Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Growth happens outside of your fucking comfort zone…squirm, bitch.
—From Remy’s Badass Bitch Affirmations
Remy
“You asked to see me?” Remy stood in Brinder’s open doorway, stifling a small yawn.
She’d just finished her four morning cases and it was time for a late lunch break.
Mondays were long OR days for her, but she loved the cadence of the routine.
Normally, she never experienced anything close to exhaustion until the evening, when she finally came home to relax and unwind with Chicane.
Today, however, she’d struggled to focus. She’d swallowed more yawns than she had since her early residency when her body was still adjusting to the brutal schedule.
Her struggles were just a frustrating continuation of what she’d dealt with since Sebastian walked out her door yesterday, sauntering to his car with a carefree wave to freaking Jerome the Pap.
Sebastian had left her home—ugh, their home—around three with promises to text her and keep in touch on the plans he was putting in place.
Since then, Remy had barely functioned. She’d opened the latest digital issue of a medical periodical, but after reading the same line four times, she gave up and slammed her laptop closed.
She’d tried to watch the Netflix series about supernatural events and government conspiracies set in the eighties everyone had raved about, but her mind kept wandering.
She’d thought about going to the gym to swim a mile or ten, but worries of paps following her put an end to that.
She’d finally given up and gone to bed at eight-thirty.
Images of Sebastian Wheatley, future husband and thief of sleep, had flickered through her mind like a 1980s film strip. She’d finally dropped into a fitful sleep around one in the morning. When her alarm chimed a few hours later, Remy did something she’d never done before. She hit snooze.
Four times.
With no time to get her customary laps in, Remy had downed her black Americano from the kiosk in the hospital lobby and jumped into surgery.
When she’d finished the last case of the morning, her circulating nurse had informed Remy that Brinder wanted to see her in his office at her first opportunity.
“Remy?” Brinder’s faded but still-posh British voice cut through the wanderings of her strained, weary mind.
She shook her head quickly, bringing her gaze to her boss’s concerned one. “Sorry.” She smiled self-consciously, pushing down a surge of ire at Sebastian Wheatley’s intrusion on her well-ordered life. “Bonkers day yesterday and then I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Come in, have a seat.” Brinder stood and motioned to the couch in his office.
Remy knew it was a pullout. All the execs had them in case of bad weather.
It was safer and easier when they could catch some winks while staying at the hospital, sometimes for days on end.
But it was still the most comfortable sofa bed she’d ever sat on.
Brinder had a freakish gift for acquiring sumptuous upholstered furniture.
As Remy stepped forward and sank into the couch—willing herself not to yawn in her boss’s face—Amani whisked efficiently behind her and closed the door with a quiet snick.
Brinder relaxed into the chair next to where she sat. His eyes flitted across her face. “You look like death warmed up,” he observed, not unkindly—but accurately.
Remy had a mirror. She knew what she looked like this morning, and it certainly wasn’t paparazzi-ready. “So do you, Dr. Desiiigh. But that’s every day, now that little Jude has joined the party,” she deflected with a smirk.
“Touché,” Brinder chuckled, but then it faded all too quickly and he shifted into boss mode.
Remy saw this coming a mile away. It was part of why she hadn’t been able to sleep last night.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.” His voice was low, serious.
“Don’t I?” Remy parried, not sure she had it in her to defend aloud what she’d been struggling to accept as her new reality.
“No. I know the shelter is important to you—”
“Understatement,” she acknowledged in a whisper.
“—and my brother-in-law has dangled an enormous amount of money in front of you to help St. Dymphna’s.”
Remy said nothing. Just waited quietly, somewhat impatiently, for Brinder to get his concerns off his chest already. So she could shut it down and then get back to work.
“I’ve discussed this with my wife. There are other ways to raise money for the shelter.
Honor said if the proposed situation is too much of an imposition—and how the bloody fuck it wouldn’t be, I don’t know—she’d host a fundraiser and secure meaningful donations from her entertainment industry colleagues.
You don’t have to…Christ”—he gripped the back of his neck—“pimp yourself into marriage with Bash.”
Remy sat up a little straighter, her own concerns sliding away at the umbrage slicing through her veins. Brinder wasn’t saying anything she hadn’t already thought. But hearing it aloud rankled.
“I don’t see it as pimping myself.” She infused her trademark iciness into her voice and Brinder had the good sense to look embarrassed at his unfortunate terminology. “I see it as an efficient and mutually beneficial means to an important end.”
“But we can get you to that end another way.” Brinder leaned forward, resting his forearms on his legs, his rolled-up dress shirt revealing part of the sleeve of tattoos that ran from the back of his wrist up his arm—evidence that Brinder wasn’t the stodgy kind of chief medical officer so characteristic of the early years of her training.
He was an ally, if not a sort-of-friend.
His hazel eyes were earnest with worry. “This just feels all wrong. Like a massive conflict of interest. Not to mention an upheaval of your life that isn’t necessary.
You have no idea what it’s like to be married to someone with that kind of profile.
I mean, it’s a lot for me, and Bash has exponentially more exposure than Honor.
It’ll be a bloody circus, and I don’t want you cast in the role of wife to the center ring clown.
” He heaved a massive exhale. “Sorry, I know that’s harsh and not fair to Bash.
Emotions are a bit closer to the surface these days.
I just want to make sure you know we’ll raise funds for you another way.
You have my commitment. And Honor’s. If you want it. Just say the word.”
Remy looked at the ceiling, forcing a fortress of calm into her body. Her fight or flight response was kicking in—something that used to happen whenever she was immersed in conflict. But the sensation hadn’t been so strong, so overwhelming, in years.
Pulling in a deep breath, she got herself together and said the one thing her mind kept returning to all sleepless fucking night.
“But what about Seb—Bash’s role?”
She caught herself, but probably not fast enough. She couldn’t put a finger on why, but it seemed odd to use his full name with Brinder.
Brinder frowned, either not catching her near slip or not finding it important. “There has to be another way for him to nab it.”
“There isn’t, Brinder.” She smiled sadly.
“He already gave my name to his producer. The paparazzi have photographed us together. Including at my home in a very”—she pushed a swallow through her parched throat—“intimate embrace. If he ‘dumps’ me and finds someone else, it just plays into Walter Pennyrose’s concerns and S-Bash”—Good job, barely tripped on it that time—“will miss any opportunity at his dream role. I don’t think I can do that to him.
Not even if I—how did you phrase it—end up firmly placed in the center ring of the Bash Circus. ”
Brinder opened his mouth to speak but Remy continued. “I’ve already considered walking away from this and begging Honor for her help. But I won’t be the one to end someone’s dream. I’ve seen a dream die—in the ugliest possible way,” she choked out, “and I won’t ever be a part of that again.”
Her boss stared at her, scanning her face like he could read her thoughts the way he read diagnostic imaging. Eventually, he heaved another big sigh, dropped his head between his arms, then stood slowly and held out his hand to shake. “Ok then. You have my full support. Whatever you need.”
Remy stood as well, taking the proffered olive branch. “Thank you, Brinder. I appreciate your concern. You’re a class act. But I’ve got this under control. Now, I better get back to the OR.”
She moved to the door and then paused, her hand steady on the cool knob. “Oh, and Brinder?” she offered over her shoulder. “I like clowns. A lot.”