The Doctor's Secret (Copper Point Medical Book 1)

by Heidi Cullinan

  Simon’s blood ran cold, and he wanted to flinch, but his mother’s warnings and all of the training with the guys paid off. “Yes, we’re good friends.”

  She laced her hands together over her desk. “As your director, I wanted to remind you of the hospital’s new policy about dating, and to make sure you’re aware of the consequences of what happens if you’re caught doing so.”

  Sweat ran down Simon’s neck, but he leaned on the replies he’d been coached to give. “What is it that makes you think I’m dating anyone right now?”

  “I didn’t say you were dating. I only wanted to remind you of the policy.”

  Now Simon was terrified and annoyed. So she’d brought him in here to scare him? “How could I be anything but aware? Every time I turn around someone—I’m sorry, someone who’s not a doctor—is getting fired for this policy.”

  Susan looked tired. “I’m only bringing this to your attention. I neither created nor endorsed this policy.”

  That he’d been dragged in on presuspicion charges was more than Simon could handle. “Am I being watched?”

  She sighed. “Simon, we’re all being watched.”

  He was in a foul mood when he met Jared and Hong-Wei in the locker room, but he didn’t say anything about the meeting until they were in the car. Once there, he gave way to his frustration. “She was trying to make me paranoid. I can’t believe it.”

  “They’re after all of us.” Jared was alone in the front seat so Hong-Wei and Simon could sit closer together in the back, and he glanced at them in the rearview mirror. “Andreas came by with more of his memos today. If it makes you feel better, even the doctors are getting repeat ones now.”

  Simon leaned on Hong-Wei’s shoulder. “I can’t take this anymore.”

  Hong-Wei soothed Simon out of his bad mood by giving him an update about Mr. Zhang, who had been released the day before on the promise he’d come back for all his follow-up appointments with his new primary care doctor. “It turns out he’s been a US citizen for the past five years, and he even speaks some modest English. He and his wife are both citizens. They were able to use the age exemption because of how old they are and how long they’ve had their green cards, so they didn’t have to take the English aptitude test, but they’ve been studying English with the hostesses.”

  Simon frowned. “Wait, I thought you said he had a green card before. You sounded so certain.”

  Hong-Wei tweaked his nose. “I was lying to the board in case they had ideas about calling ICE, which they absolutely could have done. I had a feeling he had papers, but I didn’t know for sure. I’m glad everything is fine, though. I’m trying to have Ram hook them up with someone at the college who can coach them more regularly.” When Simon poked him in his side, Hong-Wei smiled and kissed him. “Ram isn’t my type at all, but please keep being jealous.”

  “Oh my God, I can’t wait to deposit the two of you in Duluth so I don’t have to watch this,” Jared grumbled.

  Hong-Wei’s car was indeed waiting for them, and Simon was impressed. It was a dark blue-gray, which the dealer called gray mica, and the interior was light gray with black accents. It felt decadent and luxurious to sit inside of it, running his hand over the dashboard and side panels as Hong-Wei signed papers and shook hands with the dealer. Soon enough, they were off, driving through Duluth with the in-car navigation system helping them on their way to the restaurant, which Hong-Wei insisted had to be the same one they’d eaten at the day they’d first met.

  “I liked the food, plus it has sentimental value. It was our first date.”

  Simon laughed. “How was it a date? I was only picking you up from the airport.”

  “But you were enchanting from the minute I saw you.”

  “Now you’re simply feeding me lines. You were annoyed with me when we first met. Don’t try to tell me otherwise. You were so cold I almost couldn’t bear it.”

  Hong-Wei looked slightly sheepish. “I was rattled, and frankly terrified. I couldn’t believe the administration hadn’t come. I worried you were there to insult me. But then all you did was charm me. I was glad no one else had come. I’d already decided I wanted to pursue you.”

  Simon put a hand over his mouth and stared at Hong-Wei as he navigated onto the highway. “You didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  The idea that Hong-Wei had thought of dating Simon since the first day shook his entire world, and he was still preoccupied with the thought as they sat down to order. “You mean the last time we were sitting in this restaurant, you were thinking about how to ask me out?”

  Hong-Wei smiled enigmatically. “I hadn’t gone that far, but I wanted to get to know you better, yes. I thought it was convenient you would be my nurse, until I discovered the no-dating policy. Though I’ve always found it an annoyance rather than a reason to stop trying to win you.”

  Simon flushed. “You always talk about me as if I’m a prize.”

  “But you are, Simon. You’re my prize.”

  Hong-Wei teased him throughout the entire meal, making Simon blush and laugh. They sat at a table, next to, not across from, each other, and they held hands, their knees touching, ankles flirting. Their waitress beamed at them, asking how long they’d been together, and before Simon could stammer out an answer, Hong-Wei explained how Simon had picked him up at the airport and brought him to eat at this very restaurant, and now here they were. She was so charmed she tried to give them free drinks, but when Hong-Wei explained they had a long drive ahead, she got them a dessert instead, which they ate together with a shared spoon.

  Simon was fairly sure the waitress snuck a picture of them.

  “You’re in a better mood,” Hong-Wei remarked as they took a walk along the lake afterward. They had to get going back to Copper Point soon, but it was a beautiful evening, and both of them wanted to linger.

  Simon leaned against Hong-Wei. “It’s nice to get away sometimes.”

  “Do you ever think about leaving? For good, I mean. Moving away.”

  “No, I told you. At nursing school, all I could think of was coming home. Which has always made me feel so lame, but I can’t change who I am.”

  “It’s not the same, though. You were there for school, and then you were waiting for Jared and Owen to graduate. You weren’t trying to put down roots. If you wanted to go somewhere, you could do it. It’s terrifying, yes, but once you get past the fear, you discover things about yourself you didn’t know were there.”

  Certainly Hong-Wei had to be the authority on that subject. “Do you ever think about how your life would have turned out if your family had stayed in Taiwan?”

  “I can’t imagine. My memory of growing up there feels like a fairy tale or a dream. When we go to visit, sometimes things are familiar, but it doesn’t feel like home. I’m not as close to the family that has remained there, and it always feels like a strain, everyone so aware of how much money everyone else has made, whose child is in what college, who has what job.” He grimaced. “Of course, Texas has never felt like somewhere I belong either.”

  “That seems so lonely.” Simon wrapped his arms tighter around himself. “Do you still talk to your family, at least?”

  “My sister calls me regularly, and I call her. I email my father.”

  The more they discussed his family, the more Hong-Wei seemed to become uncomfortable. Simon wondered whether he should press the issue, but the pain on his lover’s face made him want to understand what was causing his distress. “Why don’t you speak on the phone with your parents? Are they upset you left Houston?”

  “It’s… difficult for me, talking to my family. I know I let them down by not taking an intensivist position at a prestigious hospital like I was meant to do. I feel ashamed, too ashamed to speak to them.” He looked out over the water. “Owen and Jared have both said I’m looking at it the wrong way, that I can make something of myself here instead, that I’m doing good work here. I want to do more of that. I want to do what Owen and Jared said, to t
ransform myself here into a doctor my family can be proud of. I want to fulfill their expectations of—”

  Though Hong-Wei cut himself off, Simon would have sworn he was about to say marriage.

  With a deep breath, Hong-Wei continued. “I want to show them I can find a partner to have a long-term relationship with, someone they would approve of being part of the family. I want to do everything they expect of me, because I want to show them I’ve become the person they wanted me to be, the person they sacrificed for me to be. But I can’t seem to let go of my failure.”

  Simon stopped walking and turned to face Hong-Wei, catching his hands. “I don’t think it’s a failure to realize you need to change directions. And even if you must view it that way, even if it’s a stumble and a fall, it’s one that led you to us. I agree with the others. You’re doing good work here. I can’t imagine your family wouldn’t be proud of you. I know I am.”

  Hong-Wei ran his hand over Simon’s hair, brushed his thumb over his cheek. “In case it isn’t clear, you’re someone I would be proud to introduce to my family. I hope that’s not too much too fast. You make me happy. I hope I make you happy too.”

  Simon’s heart turned over. “It’s not too much. You do make me happy.”

  They kissed beneath a streetlight, soft and lingering like a movie. When Simon pulled away, he felt breathless and dizzy, and he truly, truly wished Copper Point weren’t so far away. He thought he’d cool down when he got in the car, but all he could think about was leaping over the console and into Hong-Wei’s lap. He kept scanning roadsides, trying to decide if there was anywhere they could pull off and have sex, but everything mostly seemed a good spot to get arrested. He was working up the courage to ask if Hong-Wei wanted to make a quick stop at a hotel when Hong-Wei pulled into one, a small midlevel chain of the type families usually stayed in.

  “Let’s go.” Hong-Wei grabbed his bag from the back seat, full of his change of clothes from the hospital, and when Simon sat stunned in the passenger seat too long, Hong-Wei came around to open his door. “Come on. You don’t get to look at me as if I’m a second dessert for the past five miles and expect me to wait until we get home.”

  Simon trembled, he was so embarrassed, but Hong-Wei had no such difficulties. He led Simon inside, where he asked for a room—the quietest one possible, away from the rest of the guests, thank you—then led Simon to the elevator. They rode up two floors with a father and two girls coming back from the pool, but for the last stretch, they were alone. Still, Hong-Wei said nothing, only held tight to Simon’s hand.

  Once they were inside the room, things changed immediately.

  The door was barely closed before Hong-Wei was on him, mouth latched on to Simon’s as he undid his pants and got him out of his clothing, breaking the kiss only long enough to peel off Simon’s shirt and strip free of his own. Simon whimpered when their chests grazed one another, when Hong-Wei’s hands skimmed down his sides to finish shedding his jeans and underwear and socks.

  No one had ever wanted him like this. Men had longed for his body, yes, but they hadn’t pursued him the way Hong-Wei had, not by half. They hadn’t hidden him in the backs of cars, taught him how to lie. They hadn’t taken him to the restaurant where they’d first met and bragged about him to the point they got a free dessert. They hadn’t kissed him under the stars. They certainly hadn’t wanted him so badly they stopped the car and rented a room.

  Hong-Wei’s mouth was sliding south over Simon’s skin toward an inevitable trajectory, but Simon drew his lover’s face to his, trembling. “I love you, Hong-Wei.”

  Turning his face to kiss Simon’s palm, Hong-Wei closed his eyes. Then he opened them again as he looked up at Simon. “I love you too.”

  What had begun as frenzied lovemaking became slower, sweeter, though to Simon it still had an edge of desperation. He needed to connect with Hong-Wei more than ever, to show him he meant what he’d said, there was no one else for him. That despite this stupid rule, he wanted to date Hong-Wei seriously. His words didn’t seem nearly enough, so he told him with his kiss, his touch, his body, with his passion.

  “Hong-Wei.” Limp, sweating, clinging to his lover’s shoulders, Simon tipped his hips up to grind against him.

  “I’m right here, Simon.” Hong-Wei paused in his descent toward Simon’s groin to press a kiss on his abdomen. “I’ll take care of you.”

  Fumbling for one of Hong-Wei’s hands, Simon drew it to his mouth. “I’ll take care of you too.”

  SIMON’S LEGS were shaky as they exited the hotel out a side door, and he slept most of the way home, nestled on Hong-Wei’s shoulder as he played one of his classical Spotify playlists. He didn’t protest when Hong-Wei moved Jared’s car to hide his in the garage in an intent to stay overnight, because it meant they were able to hold one another all night long and have breakfast together in the morning.

  He did blush, though, when, while he was prepping the OR, Hong-Wei came in holding a pair of borrowed surgical scrubs and explained why he wanted Simon to put them on instead of the ones he was already wearing.

  “These are an older style, with a higher neckline.” He leaned in closer as he cupped Simon’s elbow. “My apologies. I misjudged how high I was marking you last night.”

  His entire body so hot with shame he was sure he would have registered a fever, Simon rushed out of the room, clutching the scrubs and scrunching his shoulders to hide his neckline, but not before he caught a glimpse of Hong-Wei’s face.

  The man didn’t look sorry at all, only proud, possessive—and utterly in love.

  Chapter Twelve

  ALL THROUGH June, Hong-Wei played a strange game of chicken with the St. Ann’s hospital board.

  On the surface they kept asking him probing questions about what it meant to be an intensivist, what he’d need to perform adequately as one at St. Ann’s, but Hong-Wei understood what was really happening: the board, especially John Jean, was trying to work out how to use him, how to control him. As much as they loved the idea of what his talents could bring to their hospital, his power to take those talents away as easily as he had brought them to their door scared them much more. They kept bringing up his sign-on bonus, calling the five-year agreement a contract. Hong-Wei couldn’t decide if they were that stupid or they thought he was.

  Their wheedling didn’t bother him half as much as the fact that he could not for the life of him get Erin alone. He didn’t know if the man was avoiding him or if the board was keeping Hong-Wei from him. The latter seemed a bit too conspiracy theory, but when he shared the thought with Simon, he only laughed and declared he was a true member of Copper Point now, if he was thinking like that.

  Hong-Wei didn’t know what that comment meant, and frankly he was a little afraid to ask.

  In early July he had a small victory: he convinced the CEO to go to China Garden with him for lunch.

  “I’ve been dying to try the secret menu.” Beckert rubbed his hands together as Hong-Wei drove them out of the parking lot. “Also to get a ride in your car. This is a nice set of wheels.”

  “Thanks. Not the flashiest, but it gets me where I want to go.”

  Beckert eased into his seat, running his hand across the leather. “I need to get a new car sometime. Heard you bought this online? I should do that. I never have the time to get anywhere.”

  “Jared and Owen helped me sort out what I wanted. I’m sure they’d help you as well.”

  Hong-Wei was surprised Beckert stiffened. “Nah, I bet I can figure it out.”

  Interesting. He wondered which one of them inspired that reaction.

  The restaurant had a line of people waiting to be seated that ran out the door. Beckert glanced at his watch. “Should we go somewhere else? I have a meeting at one.”

  “No worries.” Hong-Wei led him inside, nodding and smiling at people he knew in line. He was surprised at how many people he recognized and how many people knew him. More knew Beckert, of course, and the two of them were quickly caught up in
a social whirlwind Hong-Wei hadn’t meant to encounter.

  Then Mrs. Zhang found them, and everything changed.

  To Hong-Wei she gave an effusive, joyful greeting full of love and demands he come to her and give him a hug and a kiss, which he did, asking his auntie how she was doing, inquiring after his uncle. She thanked him for coming, then patted his shoulders and insisted he must be hungry and he needed to come and eat right away. Everyone around them had gone quiet, watching their conversation.

  Hong-Wei indicated Beckert and continued to speak in Mandarin. “This is Nicolas Beckert, the CEO of the hospital. He’ll be eating with me today.”

  Mrs. Zhang covered her mouth for a moment, then came forward reverently to take Beckert’s hand. “Thank you very much,” she said in English, her words choppy and slow, but precise. She gestured to the restaurant. “Please, come eat.”

  She led them past the waiting throng to an area in the back where, as they approached, servers were bringing a table from a storage room and making a space for them in a semiprivate area. While this was being set up, a waitress who spoke nearly perfect English asked them politely to please wait, Dr. Wu and his guest, and they would be seated as quickly as possible.

  Beckert shook his head, mystified. “Does this happen every time?”

  Hong-Wei nodded. “I used to try to stand in the line, but she gets so upset, I stopped. We have arguments over whether or not I get to pay for my meal, and sometimes I win, but with you here, there’s no chance. You should know too whatever we order, extra food is going to show up.”

  “But… why? I mean, I know you saved his life, but it’s your job.”

  “Yes, but it was his life, and he didn’t believe in doctors. Also, they think I had something to do with the bill being lowered.”

  “Oh, you mean writing a lot of it off? That’s standard procedure. We already assume they can’t pay what’s left. That they’re making payments so soon is impressive. She’s been in twice insisting on giving us money. We had to hurry up and figure out a payment scheme to satisfy her.”