by Max Monroe
“Oh, and tell your dad I’m going to kick his ass next month at the charity event.”
“Will do.” I grinned and grabbed my purse from the floor. Before stepping out of the room, I snagged my phone out of the front pocket and turned it back on. Amanda could send as many “boner texts” as she wanted now that good old Barry wouldn’t be within eye shot. “See ya around, Dr. Williams,” I called over my shoulder as I headed out of the exam room and toward the exit.
Fifth Avenue buzzed with traffic and the smell of grease as I jogged toward the subway entrance en route to my office at Gossip. I panicked briefly as my phone started ringing inside of my purse, thinking it might be my boss calling to ream me for missing some sort of scoop, but I smiled once I saw the caller ID.
“Give me the good stuff, Claude.” His soft chuckles fed some sort of hole deep in my soul.
Claude was my dealer. Well, not of the drug variety, but when it came to juicy pictures for my Gossip column, he was the guy with the goods. Paparazzi weren’t normally a source of good karma and soul replenishment, but Claude was different—likeable. I couldn’t even explain exactly what it was about him, but that intangible something was there all the same.
“Would a certain monsieur on The Doctor Is In be of interest to you?” he asked through his thick French accent.
Jesus. Scott Shepard strikes again. I felt like this guy was following me everywhere, even though the one and only time I’d seen him was over two weeks ago inside of his ER.
Hmm. I guess it could also be Dr. Obscene, but last I heard, he was settled down in a pretty serious relationship.
“Are we talking Dr. ER?” I asked to double-check.
“Oui.”
Immediately I perked up, my eyebrows lifting toward my hairline. “Color me intrigued.”
“Ah, Mademoiselle Harlow,” he responded, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “I have a few shots you’re going to love.”
“Fantastic. What’s the story?”
“Dr. ER at Club Indigo last night enjoying drinks with not one but four lovely women.”
That charming son of a bitch. I grinned. “Do you know who the women are?”
“I believe one is an up-and-coming actress from Spain, two are famous Russian models. The other woman he spent the majority of his evening with, I’m not so sure who she is, but she is quite stunning.”
“Did they leave together?”
“Oui.”
“Sounds like Dr. Erotic is living up to his name, then.”
Claude chuckled. “It appears that way.”
Good God, I was beginning to love Scott Shepard. Well, at least the columnist in me was. If he kept this up, I’d have enough material for months. Maybe even enough to fill a novel with my columns specifically dedicated to him. Dr. ERotic: A Gossip insight.
I’d have to think about the byline, but I had at least fifty Scott Shepard-inspired columns to figure it out.
“How many photos are worth my time, Claude?”
“Five.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred.”
“A piece?” I questioned skeptically. “Oh, c’mon, Claude. You know me better than that.”
He laughed. “Can’t fault a working man for trying, mademoiselle.”
“Yeah, and you can’t fault a working girl for calling you out on your bullshit,” I retorted. “I’ll give you one thousand for all five.”
“Twelve hundred,” he countered.
“Eleven hundred and that’s my final offer,” I stated firmly. “And you should know that I still have three messages from Raoul. He appears to have also been at Club Indigo last night…”
He groaned. “I detest that guy. He’s rude.”
“He’s paparazzi,” I interjected. “You know, just like you.”
He laughed. “You drive a hard bargain, mademoiselle.”
“I’ve learned over the years, Claude,” I explained, and he knew exactly what I was talking about. When I first started working for Gossip, I’d once paid Claude two thousand for a single photo. Obviously, this money never came directly from my pocket, only my employer’s business account, but still, I’d paid it, and my boss had all but strangled me.
“Okay,” he said on a sigh. “We have a deal. Cut the check, and I’ll send the photos over.”
“Full files, please,” I added. “No less than 1080hp in quality.”
“You got it, mademoiselle.”
“Merci, Claude.”
“De rein. Au revoir, Harlow.”
“Au revoir.” I hung up the call and hopped onto the subway.
While I waited for my stop, I fired off a quick email to Gossip’s accounting department, letting them know they needed to send one of New York’s paparazzi sharks eleven hundred dollars for five photos. It sounded like a lot of money, but in the grand scheme of things in the entertainment and media industry, it was mere peanuts. Some celebrity photos could go for millions. Snag a shot of a celebrity’s baby or catch an athlete in a compromising position with someone who wasn’t his wife or girlfriend? Gold mine.
An hour later, I was sitting inside my office and had just finished up the mundane task of replying to hundreds of waiting emails when a new one from Claude landed prettily in my inbox. One click was all it took to open Pandora’s box of compromising images—a very handsome physician with his arms wrapped around not one, but two beautiful women. They were tucked away in the VIP corner of Club Indigo and appeared to be very cozy. Not to mention the other pictures of Dr. Shepard dancing with a mystery woman, and then, later that night, leaving the club hand in hand with her.
Yep. Claude had given me the exact shots I needed.
And now, I had two options. I could either make up my own assumptions or try to find out the scoop from the source…
Definitely talk to the source. I didn’t know why, but I really wanted to enjoy a phone conversation with Dr. Erotic himself.
After a few quick calls to my various connections in the city, I had Scott Shepherd’s direct cell number in my hands.
And three rings later, his voice in my ear.
“Dr. Shepard.”
“Hello, Scott,” I greeted. “How are you doing on this beautiful Monday morning?”
“Uh…who is this?”
“My name is Harlow Paige, and I write—”
He cut me off. “That Gossip column,” he said and I smiled. He’d been paying attention, it seemed. “I know who you are, Miss Paige, but what I’d like to know is why are you calling me?”
“I have a few unanswered questions.”
“According to what I’ve heard, you write about me like you know it all.”
I grinned into the empty space of my office and tried not to let his fast-talking ways get me off track.
“Well, now I have more.”
“And you think I have the answers?”
He had the fucking answers, all right. Whether or not he gave them to me was another thing entirely.
“I’m certain you do.”
“All right.” He chuckled, completely at ease. He obviously wasn’t too upset about the call either. “Even though this conversation will no doubt end up in another one of your columns, I’m intrigued. How can I enlighten you?”
“It appears that you had a very busy and interesting evening last night,” I stated and silence filled the line. There’s no way he forgot about the four women, right? “At Club Indigo…” I hinted, and he finally cured himself of amnesia.
“Oh. Oh, yeah. I was at Club Indigo last night enjoying drinks with a few friends.”
Jesus. How often did this man find himself surrounded by models? Was it, like, an every night thing? Or like an every Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday thing? How did it work with this guy?
“A few friends?” I questioned, but I couldn’t hide the sarcasm from my voice. “I’m sure you mean a few women.”
“Well, I know this might come as a surprise, but I do have friends that just so happen to be women,” he reto
rted, and I couldn’t stop myself from smirking at his response.
He was good. Too fucking good.
“And the mystery woman you left with? Who is she?”
“Mystery woman?” he avoided.
“Yeah,” I answered. “The brunette in the killer heels that you left Club Indigo with last night.”
“Hmm…” he started and then paused for a brief second. “I left with a brunette in killer heels? You know, that sounds like something I’d enjoy, but for some reason, I don’t remember it.”
I shook my head and tossed my pen on top of the photos I’d printed out for closer inspection.
“You know what’s crazy, Dr. Shepard?”
“What?” he asked, amusement lengthening the sound of his A.
“That I’m sitting here, looking at a photo of you holding hands with the brunette as the two of you leave Club Indigo.”
“Really?” he questioned, but his voice lacked any kind of concern. “That is crazy.”
“Oh, c’mon, just tell me the truth,” I coerced, turning my voice slightly seductive in the hopes that playing his game would pad my score. He chuckled softly.
“She’s just a very nice woman I met that night.”
“And the two of you left together?”
“We did.”
“And did your other friends meet up with you guys later?”
“Nope.” The pop of his p was almost smug, the bastard. He wasn’t giving me anything juicy, and he knew it.
“What’s her name?” I asked. This time his laughter was rougher, uninhibited.
“I’m not telling you that, Miss Paige. And not because I have anything to hide, but because it’s not fair to my female companion with the killer pumps.”
“Female companion?” I questioned, doing a little something a judge might call leading the witness. My boss would just call it good investigating. “So, the two of you are an item?”
“No. We’re not an item. Just friends.”
“Just friends that leave clubs together at midnight?”
“Yep,” he answered, and I could hear the cocky smile in his voice. “That sounds like us.”
I couldn’t exactly fault him for not giving me the woman’s name. I mean, I was obviously calling him for an inside scoop, and it wasn’t fair if he gave me a name of someone who didn’t want her name in the media. I definitely respected that.
But still, he wasn’t exactly giving me a lot to work with.
“Anything else, Miss Paige?”
“Nope. That’s all, Doc. Thanks for your time,” I said, and before he got another word in, I ended the call.
As I stared at the empty Word document on my laptop, I knew I needed a little something more to make Scott’s big night out a Gossip-worthy story. Which meant, now that we’d put out the money for the photos, I’d have no choice but to embellish—only a little, of course.
With my fingers to the keys, I typed out the headline.
Four Women in One Night.
Is Dr. ERotic the next sex superhero?
Personal iPad in hand, I scrolled through the newest column by Harlow Paige, another brilliantly written trash piece about yours truly, and shook my head.
Honestly, I wasn’t even doing it on purpose. It was like an involuntary muscle tic triggered by reading paragraph after paragraph of pure and utter bullshit.
Four Women in One Night.
Is Dr. ERotic the next sex superhero?
As nice as the title sounded, the meat of the column was a whole lot less flattering, and a whole lot more bordering on derogatory.
I’d fucking fed her information, for shit’s sake. And still, it seemed as though she’d done nothing more than write whatever the fuck she wanted. I was the puppet master, and women’s emotions were nothing more than the objects at the end of my strings—apparently.
What she’d failed to mention was that even if I had been with the four of them at once, it would have been an informed decision by four consenting adult women who knew how not to take life so seriously.
Not only does he have a harem of women keeping him warm and cozy at night, but an inside source revealed that Dr. Erotic is always looking. Even the female patients who stroll through his ER doors might be graced with his famous flirtatious banter and charming ways right before he finds a way to ensnare them in his web of sex.
Inside source? What fucking inside source? And, yes, I might have flirted with my patients on occasion, but I never fucking slept with them. I enjoyed chatting up the opposite sex, but when it came to my job, I knew the boundaries.
And asking my patients out on dates with the intention of sleeping with them? That was a definite hard limit for me. Hell, throughout my entire career, I hadn’t ever been tempted to do something like that.
Well, besides sexy Frances who came in with that head lac a few weeks back…
Okay. Well, obviously, there were exceptions to every rule, but no one is perfect.
And despite my better judgment, I kept reading the trashy article until the end. Harlow Paige managed to cap this one with a fucking bang.
What do you think, ladies? Should we spread our legs and put out the Bat Signal in the name of Dr. Erotic? Is he really the next sex superhero of New York City?
The jury is still out for me, but all I can say is that he might treat banged-up bodies, but from the looks of it, he bangs more bodies than them all.
Kisses,
Harlow Paige
I actually had to admire gall like that.
Tossing my iPad into my locker a little less gently than intended—after all, it wasn’t the iPad’s fault—I shut the door and tucked my scrub top into the waistband of my scrub pants.
With another night shift on the horizon, I didn’t have time to sit and cry into my Cheerios about a stupid column from a less than reputable news outlet. Gossip wasn’t where readers went for facts anyway.
I decided not to give any credence to the voice in my head that suggested maybe the reason this smarted so much was because of how close to the truth it actually was.
I double-checked the clip on my ID badge and headed for the door of the locker room with purpose. I wasn’t going to think about Harlow Paige and her column anymore, and I wasn’t going to be on the lookout for Frances. She should have had her stitches out a couple of days ago, but I guessed she’d gone to a different doctor.
Most patients follow up with their primary care physician, my medically trained mind reminded me.
Whatever. Her loss, right? It wasn’t like we were going to be soul mates. At best, I would have given her a few orgasms, sans head injury, and we would have moved on.
The strains of our warm-up song started to play as I wandered down the hall, so I picked up my pace with a smirk. Sherry had obviously been paying attention when I told her all about our song of the week.
Maybe I’d have to give some attention to stoking that fire a little. She seemed pretty eager to have some X-rated fun—and smart enough to recognize that fun was all it was.
I’d made some poor choices in the past with Mandy and Sarah. They were two ER nurses I’d gotten to know on a biblical level, and unfortunately, had hurt a little bit in the process.
I’d been so eager I hadn’t paid close attention to the looks on their faces, the cues in their actions, and the obvious attachment each dalliance built. They were looking for a relationship, and no matter who was doing the looking, I was always the wrong direction. I spent over a hundred hours a week at the hospital working, and I had too much fun doing what I did when I wasn’t. I didn’t have a yearning for kids, and I had no desire to live outside of the city with a picket fence, white or otherwise. Settling down wasn’t for me.
Believe me, heartbreak was never my intention. Emotions and feelings were something I strived to keep out of the equation when it came to women and sex. Obviously, with Mandy and Sarah, I felt pretty fucking badly about the way things had ended.
Rounding the final corner onto the Emergency Department fl
oor, I watched as my mom climbed to her feet in the chair behind the nurses’ station and cranked the dial on the volume for our song of the week—Pour Some Sugar on Me. There was irony in the extremely horrendous timing of song choice and the way it lined up with my mother’s unexpected visit.
Christ. Nicole Shepard was a lunatic. Gray-salted dark brown hair and rubber clogs on her feet, she was getting older with every day that passed—not that she was giving in to it willingly. The chair she was standing on jerked, and my heart flipped over in my chest.
Thankfully, Beverly, a pretty new nurse from Albuquerque with tanned skin and glowing turquoise eyes jumped forward to stabilize the wheels.
My mom’s hips rolled as she lip-synched the words, and the jam-packed ER floor took immediate notice. It was only mildly embarrassing—after this many years as her son, I was pretty fucking used to it. Not to mention, it completely reaffirmed our genetic connection. My mild-mannered, serial monogamous father was another story entirely. If it weren’t for our similar looks, I’d have thought my mom stepped out on him.
I strode quickly toward her, her eyes following me as I did. “Pour your sugar on me, Scott. I can’t get enough!” she shouted. I cringed and laughed at the same time.
“Gross, Mom. No thanks.”
She smiled, unfazed. “Sugar meeee. Ye-ah.”
I reached forward and turned down the volume on the computer, and the groan of our disappointed audience was audible.
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled to the room at large before extending a hand up to my mom. “Can you get down now, please? We’re packed, and I don’t really have time to sew up your future head laceration.”
She took my hand as instructed, carefully climbing down and straight into my arms for a hug. “And that’s how you’d treat your own mother,” she clucked teasingly in my ear.
I pulled back and dropped a kiss on her cheek. “I guess, if I really had to, I’d find time to sew you up,” I conceded with faux indifference.
“Aww.” She patted my cheek. “Now that’s the Dr. Erotic I know and love.”