got the perfect angle—pregnant, vulnerable, emotionally compromised. Fuck her.”
Still no response, but when I whirl around to ask him why, he’s setting something on the counter beside me.
A glass with a lime wedge. Something fizzy with ice.
“…You made me a drink?”
“Mocktail.” He shrugs. “You’d be drinking a real one if you could.”
I blink at it, then at him, then reach for it with my free hand. The ice clinks gently as I lift it to my mouth. It’s sweet and tart and stupidly perfect.
“Goddamn you,” I mutter, then take another sip. “That’s so good.”
Reid just watches me, his eyes twinkling with amusement, before quietly taking a breath.
“You done waving that sharp thing around?”
I exhale.
“No,” I say. “But I’ll put it down.”
I set the knife aside with more force than necessary and launch into my rant.
“It feels like everything I’ve worked for is slipping away.
” The words come out too fast. “I’ve sacrificed years for this career.
My twenties, my sleep. My relationships.
And now I’m a fucking liability because I fell in love.
Because I had the audacity to be good at my job and be pregnant at the same time. ”
My hands clutch the side of the countertop.
“I didn’t do anything wrong.” My voice trembles. “We didn’t even kiss until—”
“Hey.”
Reid steps up behind me, close enough that I can feel the heat of him at my back.
“We didn’t,” he says. “I was handed over before anything happened. You did your job.”
I swallow with a nod, but my chest feels crowded with everything I didn’t say in that room.
“But love doesn’t always wait for clean lines, Havoc,” he adds, his fingers trailing up my arm. “Sometimes it just… shows up and asks you to remove your piercings.”
My grip tightens on the counter as I huff a laugh.
“And if it’s real love,” he continues, “you fight for it. You don’t apologize for it, and you don’t let anyone rewrite it like it was something careless.”
One warm, solid hand lands on my waist, grounding me
“So this isn’t gonna slip away, and you’re not losing anything,” he says. “Not your license, and absolutely not me.”
I turn in his arms to face him, and I feel my throat go hot.
“You really think I can come back from this?”
Reid takes my hand and moves it to rest over my bump, then covers it with his own steady one.
“You’re not just gonna come back,” he says. “You’re gonna kick ass when you do.”
I stare at him, then finally manage a nod.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.”
We stand there for a long moment, just breathing. The mocktail sits forgotten on the counter, and the vegetables are starting to burn.
“I can still be a badass and have a baby, right?”
Reid huffs, brushing a knuckle against my cheek.
“You’ve never been anything else, Havoc.”