“An M.D. isn’t a requirement,” Harlow said, and Langston chose that moment to speak up.
“You have a tremendous amount of experience with operations, Connor. You spent six years running countless ops in the Air Force. You’re highly trained and highly regarded by the staff at this hospital. You’ve got a very unique skill set that makes you an excellent fit for this position.”
All of that was true, Harlow thought. She’d gone over Connor’s credentials from the past ten years with a microscope as soon as it had become clear that he was the board’s front-runner for the job. He’d joined the Air Force at twenty after two years of undergrad at Remington University, finished his degree while enlisted, then completed the rigorous training to become a flight nurse. He knew how to run operations in a medical unit like Harlow knew how to run the business side of everything from a Mom and Pop corner store to a multi-million-dollar corporation, and had even achieved the rank of second lieutenant before coming back to Remington. His military record, along with every review he’d ever had at Remington Memorial, was spotless.
And as much as she hated the current situation of having to work with him, Harlow needed him.
Connor shook his head. “I’m a nurse, not a director. I have zero interest in anything other than helping patients. Especially business.”
“You wouldn’t have anything to do with the business side, other than making sure the place still runs after I’m done,” Harlow said. It was bad enough that her father had asked the board to split the power of the director’s position before he’d thrown her into her half of the role. Sharing what little she’d been granted, including her interactions with the board? Not happening. No matter how good Connor was at operations or how intense his stare had just become.
She continued before he could say anything else. “Look, this job we’re offering you is all about helping patients. If we don’t turn things around in the clinic, and quickly, the hospital will have no choice but to close its doors. Even though the place is a hot mess right now, there are still a lot of people who rely on those services for their health care.”
“You’re that close to closing down?” Connor asked, and finally, an actual emotion moved across his face.
Harlow’s pulse quickened, but she held firm. This was a business negotiation. It was going to take finesse. Composure. Facts. “Unfortunately, yes. If we don’t get this second director’s position filled immediately so we can begin to implement these changes, the clinic will have to stop operating within a month. Six weeks, at best. Now, if you’d like to look at the proposal—”
“I’ll do it.”
What. The. Hell? “Don’t you want to go over the details of the offer?” For God’s sake, he hadn’t even asked about the salary. This wasn’t how business negotiations were done.
Connor lifted a massive shoulder partway before letting it drop. “I’d be in charge of operations, right? Taking care of people? No marathon board meetings or budget committees, none of that crap?”
She bristled. “The business side of things is hardly—”
“Yes,” Langston interrupted smoothly. “You would be in charge of operations, while Ms. Davenport would handle the business end on a temporary basis. You’ll have to work together to make the two ends of the spectrum meet in the middle, of course, and that will require balance”—he slid Connor a glance that brooked not one ounce of argument—“but I think Ms. Davenport would agree that budget meetings and business dealings, especially with the board, will fall under her responsibilities until such a time that you’d be able to easily maintain them as the full-time director.”
Harlow didn’t blink, budge, or hesitate as she said, “I would.”
Connor conceded with a small nod. “And by taking this job, I’d be helping to keep the clinic open, which would benefit the people in the community by making sure they have greater access to quality health care. Right?”
“That is correct,” Langston said, and Connor turned to look at her, a confident smile shaping his firm, full mouth.
“Well, then. I guess that means you’re stuck with me, Ms. Davenport.”
3
Connor waited until Harlow had walked out of the boardroom, shutting the door firmly behind her, before he exhaled. He was far from off the hook, he knew. She was way too sharp—not to mention way, way too sexy—for him to lower his guard. But she hadn’t connected the dots to his past (yet), and the job in front of them had been too important for him to turn down.
Even if taking it meant he’d have to be more careful than ever about keeping his identity a secret.
Connor turned to look at Langston, who still sat at the head of the conference table. “Are you really on board with me running the clinic?” he asked, and finally, the chief smiled.
“Do you really think you’d be here with the offer in front of you if I wasn’t?”
“Fair enough,” Connor said, cracking a half-there smile. Langston had a reputation as a rule-follower (okay, so it was more like a reputation for being a complete hard-ass for all things policy. Potato, potahto), and it was well-proven. But he was also smart and fair, and when it came to keeping confidences? The man was a motherfucking vault.
Connor jerked his chin at the chair Harlow had occupied less than five minutes ago. “She can’t find out. If she did—”
“I don’t see how she would,” Langston cut in, more reassuring than rude. “Don’t get me wrong. Harlow is incredibly smart, but she’s not psychic, and she’ll only be in the business director’s position temporarily. Three months, maybe four at the most. Your new position isn’t terribly public, especially outside of medical circles.”
Langston paused, his voice softening in volume but not certainty. “Plus, it’s been ten years. Your employee file doesn’t list your legal first name, and there are thousands of unrelated Bradshaws in Remington alone. Unless your father breaks his silence on the subject—”
Connor took his turn at interrupting. “He won’t.” His father mouthed off about a lot of things, but Connor wasn’t one of them. In fact, he’d been stone cold silent since their parting words ten years ago.
Walk out that door, and you’re dead to me, boy…
Turned out, that whole dead-to-me thing was a-okay by Connor.
It made them even.
“You accepted the position awfully quickly, and of the two, yours is the permanent role,” Langston said, placing his elbows on the table in front of him and steepling his fingers. “Aren’t you interested in the particulars?”
“Other than the part where I get to provide care to people who need it? Nope. That’s really all that matters to me,” Connor said, covering up his thoughts of his father with a carefully cultivated smile-and-shrug combo. He’d read the official offer letter that Harlow had produced on her way out the door before signing it—as motivated as he was to help the people in this city, he also wasn’t an idiot. But as long as he could, in fact, steer clear of the business end while Harlow did her thing for a few months, then let the board handle all that stuff once she was gone so he could stick to providing real care—the kind that would actually matter? The rest was purely secondary.
Still, Langston didn’t let up on his stare. “I just want to be sure you know exactly what you’re in for.”
Connor’s heart beat faster, the easygoing demeanor he normally wore like his favorite set of scrubs disappearing in favor of a shot of rare, long-unused intensity. “No disrespect, Dr. Langston, but I’m hardly the same scrawny, clueless kid I was when I left to join the Air Force, and I’m damn sure not my father’s son. I’m not going to screw this up. Not when so many people depend on the clinic for care. On that, you have my word.”
“Of course you aren’t going to screw this up,” Langston said, turning Connor’s unease into shock. “I hired you four years ago based solely on merit, and I’ve never regretted it. You may not be a doctor, but you ran hundreds of medical ops in the Air Force, just as you’ve been an integral part of the ICU nur
sing staff and the emergency department here at Remington Memorial. Your ability isn’t in question.”
“Okay.” Connor let the word draw out until it became a question. “Then what is?”
Langston exhaled, pressing back in his chair. “The clinic is in bad shape, Connor. Worse than I think the board fully realizes. Finding the best way to right that ship may be more difficult than you expect.”
This time, when Connor pulled his laid-back smile into place, he actually felt it. “I appreciate your concern, Dr. Langston. I really do. But I’m okay with long hours, and I’m no stranger to hard work. All I want to do is keep my head down and serve this community, and I’ll be right as rain.”
Forty-five minutes later, Connor realized exactly how much of a euphemism bad shape had been. He hadn’t even made it more than a few steps over the threshold of the clinic before he’d run into a crush of people in various states of injury or illness. Most of the waiting room chairs were occupied, and after getting one woman an ice pack she should’ve received when she’d been triaged, and sending a badly bleeding teenager directly to the ED to get the gash in his arm tended to by a surgeon, Connor finally moved past the intake desk and headed to the office in the back of the building.
The door was shut, but the blinds on the window beside it weren’t, allowing him to see inside. Harlow sat primly behind the sleek, walnut desk, a pair of red-framed glasses perched on the bridge of her nose as she pored over something on the laptop screen in front of her. Her chin was tilted slightly downward, her gaze focused and serious, and for one bright, impulsive instant, Connor wondered what she looked like when she laughed. With her hair all mussed from sleep. When she was caught up in a moment of pure, hot pleasure, and Jesus H. Christ on a Pop-Tart, was he insane? Of all the times to think with his dick, now was probably the most inopportune. He needed to be completely on guard around this woman, not get all gee-I-wonder about what she looked like halfway to orgasm.
Damn, he’d bet she was really fucking pretty when she laughed, though.
Clearing his throat, Connor forced his spine to full attention and his cock to stand down, then placed a sharp trio of knocks on the door in front of him. Harlow’s ice-blue eyes widened as she looked up from her desk, but only by a fraction, and by the time she’d waved him over the threshold, any traces of surprise had disappeared as if they’d never existed.
“Mr. Bradshaw,” she said, and oh yeah, no. They had to nip that in the bud right freaking now.
“No mister,” he corrected. Guard up. “It’s not really my thing.”
Harlow nodded. “Lieutenant, then.”
Oh, the shit Declan and the rest of the guys in his unit would give him for that would last days on end. “No lieutenant, either.” Connor shook his head. “Retired military personnel don’t usually go by their rank. It’s kind of considered bad form.”
“I apologize.” Her voice softened by the smallest degree. “I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
“None taken. Connor is fine.”
Just like that, Harlow’s all-business demeanor settled right back into place. “But what will you have the staff call you, then?”
Connor blinked. “Well, my first name has worked up ’til now with everyone in the ICU and ED. I don’t really see a reason to change that,” he said. In fact, he hadn’t even given it a thought.
“You want everyone to call you by your first name,” Harlow said slowly, as if he’d just suggested the earth was flat and they should all go cannonballing over the edge. “The medical staff, the patients. The members of the board?”
He bit back the temptation to tell her he didn’t want to be anything-Bradshaw, especially with the members of the board. He wasn’t some uptight VP who needed to lord his power over other people. “Sure. Why not?”
If the look on Harlow’s face was anything to go by, the answer to Connor’s question was about to arrive adamantly and in list form. “Well, for one, you’re a director now.”
“It’s just a title, like mister or lieutenant,” Connor argued. He knew he should at least try to keep the heat in his veins away from his voice—if he made a big deal about his name, her radar would surely start to ping, full-bore. But come on. Was she seriously trying to tell him how to have his own staff address him? “What people call me isn’t going to affect how I do the job.”
“The title still matters,” she replied. That she’d controlled her words with near-surgical precision didn’t make them any less of an argument. She gestured to the hallway over his shoulder, leading out to the clinic beyond. “All those physician’s assistants and nurses and staff members out there? You’re their boss now.”
Oh, here we fucking go. “So? That doesn’t make me better than they are.”
Harlow surprised him by conceding. Sort of. “No, it doesn’t. But you’re still in a position of power. Business hierarchies exist for a reason, and titles are part of that. How your staff perceives you is going to have a direct impact on your ability to manage them.”
Finally, one (and only one) thing on which they could agree. “I know I’m kind of new to this side of things, but I promise, my ability to manage the staff will be just fine. And since they are mine to manage as the director of ops”—he made sure his tone turned it into enough of a riiiiight? to make it a point and not a flat-out provocation before adding—“Connor it is.”
He gestured to the center of the scrubs he purposely hadn’t changed out of, and after a beat, Harlow sat back against her office chair.
“Suit yourself, I suppose. At any rate, I didn’t expect to see you down here so soon.”
“What can I say?” Connor shrugged amiably. “I’m full of surprises.”
“That is an understatement.”
Her arms crossed firmly over the front of her dress, and huh. He wasn’t the only one with his guard up, it seemed. Not that he was going to let that stand in his way. He knew Harlow’s type, and he didn’t like her. He damn sure knew he had to be careful around her. But he also had to put up with her in order to salvage the clinic, and that was far more important than either of their egos.
Provided she’d lose that business-minded attitude and realize the best way to take care of all the patients flooding the waiting room was to see people and not stats.
“Dr. Langston covered the rest of my shift in the ED so I could come down here and start getting the lay of the land. Since it seems we’ve got our work cut out for us, it seemed smart not to waste any time.”
Harlow nodded, and funny, where most people became more serious in the face of brass-tacking it, she seemed almost comforted by the idea of getting down to business. Her shoulders loosened—only by the tiniest margin, but it was enough—and she gestured to the piles of papers, folders, and bound reports stacked over every inch of the desk.
“There’s only one office, so I’m afraid we’ll have to share it for the time that I’m here. We can have another desk brought in, of course. I’d have arranged for that already, but…well, in truth, I didn’t think you’d accept the offer so quickly.”
“Why not?” Connor asked. Awesome that she’d doubted him right from the get, by the way. “It’s a great opportunity to help the people in the community.”
Again, with the look that said she was sure he was bat-shit crazy. “It’s a significant change to your current position. Most people would take at least a day or two to think it over. Or, you know. At least look at the offer letter before agreeing to take the job.”
He should’ve known she’d be a stickler for protocol. “You’re going to learn pretty quickly that I’m not most people. And it’s not that big of a change.” Before she could argue—and her expression damn sure said she was headed in that direction—he added, “Anyway, the office thing is fine. I’d like to be as hands-on as possible with operations, so I doubt I’ll even be in here much.”
“Okay. Well, then I suppose we should start by reviewing the monthly reports left behind by the previous director,” Harlow replied. But rath
er than starting to put the words into action, she simply looked at Connor, as if he was some sort of puzzle she was trying for all the world to figure out.
His heart smacked a hard rhythm of play it cool against his sternum. “Everything alright?”
“It’s just…I know it sounds a bit crazy, but I could swear we’ve met before.”
Connor’s mind tumbled back to a night, ten years and two lifetimes earlier. Him in an Armani tux, clean-shaven, ink-free, and too cocky for his own good—or anyone else’s. Her in a blue strapless dress, surrounded by friends from her fancy private school. He’d introduced himself and wished her a happy birthday. Smiled just long enough to make her friends giggle and her blush.
His father had been indicted four days later.
“Guess I just have one of those faces,” Connor said, covering up with a shrug before about-facing the subject. “Unless you’ve got some secret nursing career I don’t know about? Or maybe you fly F-22s for the Air Force in your spare time?”
A tight smile played at the edges of her mouth. “No.”
“I highly recommend either if you’re ever looking for a new career path.”
“I appreciate the suggestion, but I can assure you, Davenport Industries is definitely where I belong.”
Of course it was, what with her MBA from…Connor considered the variables for a second before putting his mental money on Harvard. She seemed like the sort of woman who wouldn’t settle for anything less than the best.
He nodded and let the topic drop, just gently enough to go unnoticed. Hooking his fingers beneath the chair across from her desk, he got ready to make himself good and comfortable so they could review the current state of affairs and start to fight their way through some sort of strategy to turn the clinic around, but Harlow snapped her fingers and gestured to the laptop in front of her.
Between Me & You: An Enemies to Lovers Workplace Romance (Remington Medical Book 3) Page 3