The car ride was silent and slightly awkward, but I was too tired and hungry to care. I was surprised, however, when we pulled up in front of a restaurant I hadn’t been to before and Chase handed his keys to a valet before ushering me through the door.
“Donahue,” he told the hostess and she nodded, walking us towards a corner table.
I was tired and starving, but I couldn’t help the nagging feeling telling me something wasn’t right. We were at a fancy restaurant, where we already had a reservation. This “working dinner” was starting to feel an awful lot like a date.
“What’s going on?” I asked suspiciously, though I couldn’t help but attack the bread as soon as it was on the table.
“What do you mean?” he inquired innocently.
“This,” I motioned around the room. “This isn’t the type of place for a working dinner, it’s the type of place for a date,” I snapped.
“Oh.” Chase was quiet for a moment, actually looking a little nervous. “We can leave if you want. I just like this place — that’s all. We’re both hungry and we have stuff to talk about, so it makes more sense if we stay. And it’s a work dinner, so it’s on me.”
I eyed him warily but I couldn’t deny that I was starving, so I finally relented. After that, the dinner went smoothly. The food was delicious, and Chase was as suspiciously nice as he had been the previous evening. We discussed the case and came to some similar conclusions about what had happened and why.
Halfway through the dinner, the conversation once again drifted into ‘date’ territory as Chase asked about my move from Chicago and how I was finding the Pacific Northwest. I was too tired to fight the direction in which the night seemed determined to go, so I just allowed myself to enjoy the conversation, and Chase continued to be in good mood as we finished our meal.
“Am I taking you back to the hospital to get your car?” he asked as we got back into the Aston Martin.
“I don’t have a car,” I admitted, a bit embarrassed. “I take the bus usually.”
“Then let me drop you at home,” he replied.
“That’s not necessary,” I told him, but he insisted.
As he pulled up in front of my apartment complex, the evening began to feel even more like a date. I couldn’t shake the memory of his warm, rough lips against my own and the feel of his tongue exploring my mouth. The impulse to lean over and kiss him washed through me, but I unbuckled my seatbelt as fast as I possibly could and got out of the car instead.
“Goodnight, Kaia,” he called after me, and I yelled my goodbye without turning to look at him as I practically ran into the building. Once again, images of our passionate night together ran through my mind and I couldn’t block them out, no matter how hard I tried.
“Dammit!” I exclaimed out loud as I leaned against the door. “There is no way this isn’t going to turn out badly.”
5
As much as I was not looking forward to it, I soon realized that I needed to confess everything involving my indiscretion with Chase to Carrie. I truly needed some advice and I didn’t know who else I could go to.
“What’s going on?” she asked suspiciously when I bit my nails nervously over coffee.
“I haven’t been exactly honest with you,” I admitted.
Her eyes grew sharp, and she leaned across the table towards me.
“How so?” she asked.
“So… a few weeks ago now — the last time we went out to drinks after work and I was complaining about Donahue — I got it into my head that I needed to confront him about it. Having those drinks sloshing around in my head didn’t help. So I went back to his office after we left the bar. And…” I cringed, but willed myself to continue, “we ended up having sex in his office — on top of his desk, in fact.”
“I knew it,” Carrie exclaimed excitedly.
“No you didn’t,” I replied dryly. How could she know?
“I knew something was going on. I mean, I only saw you guys together that first evening at the bar, but the sexual tension was so thick I could barely breathe.”
“Liar,” I replied, but Carrie just gave me a knowing look. “Exaggerator,” I amended, causing Carrie to laugh.
“So how was it?” she asked.
“It was a mistake,” I replied.
“You know what I meant.”
“It was…” I bit my lip and considered lying but I needed to be honest if she was going to help me. “It was amazing. It was probably the best sex of my life. And I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Carrie squealed in delight.
“Not helping,” I snapped reluctantly.
“Sorry,” Carrie replied. “Single working mother here. I haven’t had a date in years. I need to live vicariously.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I whined.
“What, exactly is the problem?”
“I know it was a mistake — Donahue is not the type of man I want to date. Plus, he’s totally out of my league. But I can’t stop thinking about him. We have to work together sometimes, and every time we’re in the same room, memories of that night resurface, and it’s all I can do not to jump him.”
“Then do it,” she encouraged.
“No,” I said sternly. “That’s the worst advice ever.”
“Why?”
“Because the guy is an asshole. We may be… extremely sexually compatible… but it doesn’t mean that he isn’t a cocky manipulator. I mean, he’s still punishing me with extra cases to analyze on top of my shifts in the ER.”
“Are you sure that’s punishment?” Carrie asked.
“Yes!” I assured her, even though I doubted that statement myself.
“I think you like him,” she said after a moment, smiling.
“What? No!” I argued feebly.
“I don’t know. First off, I don’t think there would be this obvious level of chemistry if emotions weren’t involved. Love and hate are similar, you know, they feed off of one another. If you felt nothing for him at all, there wouldn’t be this anger — this passion. There would just be nothing there.”
“I can’t believe you,” I snapped, feeling betrayed. “You’re just as bad as everyone else. I know my own mind, Carrie — and I know that I don’t like him romantically. He’s a manipulative asshole just like my ex-boyfriend, and I’m not going to let another man take advantage of me. Its just lust, nothing more, and I need to get over it. I also need to get back to work,” I said, standing. “My break is about over.”
I turned and walked away, not waiting for a reply. Regret washed over me as soon as I turned the corner, but I was late to my shift, so I just continued walking.
“Hey Kaia, Chase called down looking for you,” Dr. Barns announced as I walked past the opened door of her office. I cringed, seeing Julia’s snide grin as she overheard Dr. Barns’s announcement.
“I don’t have time right now,” I replied, stopping in front on her door. “My break is over.”
“It’s slow right now, you can go on up there.”
I really didn’t want to see Chase — not in this mood and not with Julia ready to spread more rumors about me. But I also knew better than to question my program director, so I simply nodded and turned back towards the elevator.
By the time I made it to up to the twelfth floor, I was even more frustrated. Between Carrie’s assertion that I had actual feelings for Chase and Julia’s knowing smile when she heard that he was looking for me, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him at the moment.
Unfortunately, I was heading directly into his office.
“Kaia,” he said as I entered. “Listen, I need a favor.”
“What,” I said flatly.
He obviously heard the anger in my voice, as his smile slipped and he studied me closely. “You know the case we’ve been discussing?”
I nodded. Obviously, I wasn’t about to forget our “working” date the other night.
“I need you to present that case at this month’s M&M conference.”
>
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I snapped. “I wasn’t even there. Isn’t the case generally presented by someone who was present when the situation occurred?”
“No, not always. And, at this point, you are more familiar with the case than anyone else, other than me. It makes the most sense for you to present it to the conference.”
“Why? So you can interrogate me again and humiliate me in front of everyone?”
Donahue paused, looking at me questioningly for a long moment before he spoke.
“I did no such thing.”
“Yes you did,” I argued through clenched teeth. “And when I complained about it later to a friend at the bar, you happened to overhear me and you’ve been punishing me ever since.”
“Punishing you?” Chase seemed genuinely confused at my assertion, but I wasn’t about to let him play dumb.
“Yes. You’ve been punishing me with these stupid case files — giving me extra work on top of my rotations in the Emergency Room, even though there is an entire department at this hospital whose job it is to handle these cases.”
“I had no idea you felt that way,” he said. I could see the anger building in his eyes as he considered my words. “Well, I’m sorry,” he continued, sounding anything but sorry. His voice rose as he continued. “I’ve been doing this for years and I’ve never asked an intern to be my advisor before. I actually thought asking you to help out would be seen as a compliment to your abilities. I wanted to foster your goals of being the excellent doctor you so strive to be. Sorry I was so impressed by the way that you handled yourself at the last M&M conference, that I asked for you to continue. It won’t happen again.”
Chase stopped and ran a hand over his eyes. When he looked back up, he seemed much calmer than before. I moved to speak but he put his other hand up to silence me instead.
“Sorry,” he said after a minute, in a hushed tone.
His eyes locked on mine, and there was a vulnerability there that I’d never seen before. I opened my mouth to speak again but he shook his head.
“Just let me get this out,” he said. “I know I’ve acted out of line. I’ve let my attraction to you influence the way I interact with you on a professional level. I just… I really liked you — professionally and…personally. Because of that, I crossed a line that I shouldn’t have, professionally speaking. I’m so used to women who are willing to do anything to jump into my bed. And you’re not like that, not at all. You’re not afraid of my position in the hospital. You don’t care about my money…” His voice trailed off.
“Why would I be? I’m a doctor, and once I graduate, I’ll be more than comfortable. Not as wealthy as you, to be sure, but I’m not interested in money. Never have been.”
“I know, I know. And I admire that. Listen, I’m sorry you felt like this was punishment. I’ll get someone else to help from now on. You should go.”
I really didn’t know what to say. I stood there awkwardly for a moment, just staring at him. Eventually, I nodded and left his office without a backwards glance.
6
I continued to replay my conversation with Chase over and over in my head in the few days that followed. In fact, I began to reevaluate every interaction the two of us had ever had. I’d been angry ever since the M&M conference. Every conversation after that had felt like a showdown from my perspective. Had he seen them as something different? In light of our last conversation, I realized that he must have.
No matter what he said or did, I still clung to the idea that the guy was an entitled prick. He may have had feelings for me, I reasoned, but that didn’t make him a good person. Hell, he could’ve even lied about those feelings in order to manipulate me and make me feel bad. I honestly didn’t know what to think.
“You okay, Kaia?” I looked up at the sound of Dr. Barns’s voice. She was watching me from across the break room.
“Yeah,” I replied self-consciously.
“You’ve just seemed rather distracted lately.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied hurriedly. “I won’t let it affect my work!”
“I’m not worried about your work,” she replied with a smile as she sat next to me. “Your work is still superb. I’m worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, trying to manage a smile. “I’m good.”
“Want to talk about it?” Dr. Barn’s asked, obviously unconvinced.
“It’s nothing,” I replied. But then, before I could help myself, I continued. “How well do you know Chase Donahue?”
“We’re pretty good friends,” she replied, offering me a knowing smile. “I’ve known him for almost a decade. We got to be friends after he came to own the hospital. I used to help him out with the patient care cases like you are now.”
My eyes shot up in surprise.
“Really?” I asked. “For some reason, this whole time I thought that it was him trying to punish me or something. It sounds silly now, but he overheard me badmouthing him the night after the M&M conference — he’d interrogated me pretty heavily in front of the entire room. The next day he started giving me cases. I just thought… I don’t know what I thought.”
“Kaia,” Dr. Barns replied smiled, “if this was some weird form of punishment, do you really think I would have approved it?”
“No,” I had to agree.
“He called me the day after the M&M conference, asking about you. I could tell you’d made an impression. He asked if I thought you could handle a little extra work. I told him I thought you would jump at the chance for a little extra experience. You’d seemed so willing before then.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “He just didn’t make the best first impression on me. Or second impression, for that matter.”
Dr. Barns laughed.
“I understand,” she replied. “He can be that way sometimes. But he is truly very supportive of you, I could sense that right away.” She gave me a reassuring smile. “But despite all of his good work, half the staff here resents him — anyone who knows how he came to own the hospital.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“His mother actually died during an operation here, almost a decade ago. It was a huge scandal — the doctor on duty had been drinking, it turned out. Chase was really young then, fresh out of business school. He was due to inherit all of his father’s venues, but he decided to create a pet project of his own. He started buying major stock shares of several hospitals along the Oregon coast, and eventually, he extended his claws, so to speak, to St. Luke’s as well. He became involved in day-to-day details of running the hospitals, and that’s how we met — he showed his face in every department and met all the doctors. He told me that hospital fatalities were a special interest to him, particularly operating room fatalities — because of what happened to his mom. He was especially interested in ways such things could be prevented, so he did a lot of investigations. A lot of people resented him.”
“So that’s why he was so obsessed with the case I had presented?” I asked, suddenly feeling sick for the way I had treated him.
“Yeah, he has a lot of responsibilities but he is always sure to make time to look over every fatality case in the hospital,” Dr. Barns answered. “ He isn’t a doctor himself, so he often asks for help.”
“I feel like such an ass,” I responded, burying my head in my hands.
“Kaia,” Dr. Barns said, “I know you’ve told me before that nothing is going on between the two of you, and I believed you. I’m really not one to rely on gossip. But it seems to me that maybe there is something between Chase and you.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I guess. I honestly don’t know anymore.”
“Well, I can tell you this,” Dr. Barns replied, standing. “I’ve never heard Chase talk about someone the way he’s talked about you. I think you need to decide whether or not there is anything there on your end, because I’m pretty sure there is on his.”
With that, Dr. Barns turned and left me alone in the break room. I felt horrible, the
details of the conversation I’d had early in Chase’s office coming back to haunt me. I needed to apologize, if nothing else. Even if I really didn’t have feelings for him — which I was now doubting — I owed him that much.
Unfortunately, Chase wasn’t in his office when I finally made it up to the twelfth floor after my shift.
“Sorry, honey,” his secretary said. “He wasn’t feeling well so he left early.”
“But he never leaves early,” I replied.
“He really wasn’t feeling well. Can I take a message?”
“No,” I replied before turning and walking dejectedly back towards the elevators. I had to make this right.
7
As the cab wound its way down the dark drive, my eyes grew wide. I had badgered Dr. Barns until she’d given me Chase’s home address, but this was no ordinary home. This was a mansion — on the side of a cliff, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
“Thanks,” I replied as I paid my fare. I thought about asking the cabbie to stay, but I wasn’t sure how long I would be, and I figured I could always call for another one after I’d had this dreaded conversation.
I sucked in a shaky breath as I stepped up to the enormous door. As soon as I rung the bell, I began second guessing my decision and debating chasing after the taxi.
Before I could flee, however, the door was pushed open and I was standing face to face with Chase himself. He was more dressed down than I had ever seen him, in a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt. I couldn’t help but notice how deliciously the t-shirt clung to the shapely muscles of his arms and chest, usually covered by his suit. His hair was messy and his eyes looked tired.
“Kaia,” he said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“Um… I got your address from Dr. Barns,” I answered.
“Of course, you did.” He didn’t sound angry, though, so I took it as a good sign. Moving away from the door, he motioned for me to enter. “Here, come in.”
The Unexpected Crush, Book Two (An Alpha Billionaire In Love BBW Romance) Page 3