His Forbidden Love (Manhattan Billionaires #2) - Ava Ryan Page 0,34

discussing our individual days. I press a fervent and lingering kiss to the back of her hand.

Then I let her go, make sure she’s nicely tucked in, go home to my wife and put my back into my efforts to be a good husband.

That night, I make a pledge to myself. The universe or God or whoever has done the right thing and kept Ally safe. I should also do the right thing. I can’t be a half-assed husband. I can’t be a snake who gives Ally mixed signals.

So I won’t.

That’s why I avoid Ally a couple of days later when she returns to work. And that’s how I generate the performance of my lifetime when, late in the shift, she materializes at my side while I’m typing up a patient note.

“Dr. Jamison,” she says, a false note of cheer in her voice. “I’m back.”

Please. Like I didn’t feel a disturbance in the Force the second she walked through the sliding glass doors into the building this morning.

“Oh, yeah?” I say, still typing. “Headache? Nausea? Dizziness? Confusion?”

I think I detect a frown, but I can’t be sure because I’m determined not to look directly at her.

“A slight, ah, headache, but that’s all,” she says.

“Good. You haven’t screwed up my handiwork, have you?”

“Not so far,” she says, touching her bandage.

She sounds wounded now.

And there’s only so much acting I can do. I’m not Leonardo fucking DiCaprio.

“Great.” I finish typing, grab my coffee and turn to go, determined to get away from her as soon as possible. Before my fragile resolve collapses entirely. “Back to work, then.”

I make it one step away. Two steps. On the third step, I start to congratulate myself on a clean getaway, but then I hear her voice behind me.

“You didn’t…”

Shit. Fuck.

I stiffen and turn back, trying to look annoyed.

“Didn’t what, Harlow?” I say, checking my watch to avoid looking her in the eye. “I’ve got surgery.”

She tries to smile like it’s nothing, but I know exactly what she’s about to ask.

Trust me. It’s not nothing.

“You didn’t stop by my room to check on me the other night, did you?”

I look directly at her. The vulnerable hope in her expression kills me.

Kills. Me.

But I stick the landing.

“No. Why would I?” I say, trying to look politely puzzled by the idea. I watch the hurt creep into her expression, quickly followed by unmistakable bewilderment as she looks away, her face shadowed. No doubt she’s replaying the whole episode in her mind and trying to decide if she’s crazy or not. I hate myself for gaslighting her. But not as much as I’d hate myself for fucking up three lives by following my attraction to her to its natural conclusion and cheating on my wife. “I knew you were in good hands. We done?”

To her immense credit, she blinks and gets all her shields in place. If I’m lucky, she’ll decide she imagined or dreamed the whole thing as a side effect of her concussion. If I’m not lucky, she’ll put me down as a spineless and lying MF’er.

Either way, she’ll stay away from me. The way I’m determined to stay away from her for the duration of her internship.

“We’re done,” she says crisply, taking off and leaving me to stare after her.

But we weren’t done. Not then, and not now.

But I am done with my shower. I can only hide out in the stall for so long, and it’s unrealistic for me to expect a little soap and water to dissipate all the tension buzzing through my body.

Sighing, I kill the water and get out. I’m toweling off my head when another memory of Ally hits me. I’ve got a million of them. Ally the night of the dinner cruise, with that sexy dress and the breeze ruffling her hair. Her eyes. Her smile. Her mouth. A shiver runs across my cooling skin, igniting nerve endings far and wide. From there, it doesn’t take much to get my dick fired up. And there it is. More tension.

Wonderful.

“Thanks, Harlow.” I eyeball the haggard and hollow-eyed loser in the mirror with absolute disgust as I sling the towel around my shoulders and grip myself. This is what I’ve come to. Lusting after my employee. Who, by the way, is some other guy’s girlfriend. Jacking off to a playlist of her images in the bathroom at work. “Pathetic.”

Without warning, the door swings open.

And that’s how Ally finds me. With only a towel and a pair of flip-flops keeping me from being