Chapter 24
Robyn
I push through the staff entrance with my coffee in one hand and my bag over the other shoulder. Hair falls out of my ponytail yet again. I grumble as I pull it back behind my ear, dropping my bag and spilling some of my coffee in the process.
“Crap!” I groan.
I’ll have to come back and clean that up. Right now, I need to get my things into my office before Ridge gets here. I’ve decided that I’m going to be a coward and avoid him at all costs. If I don’t see him, then I won’t be tempted to change my mind.
I yawn, quickly covering my mouth with my hand. I barely slept. I tossed, and I turned, and I stared at the ceiling.
Carla lifts her head as I walk around the corner, and her whole face lights up. She looks as though she’s had eight hours of sleep and a green smoothie.
“There you are, Doc,” she singsongs. “I have been dying for you to walk through that door. Dy-ing.”
“Good morning to you, too.” I drop my bag on the chair beside her desk.
“I want details. All of them. Don’t leave anything out, not even the boring parts. How was last night?”
“There are no details.”
“Liar. I want to know all about it. How was it?”
I take a long sip of my coffee.
“It was boring. Now, I need to get to work, I have a crap-ton of admin. I’m going to be buried all day.”
She looks at her watch. “It isn’t quite eight o’clock yet, so technically I’m not on the clock.” She looks around, and the office is still quiet. “I call bullshit. I happen to know that your date was sexy AF. Did he look amazing in a tux? He must have. Come on…spill.”
“He wasn’t my date, Carla. I keep telling you that. He is my bodyguard. End of story.”
She makes a face at me. “Was it really that bad? It could not have been. Something fun must have happened.”
Oh, you don’t know the half of it.
Not going there.
“The whole evening dragged. I gave my speech, I did my thing, and I’m glad it’s done. I am completely, totally peopled out. I don’t want to see another human being for at least a week.”
“The money is coming in, so you must have done something right.” She swivels her monitor toward me with a dramatic flourish.
“Look at this. There are forty-seven thank-you replies. Pledges, Robyn. I’ve already had three calls from major givers who want to set up follow-up meetings.
The Garner Foundation? They’re doubling their annual gift.
Whatever you did last night, it worked. It worked in spades. ”
I try. I really do. I plaster on a smile because it’s wonderful.
“I have to admit that I was a bit worried,” she says.
“I thought donations might slow down with everything happening on the island. Did you hear that our Council and Mistveil representatives have another meeting scheduled today? It looks like talks are going to go on for a few days. Anyway, I digress. Money is flooding in. You did it.”
“I took your advice. I ditched the speech. Sorry, I know you worked hard on it. But I ditched it and spoke from the heart, and it worked. So, thank you for that wonderful piece of advice.”
I start toward my office.
“Are you okay, Robyn?”
I turn back. “I’m fine. I’m just a little tired. I barely slept.”
“Why is that?” Carla is frowning. “I thought you would have slept like a baby after getting the function out of the way.”
I shrug. “You and me both. Who knows? All this unrest on the island has me a bit freaked out.”
It’s true, but not the whole truth.
“Anyway.” Carla bounces back. “Speaking of tall, dark, and brooding, your bodyguard is already in your office.”
My head comes up.
“Is Ridge here already?”
Crap!
“Mmm-hmm. He got here just before you. I thought that the two of you might have come in together.”
“No way. Why would you think that?”
“Because he’s your bodyguard and all that.
” She looks at me for a moment through narrowed eyes.
“Anyway, he’s set up at his table.” She leans in across the desk and drops her voice to a stage whisper.
“He is even broodier today. Is that a word? Broodier. I swear he has a perpetual scowl, which is sooooooo sexy. I don’t think I’ve seen him smile, but I’m sure that would be something to behold. ”
I snap before I can stop myself. “Enough now! Could you please be a little more professional in the workplace?”
“Wow. Okay. Sorry, Robyn.”
I turn on my heel and walk in the opposite direction of my office, toward the wing that holds the consultation rooms. I hear her chair scrape behind me.
Damn, I think she’s following me. I pick up the pace.
“Robyn. Hey. Hold up a second. Where are you going?”
“I have things I need to do.”
“You said you had a stack of admin a mile high.”
“I’m going to see a patient first.”
“Which patient?”
“Onyx.”
She frowns. “Why can’t you go and put your bag and your coffee down in your office first, like you always do? If I didn’t know better, I would think that you were running away from something…or someone.”
I snort. “That’s not it at all. It…it’s because…” I keep walking. “Because I want to check on my patient first. He’s doing well, but there’s always a risk of something going wrong.”
That sounds thin, even to my own ears.
She stops walking. I can feel her stop walking. I keep going for two more steps, and then I stop too, because I can also feel her staring at the back of my head.
I turn around.
She has her hands clasped in front of her and her head cocked to one side. It’s her tell. She is about to call me out on something.
“There are staff keeping a close eye on Onyx, who is much better. People you trust. There’s something up. What is going on with you?”
“Nothing is going on.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t give me your head-of-department voice.
This is me. Something is off, and it has been off since the very second Ridge walked into this hospital.
I’ve been telling myself it was my imagination, or that you’re stressed.
But it’s not. There is a vibe between the two of you, and I cannot put my finger on what it is. ”
I make a face. “There is no vibe.”
“There is a vibe.” She nods.
“There isn’t.”
“He made every single person in this department call him by his first name. Do you know who he didn’t tell to call him by his first name? You. He still calls you Dr. Keller. Why is that, Robyn?”
“Because I’m the head of department and—”
“And you go bright red whenever he walks into a room.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do. And don’t try to tell me you don’t find him attractive, because every red-blooded woman in this hospital, and I do mean every single one, is doing laps past your office for the view. You can’t be the only female who has somehow not noticed that the man is gorgeous.”
“I admitted it on the day he arrived. He is attractive. There, are you happy? I’m the Head of Shifter Medicine, Carla. I have to set an example. Can we please leave it at that?”
“I don’t know.” She stares at me. “Something is going—”
And then her mouth falls open.
Her hand comes up and covers it, fingertips resting on her bottom lip.
“What is wrong with you?” I ask, sounding annoyed.
“Oh, my gosh,” she breathes. “Oh my, oh myyyyyy. You had sex with him. I know you did. That’s it. I can tell.”
“What? No.” I snort-laugh.
“You did. You totally had sex with him. I can see it written all over you. It explains everything.”
“I’m telling you, Carla, you are barking up the wrong tree.” I look at my watch. “Look at that, it’s after eight. I will fire you if you don’t go back to your desk, and right now.”
“When did this happen?”
“It didn’t!” I sound exasperated. “Drop this right now.”
She gasps so loudly that a passing nurse glances over. “Last night,” she whispers. “Holy shit. It was last night, wasn’t it? You guys went at it. You came back from the function, and you tore each other’s clothes off. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“It. Did. Not. Happen.” I hiss under my breath. “Drop it!”
“Oh, my god.” She puts her whole hand over her mouth this time. Her eyes are huge. “You had sex with Commander Ridge. Did he stay over at your place? Was it good? It was, wasn’t it?”
“It is none of your business.”
She jumps up and down. “I knew it. Tell me everything.”
I smack the side of her arm, and I look around the corridor. Two orderlies are heading down the far end. Someone is at the water cooler. I lower my voice to almost nothing.
“Will you keep your voice down?”
“I knew it,” she whispers. “I knew it. You totally did, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I say through my teeth. “Can you drop it now?”
She lets out a small, ear-splitting squeak.
“Will you please shut up?” I smack her arm again. “This is why I didn’t want you to know.”
Then I grab her by the elbow and steer her into the empty exam room across the hall. I close the door behind us and lean against it. The room is mercifully empty, lights off, the bed crisply made up for whoever comes in next.
“It is not what you think,” I say.
“It is exactly what I think.”
“We did sleep together last night, but—”
She squeals into her hands and bounces on the spot. Actually bounces. Like a teenager.
“Stop. Stop it. Let me finish. Let me tell you all of it, or I know I’ll never hear the end of it. Then I never want to speak about it again. Are we clear?”
“Okay, okay.” She’s beaming. “I’m listening. Tell me. I want to know everything.”
“This is bad, Carla. It’s really bad.”
“Why is it bad? It’s the opposite of bad. It’s the best news I’ve had since…I can’t even remember. Why is it bad? I think it’s great. You haven’t had sex since you and your ex broke it off.”
“Actually, we stopped having sex a good couple of months before we broke it off.”
“No. You went years without sex?”
“I have a vibrator.”
“Not the same thing, and you know it. This is wonderful.”
“It really isn’t.” I push my hand back through my hair. “We didn’t just sleep together last night. I mean, we did, but that wasn’t our first time.”
Her eyes go round. “You naughty—”
“Ridge was Flint’s friend.”
She blinks. “Flint?”
“From The Wing and Claw. Flint. The guy you slept with, remember?”