My Forbidden Doctor - Stephanie Brother Page 0,7
of the driver's seat becoming a little more comfortable.
Carl: Good. I hope you have a pl—' Grunting lowly, I backspaced rapidly. 'I hope you have an easy night
Tapping the Send arrow, I pulled my fish taco to my mouth and dropped my phone in the empty cup holder. After Melissa left my office, it was obvious that meeting up was the absolute wrong thing to do. She didn't expect to see me at this restaurant, and I had made the off-hand decision not to bother cooking tonight.
Yet, we were pushed together coincidentally. I mean, she made plans with her dad rather than keep the suggestion from earlier. That was telling in itself.
"Not that it matters but running into her was alright. If the aftermath of that asthma attack was anything to go by, Mel's got some really delicate lungs. Either that, or she's an easy crier. Or both..." Mumbling to myself around my mouthful, I swallowed roughly and rested my head back to stare at the vizor. "She's my patient."
While it wasn't exactly unethical to develop a romantic relationship with a patient, it was extremely taboo. I could lose my job, my reputation— no one would hire me, and that wasn't even considering the Ethical Conduct contract I had to sign to work for this hospital. That took it a few steps further, stating any hint of anything fishy would result in my being fired immediately.
I couldn't lose this job. I'd only been in this position for a month. I was the only pulmonologist this hospital could get their hands on, and I had a responsibility not to screw it up.
"... But man is she pretty." Those forbidden words rolled off my tongue like butter, and I tapped my feet against the floor of my car. I would never do anything unethical and risk my job over a fling. Being the only pulmonologist for this hospital only made me more important. "If only Eva weren't so pushy."
My mumble soured my bite a little before I swallowed. Eva had been waiting for me, at my car, for God knows how long, to grill me about my supposed relationship with Melissa. She was practically shouting at me by the end, shivering, her frail body unable to cope with the anger that bashed around her bones.
How a woman like Eva became a pediatrician, and a fairly successful one, was beyond me. I frowned as I stared at a stitch on the steering wheel, her red, twisted features flashing when I blinked. Real hurt saturated her blue eyes and ruffled her long, blonde hair, as if she had a reason to feel betrayed by me.
Not once had I ever expressed any interest in Eva, and I'd told her several times that I wasn't attracted to her in any way. I didn't want the HR headache, but more practically, she wasn't my type. She was tall and slim, and I preferred women shorter than me. Let's not even bring up the fact that she's crazy.
Eva was the kind of girl who set stuff on fire during an argument or stole her partner's pet and euthanized it for revenge over some small, maybe mythical slight.
I'd read my contract three times, and it stated clearly that inter-office romances were fire-able offences. I couldn't date my secretary or the lady that delivered the mail to my office. I couldn't date active patients, and if someone I was dating ended up being my patient, I had to refer her out to another pulmonologist.
None of this was out of the ordinary or unexpected, but Eva didn't work in my office. We shared a building, and for some reason that meant I was free game. She'd tried hard over the past seven weeks to make advances on me, finding absurd reasons to visit my office or call me to hers. I wasn't a pediatric doctor in any sense, so I always rerouted her calls to the hospital.
"I hope my mistake doesn't come back to bite me in the ass." Everything in my office was recorded, audio and video, and I made it a point to document my encounters with Eva. She was just the kind of person who made me feel unsafe as a man. If she accused me of sexual misconduct, no one would be inclined to think she was lying until long after I was destroyed.
My phone trilled shrilly, breaking my thoughts, and I frowned and shook my head viciously. Fishing my phone out of the cup holder, I