Chapter Fifteen
Gabriel
I was losing control.
Not in any obvious way—my patients still received excellent care, my diagnoses remained accurate, my surgical precision hadn’t wavered.
But the control I’d maintained for years, the careful compartmentalization that had gotten me through my divorce and single parenthood and building a practice—that was crumbling.
Because of her.
Because of Cate.
Because I couldn’t stop thinking about that goddamn dinner.
It had been a week since she’d cooked for us. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. And I’d spent approximately one hundred and sixty-seven of them replaying that evening in my head.
The candlelight catching in her hair. The way her lips had closed around her fork. Those soft sounds of pleasure she’d made with each bite. The flush on her cheeks when our eyes met across the table.
The electric shock when our fingers touched.
I’d been hard at my own dinner table with my daughter present, for Christ’s sake. That alone should have been enough to shock me back to sanity. Or at least have Child Services banging on my door!
It wasn’t.
If anything, it had made things worse.
Because now I knew. Now I’d seen her in that light—literally and figuratively—and I couldn’t unsee it. Couldn’t unknow what it felt like to want someone that badly while being completely unable to act on it.
“Gabriel?”
I looked up from the patient chart I’d been staring at without reading for the last five minutes.
Hayden stood in the doorway of my office, eyebrow raised. “You okay? I’ve called your name three times.”
“Fine,” I said. “Just reviewing McDaniel’s labs.”
“McDaniel’s appointment was last Monday.”
Fuck.
I closed the chart. “What do you need?”
“Staff meeting in ten minutes. You coming?”
“Yes.”
Hayden didn’t move. Just stood there, studying me with that analytical expression he got when he was trying to diagnose something.
“You’ve been distracted all week,” he said finally.
“I’m fine.”
“You called Mrs. Patterson ‘Mrs. Anderson’ the other day. You never mix up patient names.”
“Everyone makes mistakes.”
“Not you.” He stepped into my office, closing the door behind him. “What’s going on?”
Nothing I could explain without sounding like a complete disaster.
I’m obsessed with my daughter’s nanny. I can’t stop thinking about the way she eats. I got hard watching her enjoy chicken piccata. I’m losing my mind.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just tired.”
“Uh-huh.” Hayden didn’t look convinced. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain nanny, would it?”
My jaw tightened. “No.”
“Because Fitz mentioned you’ve been—”
“Fitz needs to mind his own business.”
“Fitz is concerned. We all are. You’ve been off all week.”
I had been.
I knew I had been.
I’d been staying late at the office, finding excuses to avoid going home at my usual time. When I did get home, I kept interactions with Cate brief and professional. “Good evening. How was Megan today? Thank you. Goodnight.”
Nothing that would give away the fact that I was thinking about her constantly. Nothing that would reveal how badly I wanted to pull her into my office, lock the door, and find out if she tasted as good as she looked.
“I’m handling it,” I said.
“Handling what?”
“The situation.”
Hayden’s expression shifted—understanding mixed with something that looked like sympathy. “Gabriel, if you’re attracted to her—”
“I’m not discussing this.”
“—that’s normal. She’s young, she’s attractive, she’s good with Megan.”
“She’s my employee.”
“She’s also an adult who can make her own decisions.”
“The power dynamic alone makes it inappropriate.”
“Only if you make it inappropriate,” Hayden said. “If there’s genuine mutual interest.”
“There isn’t.”
Liar.
I’d seen the way she looked at me. The way her breath had caught when our fingers touched. The way she’d fled my house like she was running from something.
From me.
From this.
“You’re overthinking it,” Hayden said.
“I’m being professional.”
“You’re being stubborn.”
“Staff meeting,” I said, standing. “We’re going to be late.”
Hayden sighed but didn’t push further. We walked to the conference room in silence, and I tried to focus on anything other than the fact that I’d see Cate again in a few hours.
That I’d have to maintain this careful distance while wanting nothing more than to close it.
That I was, quite possibly, the most pathetic man alive.
The weekend had been a relief.
Cate had Saturdays and Sundays off, which meant two full days where I didn’t have to see her. Didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t thinking about her. Didn’t have to maintain the professional facade that was becoming harder to sustain with each passing day.
Megan had asked about her approximately forty-seven times.
“When is Cate coming back?”
“Is Cate going to make us dinner again?”
“Can we invite Cate to the park with us?”
I deflected each question with increasing frustration, which only made Megan more persistent.
By Sunday evening, I was ready for Monday. Ready to see Cate again, even if it meant torturing myself with proximity I couldn’t act on.
Ready to confirm she was real and not some fever dream my sexually frustrated brain had conjured.
Monday morning, I came downstairs earlier than usual.
Cate was already in the kitchen with Megan, helping her with breakfast. The scene was domestic, comfortable—Megan chattering about something while Cate nodded along, scrambling eggs with practiced efficiency.
But something was off.
Cate’s usual chaotic energy was muted. Her responses to Megan were appropriate but subdued. She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
She looked tired.
Sad.
Wrong.
“Good morning,” I said from the doorway.
Both of them looked up. Megan’s face lit up immediately. “Dad! Cate’s making cheesy eggs!”
“I can see that.”
Cate’s smile was brief, perfunctory. “Morning, Dr. Lyon. Coffee’s ready if you want some.”
Dr. Lyon. She’d been calling me Gabriel for weeks now, at least when Megan wasn’t around. The return to formality felt like a step backward.
“Thank you,” I said, moving to the coffeemaker. “How was your weekend?”
“Fine.” She turned back to the eggs, her movements mechanical. “Yours?”
“Uneventful.”
Silence.
Megan filled it with a story about a dream she’d had involving a talking cat and a spaceship, but I was barely listening. I was watching Cate—the tension in her shoulders, the way she wasn’t quite meeting my eyes, the absence of her usual nervous energy.
Something had happened. Something significant enough to change her entire demeanor.
“Cate,” I said, interrupting Megan mid-sentence. “Are you alright?”
She glanced at me, surprised. “I’m fine.”
“You seem—”
“I’m fine,” she repeated more firmly. “Just tired. Long weekend.”
She was lying.
I could see it in the way she wouldn’t hold eye contact, the slight tremor in her hands as she plated the eggs. But I wouldn’t push. Not here, not with Megan present, not when we were supposed to be maintaining professional boundaries.
“If you need anything—” I started.
“I don’t.” She set Megan’s plate down with a smile that looked painful. “I’m good. Really.”
She wasn’t.
But she clearly didn’t want to talk about it.
Especially not with me.
I drank my coffee in silence, frustrated by my own helplessness. By the distance between us I’d carefully maintained and now desperately wanted to cross. By the fact that something had hurt her and I had no idea what it was.
The text from Fitz came at two-thirty PM, right in the middle of a well-child check.
Fitz: Call me when you get a chance. About Cate.
I finished the appointment on autopilot, my mind already racing through possibilities.
Had something happened?
Was she okay?
Had Fitz done something?
I called him the moment I was alone in my office.
“What happened?” I said without preamble.
“Hello to you too,” Fitz said. “Nice to hear your voice, Gabriel. How’s your day going?”
“Fitz.”
“Right. Okay. So, funny story—Quinton and I ran into Cate in Boston on Saturday.”
My grip on the phone tightened. “And?”
“And we invited her to the Red Sox game. She came. Had a good time. Everything was fine until we went to this pub afterwards for food.”
“What happened at the pub?”
“Her friend showed up. Well, ex-friend, I guess. Tracy? The one who got the restaurant job Cate wanted?”
The pieces started clicking together.
The restaurant. The culinary career Cate had mentioned during dinner. The bitterness in her voice when she’d talked about her friend.
“What did she do?” My voice came out harder than intended.
“She was... condescending. Talked about how successful she is, how great the restaurant is, acted like Cate’s nanny job was cute but sad. Cate finally snapped and called her out for stealing her position. It got ugly. Tracy left, but Cate was pretty wrecked.”
Fuck.
“How wrecked?”
“She tried to play it off, but she was clearly devastated. We walked her to the train and made sure she got home okay. But, Gabriel, she looked like someone had kicked her while she was down.”
I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose.
Someone had hurt her.
Had made her feel small and worthless, and like she’d failed.
And I hadn’t been there.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“Because you care about her,” Fitz said simply. “Don’t try to deny it. We all know. And she needs someone right now, even if she won’t admit it.”
“She’s my employee.”
“She’s also a person who’s hurting. And you’re the person who can help.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Figure it out,” Fitz said. “You’re smart. You’ll think of something.”
He hung up before I could respond.
I sat there in my office, staring at the phone, my mind racing.
Cate was hurting.