How Much I Feel - Marie Force Page 0,52
diving straight off the cliff into whatever this is with him. I have to remember the years I spent in school preparing for my new job. He is my job for the time being, and as much as I want to take that dive, I probably shouldn’t do that right now. Although, after kissing his face off, it’s a little late to be warning myself off him.
“I know what you’re going to say.”
I eye him skeptically. “So now you’re a mind reader and a brain surgeon?”
He laughs, which makes him even sexier, if that’s possible. “Yes, they teach us how to read minds in neurosurgery school. It’s part of the first-year curriculum. And what you were going to say is that we’re working together, and this isn’t the time for it to become anything more than that.”
“They taught you well in neurosurgery school.”
“Thank you. I am good at what I do. When I’m allowed to do it, that is.”
The sadness I see and hear from him has my heart going out to him. “Are you getting crazy being cut off from work?”
“A little. It’s been years since I went this long without drilling into someone’s skull.”
I sputter with laughter. “You’re sick.”
“I know it must seem that way to someone who doesn’t do what I do, but to me, skull-drilling is just another day at the office.”
“It’s a really amazing thing to be good at.”
“I always thought so, too, until it was taken from me.” He sips from a beer bottle. “I got an email from Ginger.”
Hearing that, I sit up straighter. “You did? What’d she say?”
“How sorry she is for everything that happened, that she never intended for my career to be impacted. That she’d like another chance with me. Yada, yada.”
“That’s such bullshit! What did she think would happen when she set you up to be caught naked with her by her husband, who was also your biggest boss?”
“Easy, tiger.” He flashes that sexy grin that makes me feel powerful and powerless at the same time, and yes, I know that’s as crazy as it sounds. But there you have it.
“I’m sorry, but I hope you aren’t feeling forgiving toward her.”
“Not at all. I deleted the email and blocked her so I never have to hear from her again.”
“Good.”
“It felt good.”
“She never intended to mess up your career. Whatever. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she didn’t give your promising career the first thought when she launched her insane scheme to get rid of her husband.”
“You’re very sexy when you’re pissed. Remind me to rile you up more often.”
“Jason! Stop. I’m dead serious.”
“I know you are, and it means so much to me to have your support and your friendship and your professional expertise. You have no idea how much.”
“My professional expertise, such as it is.”
“You’re doing great, Carmen. Your ideas feel right to me, and even if it doesn’t work to sway the board, it’ll all have been worth it to have met you and to have spent this time with you.”
I’m so bowled over by him that I respond with humor rather than the emotion that’s coursing through my veins like an out-of-control freight train that can’t be pushed back into the station no matter how hard I try. Not that I’m trying all that hard. “Especially that time we went to jail.”
He smiles. “Especially that. We’ll always have jail. In other good news, some of the residents who’ve been working with me on the research have reached out to the board in New York to let them know they’re crazy to let me go, especially when we’re so close to a real breakthrough.”
“That’s amazing. Someday in the not-too-distant future, all of this will be a bad dream that you finally woke up from.”
“Not all of it has been bad,” he says in a meaningful tone that leaves no doubt he’s referring to me.
I run my fingers through my hair, trying to bring order to it. “We have something in common, you and me.”
“What’s that?”
“We both thought we had it all figured out until it went to shit.”
“True. Although your thing was a thousand times worse than mine.”
“Heartbreak is heartbreak, no matter how it happens.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. Losing your young husband the way you did is far worse than what’s happening to me.”
“I still hate that she did that to you when you’ve worked so hard for the career that’s now hanging in the balance.”
“I have to believe it’s going