knowing damn well that I’ll be regretting that later, but far too wound up to stop the words from falling out of my mouth like word vomit. “Now, if you would excuse me, I have patients to check on.”
“The hell you do,” she screeches before I can make my getaway. “Effective immediately, you are off all cases.”
“What?” I demand, spinning back to her. “You can’t do that.”
“I very much can and I will,” she tells me. “You’ll be on paperwork until this whole matter is handled and I figure out what the hell to do with you. You will be taken off Dr. Mayson’s service and any assessments completed by him since your arrival will be overlooked.” My mouth drops but before I have the chance to tell her exactly what I think, she hits me with a low blow. “Perhaps you’ll think twice before whoring yourself out to another doctor for a good grade.”
I step into her, watching with a wicked pleasure as she shrinks back from me. “I did no such thing,” I tell her. “I don’t know how the other midwives like to do things around here, but Dr. Mayson and I, while it’s still very new, are in a committed relationship, and we have absolutely no plans of changing that. Now, you go ahead and do what you feel you need to do, but I promise you, if you even so much as try to destroy the one good relationship I’ve ever had, I’ll make it my mission to return the favor, starting with a complaint to the ethics board about being accused of whoring myself out for good grades.”
With that, I turn on my heel and stalk away, fearing the tears that well in my eyes. I will not cry. I will not cry.
I reach the break room and fly through the door before instantly pacing back and forth. She can’t take me off his service, can she? Shit, she probably can. She’s the supervising midwife on the ward, she can do whatever the hell she wants to do, but at the same time, my training program requires me to log a certain number of practical hours a week. She can’t keep me stuck on paperwork without violating the terms of my contract.
I’ll be okay. I have to be.
She’s not really going to hand us over to the board. I know there are rules and regulations about workplace romances but they’re just frowned upon. There’s nowhere in the by-laws that states that it’s forbidden to date a colleague, believe me, I’ve checked ten times over. We should be fine, but there’s still Thorne’s reputation to worry about. It won’t look good on his record to be caught fraternizing with his student, but this is so much more than that. I’m already falling for him. I can see him as the man that I spend the rest of my life with. I’m not ready to give that up.
I make my way over to the small fridge and grab my lunch out of it, despite it only being 10 am. Screw it, I need to eat something, otherwise, I’m going to keep pacing the room and eventually start sharpening my claws.
My ass drops down onto the uncomfortable chair and I slouch over the table while eating last night’s cheap left-over spaghetti Bolognese. My mind swarms with anger, every thought completely overtaken by rage that it’s nearly impossible to try and relax.
The minutes tick by, and before I know it, the door is pushed open and Thorne stands before me with his brows drawn. “Where the hell have you been? I was going to put the baby in your care, but you were gone. I had no choice but to pass it off to Sarah.”
Damn Sarah.
My glare shoots up to my boyfriend. “Patricia dragged me out of there like she was kicking out a bad one night stand the morning after.”
“What?” he grunts, walking deeper into the break room and letting the door fall closed behind him. “Why would she do that?”
“She knows,” I tell him.
His face scrunches into a cringe and he lets out a frustrated sigh. “Fuck. How did she take it?”
“Not well. She demanded that I end it with you, and when I kindly suggested that she could get fucked, she took me off your service and put me on paperwork before suggesting that I was whoring myself out for good grades.”
Thorne’s face darkens. “Tell me that she didn’t actually say that.”
“Word for word,” I