Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
HARPER
Dr. Rice and I had been at a cold, professional stalemate for the past few weeks. Every interaction was balanced on the razor’s edge between formality and rudeness.
It was exhausting, and yet there was something perversely entertaining about it. I suspected she wanted to fire me out of spite, but if she were even tempted to try, my first call would be to Vincent Cross.
Understanding that she knew that and knew she couldn’t do shit to me was delicious.
My system alerted to a new email as I’d returned from another meeting with another family with another problem, one RMC hoped I’d resolve in their favor. They were asking an awful lot of a person they couldn’t count on to back up their shady head of Risk Management and Patient Advocacy.
I pulled my phone to check the email and my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach.
Subject: Hart Family Matter - Resolution
From: Rachel Gaines, Esq., Hart Legal Group
To: Dr. Elizabeth Rice, Ms. Harper Sutton
Cc: Ridgeway Medical Center Legal Department
Please be advised that the Hart family has elected to withdraw their complaint against Ridgeway Medical Center and Dr. Cole Vaughn. Mrs. Hart thanks you for your time and diligence in exploring the events surrounding the death of Mr. Earl Greene.
No further action is required at this time.
Regards,
Rachel Gaines, Esq.
Hart Legal Group
I read it twice, then a third time, waiting for the catch. There had to be a catch. Connected families like the Harts didn’t just withdraw complaints, at least those with resources and influence.
My phone rang. Dr. Rice’s name scrolled across the screen.
“You saw the email,” she said without preamble when I picked up.
“Yes. Just now.”
“I just got a call from Legal. Mrs. Hart wants to meet with you to put this to bed. Today, if possible. I’ve already confirmed with her attorney that this is legitimate. The complaint is being withdrawn, no conditions.”
“What does she want to meet about if the complaint is going away?”
“I don’t know and I don’t particularly care. Schedule the meeting, hear what she has to say, and close this file.” A pause. “This is a good outcome, Harper. For everyone.” Then she hung up.
Her underhanded commentary did not miss me.
I then forwarded the email to Cole with a single line: Call me when you can.
A text message appeared almost immediately.
Cole:
On my way to your office.
My pulse kicked up.
Me:
Now? Aren’t you working?
Cole:
Be there in five.
I could have told him to wait, that this wasn’t the time or place, that we needed to maintain boundaries at work, especially since the investigation was closed and we had no more excuses to see each other.
Instead, I smoothed my blouse, checked my reflection in the dark screen of my monitor, and waited.
A few minutes later, my office door opened without a knock.
Cole strolled in and shut the door behind him.
He wore standard dark blue scrubs and a white coat, his ID badge clipped to his chest pocket.
His hair was disheveled as if he’d been running his fingers through it, but his brown eyes were smoky and he seemed… alert.
Cole was honestly rakishly handsome, standing in the middle of my office.
He crossed the room in three strides, pulled me up from my chair, and dropped his lips to mine like he had every right to—in my office, in the middle of the workday, with my door closed but not locked and the blinds only half-drawn.
When he finally pulled back, I was breathless and light-headed.
“Good morning,” he said. “Missed you.”
“It’s been like four hours since we saw each other,” I whispered. “What are you doing?”
“Kissing you.” He traced his thumb across my bottom lip. “And staking my claim. Making shit real clear. I’m not hiding my feelings for you anymore.”
“Cole, we’re at work. We ca—”
“I know where we are.” His hand slid to the small of my back, pulling me against him. “I also know I’m tired of pretending I don’t want you every second of every day, no matter where we are. That I don’t want everyone in this building to know you’re mine.”
My heart galloped double time. “Yours? Aren’t we possessive, Dr. Vaughn?”
“We sure as fuck are, and I know I’m not the only one.”
I bobbed my head side to side. I could admit that I’d have a severe problem if someone else laid a claim to him. I was in too deep and not asking to be rescued. “You right. So, you came all the way to my office to get a kiss and claim me?”
“I need you to let me do something.”
“Oh?” A brow flicked up. “Do we need to dip to the supply closet for this?”
He scowled playfully. “Harper. It’s ten in the morning. Damn.”
His voice dropped lower. “I want to take you out. Make it nice. Dinner, whatever show you want to see, the whole thing. I’m done with kisses in the parking garage and fucking in a storage closet and hoping nobody sees us having dinner together. I’m done with only loving on you behind closed doors.”
A month ago, I would have been adding up the consequences—the rumors, the office grapevine, what this would do to my reputation, my career.
I didn’t go looking for a tall, dark, handsome surgeon to bust into my life, ravage my body from head to toe on a regular basis, and make me want something I’d told myself I didn’t want, hadn’t wanted for a very long time…
Then Cole Vaughn came along and my life became complicated in ways I never saw coming. He became the name I couldn’t get out of my head, the force I kept drifting toward without meaning to. Wanting him became a welcome feeling.
Beneath all of it, I couldn’t stop myself from hoping he’d feel the same, that he’d never lose that hunger for me.
“Okay,” I said.
His eyebrows rose. “Okay? That’s it? No arguments?”
“I know how you love that but…” I shrugged my shoulders and grinned. “What do you want me to say? No, let’s keep sneaking around? I’m grown. I want to act grown.”
“Woman…” Cole shook his head, bending to kiss me again. “You are very grown. I want to make sure this is what you want.”
I reached up, cupped his face in my hands, and brought his lips to mine again. “I want this. I have no idea how this dating someone from work thing goes, but I want it.”
Cole’s smile was devastating. “Bet. Saturday? I’ll pick you up?”
“Cole—”
“Seven, Harper. Wear something that makes you feel good.” He kissed me again, slower this time. “I got to run. I’ve been hiding from Dr. Webb. I’ll see you later.”
He walked out, leaving my door open behind him, and I stood there like a dreamy teenager, one hand braced on the edge of my desk, the other pressed against my mouth. I couldn’t remember the last time anybody left me speechless. It wasn’t a thing that happened to me.
Rowan appeared in the doorway thirty seconds later, eyebrows hiked somewhere near their hairline. “So,” they said. “That was the legendary handsome Dr. Cole Vaughn.”
“It was.” I sighed, smiling, and went back to my chair.
Rowan grinned. “Damn, girl. Now I understand why you’ve been glowing.”
“I’m going to need you to pretend you didn’t see him kissing me, though I know you were watching because you’re nosy.”
“See what? Already forgotten.” They turned to leave, then paused. “But if someone happens to update the RMC employee group chat, it wasn’t me.”
My jaw dropped. “Oh shit. Don’t tell me you’re on that.”
“I plead the fifth. I’ll just say…everyone already knows there’s something going on between you two. It’s all over your faces. There’s a pool on when you’d go public. Pretty sure I just won a smooth hundred dollars.”
“That should not be fair,” I yelled as they scooted out of my office, laughing. “That’s insider trading!”
* * *
I’d arranged to meet Diane Hart at two o’clock. Alone. I guided her to one of our nicer guest lounges, got her a cup of coffee, and settled next to her on the couch.
This time, things felt different. Less like a battlefield.
She sat next to me, her hands folded on her lap. She was so small and contrite without her attorney. There was no entourage, just a woman who’d lost someone she loved.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” she said. “Especially considering…”
“Of course, Mrs. Hart. I’m glad we could touch base.”
She nodded, looking down at her hands. “I needed to apologize. To you and especially to Dr. Vaughn. I was angry and grieving and already feeling guilty about my grandfather. My husband, Eric—his side of the family are all attorneys. They resolve everything in a courtroom. I was upset and feeling so guilty about not being there. Eric’s solution was to assign one of his attorneys to step in and it was simply the wrong choice. ”
“Mrs. Hart—”
“Please, let me finish.” She looked up, her eyes red-rimmed but clear.
“My grandfather was all I had left. My parents are both gone. His wife has been gone for some time. Over the past few years, he’s become difficult to care for at home, and Brookside was the only care facility that would take him.
I knew he was on borrowed time, the aneurysm was just the thing that finally took him.
But I couldn’t accept that. I needed it to be someone’s fault. I needed there to be a villain.”
I stayed quiet, letting her talk.
“Dr. Vaughn tried to save him, I understood that. But more than that…” She swallowed hard. “My grandfather would have hated what I was doing. He would have been ashamed that I was trying to destroy a good Black doctor’s career because I couldn’t deal with my own feelings. My own guilt.”
“Guilt?”
“I was at a spa when he died, drinking champagne and eating fattening food and gossiping with rich women who have nothing better to do with their time or money. I didn’t hear the phone because it wasn’t even on.”
Her voice cracked. “I felt terrible that I wasn’t there with him in his last moments. Eric convinced me that someone else had to be responsible. Because if it wasn’t Dr. Vaughn’s fault, then it was mine for not being there.”
The raw and honest truth was out there, laid bare between us.