18. Levi
Alexis would be fine with Elias, right?
He huffed out a breath and refocused on his computer screen. Elias was like a golden retriever puppy. Over exuberant and too eager to be liked by everyone… everyone except the members of their family. Elias would walk away and never look back if not for Levi keeping him tethered to them. That and his trust fund that would get cut off if he didn’t turn up to regular family dinners.
Which made what happened the night before such a mystery. Elias didn’t get involved. He was strictly surface-level, and shied away from anything that required more than the minimum amount of effort. Getting into a fight over a woman in a bar… that just wasn’t like him. There had to be more to the story, but Elias wasn’t talking.
Levi picked up his coffee and skimmed the client list. He paused over a name and tapped his finger thoughtfully. It was a policy of the clinic to follow up on clients who hadn’t been in for a while. He hated it, but it kept his mother happy. This client was different, though. He hoped he hadn’t crossed the line the last time he saw her. He’d kept quiet for months after treating her injuries, but that last time…
He’d tried to broach the subject delicately, but Levi was not known for his subtlety. The last thing he’d wanted was to scare her away. If his guess was correct, she had enough to be scared about at home without him adding to it.
Pressing the intercom button, he spoke to Tessa. ‘Sophie Jamieson missed her last appointment and hasn’t rebooked. It was more than six months ago. Have we heard anything?’
‘I’ll check and let you know,’ Tessa replied.
Levi made a note for himself, and with a heavy sigh, turned to the list of Jonah’s clients he would be seeing that day. The records were dense… just how many treatments had these patients had? He could see now why Jonah’s billings were consistently higher than Levi’s.
At least the first couple were easy enough. Skin checks. The threat of skin cancer was no joke, especially in a place like Queensland that had around three hundred days of sunshine each year.
There was a knock on his door, and Levi looked up, pasting a professional smile on his face.
‘Come in.’
Tessa opened the door and showed the first client into the room.
‘Hello, I’m Dr Beck,’ Levi said, shaking the woman’s hand. ‘I hope they explained to you I will be covering for Dr Jonah while he’s at a conference?’
‘Yes,’ the woman replied with an easy smile.
‘Why don’t you go on through and get changed into the gown?’ Levi showed her the door to the examination room.
The woman frowned at him. ‘Um, what?’
‘I just need you to change into a gown for your skin check,’ he said.
‘No,’ the woman replied with a shake of her head. ‘I’m not here for a skin check. I’m here for my lip filler.’
Levi frowned at the computer screen. The appointment definitely said skin check. Had reception messed up? It was unlike them. His mother ran a tight ship, and this kind of mistake never happened. Not on her watch.
‘Have a seat,’ he said, sitting back down in his own chair and clicking on the patient file. Her previous appointments had been varied from laser treatment to the occasional Botox, but…
Levi frowned as he scanned the record of her treatments. Jonah’s notes said one thing but the treatment codes… the ones they sent to the government to get the Medicare rebate… they didn’t add up. According to the codes, she had been getting Medicare-subsidised treatments, but Jonah had actually been giving her completely different therapies.
Levi gritted his teeth. He didn’t have access to what the client had been billed for, but he had a fair idea what was going on. Jonah was double dipping. The client was being charged full price, but he was claiming for the subsidised treatments.
‘Is everything okay?’ the woman asked, shifting in her seat.
Levi tried to smile at her, but it probably looked more like a grimace. ‘Everything is fine. I misread the appointment. Sorry for the concern. Go on through to the treatment room and make yourself comfortable on the bed. I will be with you in a moment.’
The woman stood and walked into Levi’s treatment room and closed the door. Levi marched to the office door and poked his head out to see Tessa.
‘I need to see my mother,’ he growled, before closing it and heading into the treatment room.
Did his mother know? She had to know. Catherine Beckingsale knew everything that went on in the clinic. So, if she knew, then she was condoning it. The knowledge twisted in Levi’s gut. The ramifications of getting caught would not be pretty, especially with the high profile of their clinic.
‘Thanks for your patience,’ he murmured to the client on the bed.
He did a quick check of the woman’s face to make sure Jonah hadn’t been over-injecting, but everything looked fine. He could tell she’d had the lip filler before, but it had broken down enough for a top up.
He would do his job and give the client what she wanted, but he would have words with his mother. They couldn’t keep doing this. It was just plain wrong, and if there was one thing Levi hated, it was dishonesty.
‘You’re overreacting,’Catherine said with a resigned sigh.
‘I’m overreacting?’ Levi hissed. ‘You are defrauding the government, and you think I’m overreacting?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. This is hardly the crime of the century. All doctors do it.’
‘I don’t.’
Catherine rolled her eyes. ‘No, you don’t. It would make our lives a lot easier if you did. You know, your holier than thou attitude is really tiring. It’s probably why you’re single.’
Levi spun to face his mother. She couldn’t seriously be talking about his love life right now, could she?
‘Which reminds me,’ she said, ignoring the disbelief on his face. ‘I’ve set you up on a blind date.’
‘What?’
This could not be happening right now. He was here to confront her over her illegal activity, and she was talking about setting him up on a date? How was this his life? How was this his family?
‘You know the salon I go to?’
‘Do not tell me you set me up with your stylist,’ he gritted out between clenched teeth.
‘Of course not,’ she replied with a wave of her hand. ‘My stylist is lovely, but no, she’s not Beckingsale material.’
Levi gaped at his mother. This had to be a dream. He’d fallen and hit his head, surely. This could not be real.
‘I asked her because she has access to a lot of the Brisbane social set. The salon is the best in the city, and only those who have the money to pay can get in. I figured she’d know if there were any single clients that would be a good match for you.’
Levi put his hand to his hair, and instead of running his fingers through it, he tugged on the overly long strands, hoping the sharp sting would wake him from this nightmare.
‘I am not going on a blind date,’ he said.
Catherine lifted her eyes to his, and her expression went from one of casual calmness to that of steel. ‘It is long past time for you to get married, Levi.’ Her voice was as hard as the look in her eyes. ‘We don’t ask much of you,’ she went on. ‘You’re a good doctor, if a little pious—or a lot pious—and your clients are loyal, but we can easily find a doctor to replace you.’
Okay, this had to be an alternate reality. ‘You’d fire me?’ he asked, incredulous. ‘For not going on a blind date?’
Catherine smiled, reminding him of a wolf. ‘Of course not, darling. But it is time for you to contribute to the family, and if you can’t do that by overlooking our… creative accounting practices, then you can do it by getting married and having children. Chloe and Beau need some cousins.’
‘You do know how ridiculous you sound right now, don’t you?’ Levi said.
Catherine folded her hands under her chin and looked up at him with a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth expression. ‘Is it such a trial to go on a date with a beautiful woman?’
‘That’s not the point,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t want to go on a date.’
Catherine’s eyebrows rose slightly. ‘Are you seeing someone?’
Levi’s brain immediately went to Alexis. They were as far from dating as you could get. He was pretty sure she despised him, especially after the incident with Ralph. Asking her to look after Elias would be another nail in his coffin. No way would she even look twice at him after spending time with his brother… not that he wanted her to. It didn’t matter anyway. She would either think their entire family was psycho—not completely wrong if this conversation was anything to go by—or she would succumb to Elias’ charm. That was something Levi couldn’t compete with. And if not Elias, then there was Theo. Alexis would definitely take Theo over Levi… women always did.
‘I’ll take your silence as a no, and therefore you have no reason to turn down a date,’ Catherine said.
Levi crossed his arms and glared at his mother. ‘If I go on this date, what will you do for me?’
Catherine blinked slowly, and if Levi didn’t know his mother as well as he did, he would never have known just how surprised she was.
‘A date with a beautiful woman and not being required to change your billing codes isn’t incentive enough?’
Levi smiled. ‘I want to go to the conference,’ Levi said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Your brother is already there.’
‘Not this one,’ Levi said. ‘The one in January. The one specifically for doctors who treat scars. And I want to start taking on more clients who need scar treatments rather than purely cosmetic ones.’
Catherine searched his face, and he hoped she could see just how determined he was. A stint in the burn unit as an intern had impacted him deeply, but he’d put it aside, thinking he needed some experience behind him before he could transition into that field. Instead, he’d been stuck doing cosmetic procedures in the clinic and not permitted to get the experience he desperately wanted. It was time for that to change.
‘Fine,’ Catherine agreed. ‘But you can’t abandon the clients you already have.’
‘Of course not,’ Levi said feeling a rush of victory.
‘And you won’t make a fuss about Jonah’s billings.’
‘Fine,’ he replied reluctantly.
It went against his very grain, but as long as they didn’t expect him to do it too, he could live with it. For now.