Chapter Two Ford
If I have to fake one more smile, my face might crack.
I looked around the ballroom, feeling overwhelmed not by the sheer amount of people but by the prospect of hobnobbing with the most influential members of Lakeview Medical for the next hour or two.
I would much rather have been spending this gala with other attending doctors and one particular nurse that I had yet to spot among the crowd.
“Ford, it’s nice to see you outside of the hospital, for a change,” Dr. Hirschi said, clapping me on the shoulder.
I managed yet another stiff smile as I turned to him. “Well, it’s a pleasure to get out of my scrubs and put on a tuxedo for a change.”
I was lying, of course. I would much rather have been dressed for work than wearing this formal attire that was too tight around my neck. Like a noose.
But this was all part of playing the game.
If I wanted to get ahead, I couldn’t just do my job well.
I had to do things like dress up and make small talk with the men and women that would decide my fate in just a few short weeks.
Would I remain an attending in the emergency room like I’d been for the past four years or would I become the head of the residency program?
I could make a real difference in either position but moving into a role with authority and influence was important to me. It would prove that I wasn’t just good; I was exceptional. I’d always wanted that. Always wanted to prove to myself that I was capable of that.
But at times like this, I had to wonder if it was worth it, especially as Dr. Hirschi’s daughter came sauntering up to us. Delilah was beaming at me, and instead of standing by her dad, she came to my side, looping her arm through mine before I could react.
“There you are,” she cooed. “I’ve been looking for you.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Delilah always seemed to home in on my location effortlessly, sniffing out my whereabouts like a bulldog after a bone. Her clingy possessiveness was exhausting. We hadn’t been a couple for nearly two years, but she still acted like she had a claim on me.
“You look lovely tonight, princess,” Dr. Hirschi said, leaning in to press a kiss to his daughter’s cheek.
“Thanks, Dad.” Her eyes shifted to me with expectation in their hazel depths.
She wanted me to echo the compliment, but that wasn’t going to happen.
Normally, I’d gladly tell a woman she looked nice when decked in a floor-length ballgown like Delilah was, if only to be polite, but she was bound to take it to mean more coming from me.
I had to stay on Dr. Hirschi’s good side for now, and part of that meant putting up with Delilah’s flirtatious behavior without outright rejecting her.
It was a complicated dynamic because I was the one that ended my engagement to Delilah.
The truth was that the relationship never should’ve gone that far.
We had little in common, and over time, I’d realized just how self-centered and irresponsible she could be.
I liked to think of my proposal as nothing more than a bout of temporary insanity, but the deeper truth was that I was flattered by how much she wanted me.
I let it go to my head, and it drowned out my doubts about us for far too long.
Maybe it was abandonment issues from my childhood that I didn’t like to think too much about, or maybe it was just my ego overriding my common sense.
All I knew was that after Delilah pressured me into marriage and I put that ring on her finger, I regretted it almost immediately.
It was a hell of a lot harder to overlook the problems between us when I was staring down the barrel of a lifetime with this woman.
So, I broke things off as gently as I could, but there was no way to avoid hurt feelings.
She was upset, and because she was a self-proclaimed “daddy’s girl,” that led Dr. Hirschi to resent me for a long time.
The last thing I wanted to do was bring up bad memories or reignite his anger toward me, especially just a couple of weeks before the board was due to finally vote on the issue of appointing a director of residency. That thought kept me in place and prevented me from pulling away from Delilah.
“Quite the turnout,” I commented instead, my eyes scanning the room again.
I wasn’t really interested in the large crowd or even how much money the tickets for this event would bring in for the hospital, although I knew that I probably should have cared about that.
I just wanted to see if my girl was here yet. The gala started an hour ago, so I figured she was around somewhere.
My chest went tight at the thought of her coming alone.
I should’ve been by her side. Instead, we’d agreed to arrive separately and avoid spending too much time together.
It was easier to pretend we were nothing but colleagues at the hospital—there was work to focus on—but social situations made it harder.
I always had to force myself not to stare at her, usually stuffing my hands into my pockets so that I wouldn’t touch her.
This charade was getting old, but we were so close to the finish line.
The board would decide who got the promotion in a couple of weeks.
If I secured the position, I wouldn’t have to worry about being seen as the attending that couldn’t get his hands on one of the nurses in his department.
I’d no longer be in the ER, and I’d have the kind of power in the hospital that made people ignore a relationship that might otherwise have been seen as inappropriate.
And if I didn’t get the promotion, all of this secrecy would have been for nothing.
No. I couldn’t even think like that. I needed this job. It would show the world that I was worth more than anyone ever thought I would be. Besides, I couldn’t stomach the idea of putting Zoey through all of this secrecy for no good reason.
“We sold even more tickets than anticipated,” Dr. Hirschi said as he took a champagne flute off the tray of a passing waiter. “I think we’re going to reach our goal. We’ll have five new POCUS machines by the end of next month.”
“POCUS?” Delilah asked.
“It stands for point-of-care ultrasound,” I said, shaking my head slightly at the fact that she didn’t even know why we were here tonight.
“The hospital is going to use the money raised here tonight, combined with some earmarked grant money we’ve recently received, to buy five advanced perioperative nerve block and regional anesthesia systems,” her father said, sounding like he was reading from a brochure.
“These are premium ultrasound machines that can map out nerve pathways and monitor vitals while patients are under.”
“That sounds advanced.” Delilah turned her eyes to me with a bright smile. “You must be excited to get those new machines.”
“Why would he be? He works in the emergency room, where I doubt he’ll ever even see those fancy new machines,” a voice said from behind me. I used the excuse of turning to face the speaker to extract myself from Delilah’s grip and put a little space between us.
The man who joined our conversation uninvited was Dr. Hayes. He was one of the few doctors at the gala who wasn’t in the hospital’s employ. Instead, he ran a private practice and held privileges at Lakeview.
He smirked with all the arrogance I’d come to expect from him over the years.
Hayes was a talented clinician, and I respected his skill, but he never missed an opportunity to remind us that his chosen path bought him medical autonomy while those of us employed by the hospital were just cogs in a corporate machine, answering to suit-wearing administrators who cared far more about the bottom line than the patients downstairs.
He wasn’t exactly wrong, but I generally didn’t like his attitude.
“Am I right?” he asked Dr. Hirschi. “Will you be keeping those new machines locked up in the OR storage bays?”
“They’ll never leave the surgical floor.” Dr. Hirschi flicked his wrist in a dismissive gesture that made Dr. Hayes roll his eyes. “That’s how things work in a hospital. Equipment is assigned to certain departments.”
“And I bet the ultrasound machine you guys use in the ER is a decade old.”
I couldn’t deny it. “Maybe older. And we have to share it with the ICU.”
Dr. Hirschi frowned, and I knew that I should care that I was probably pissing him off, but it seemed that I had a limited amount of shits to give when it came to keeping the man happy, even if my promotion was on the line.
Then, I saw her. There was a shift in the crowd to my right, and I had a clear line of sight to the bar.
It was that long, dark brown hair that caught my attention, and I forgot about the people around me, even as Hayes and Hirschi got into a somewhat heated debate about the advantages of private practice versus a hospital with corporate oversight.
Zoey’s body was wrapped in a strapless dress made of midnight blue silk.
There was a slit up the side and I saw a flash of her toned leg as she stepped closer to the man she was speaking with.
A smile lit up her face, and I felt a stab of vicious jealousy until he turned his head, and I got a good look at his face.
Jake. Zoey’s brother.
One of the few men I’d be okay with her spending time with while she looked so beautiful and everyone thought she was single.
“I’m bored with this conversation,” Delilah said, gripping my arm. “Dance with me, Ford.”
I opened my mouth to decline, but Dr. Hirschi chuckled and spoke before I could.
“You kids go ahead. Have some fun.”
Delilah’s grip on my arm tightened until her fingernails dug into me even through my tuxedo jacket, and she pulled me toward the dance floor. I could have pulled away, but I didn’t see a way to do it without causing a scene.