Secret Love (The 4Ever Series Book 2)

by Isabella White

  Dr. Jacobs showed her surprise when Holly confirmed that the patient had survived the procedure, sounding skeptical. But Jake wasn’t. He’d read Holly’s file, and he’d read the letter his mother’s mentor had written on her behalf.

  “Run by Dr. Somers.” Holly stated.

  Moira gasped. “You think he trained her well?”

  Jake shrugged and smiled.

  “I’ve just found my resident.”

  “She’s still an intern,” Jake pointed out, watching as Moira raised her eyebrows. “And she currently works in pediatrics.”

  “Pediatrics?”

  “Yeah, she was in the cardio program, but for some reason switched. I want you to find out why.”

  “I knew you wanted me for something in particular.”

  Further cases were presented. Cindy, another intern who was interested in becoming a neurologist, presented her case. Hers was regarding Mr. Stanley, the one he’d saved from his tumor, who’d ended up dying of a heart attack. Where had Somers been on that one?

  When the meeting ended, both Jake and Moira stood to leave. He caught a glimpse of Holly walking out with a tall intern, the geeky-looking one. He didn’t like how close together they were. It sure as heck didn’t seem like she was as messed up over him as he was over her. He still believed she was a fucking bitch, but she was his fucking bitch. He needed to find a way to deal with her, and the sooner the better.

  HOLLY

  Directly after the presentations were concluded and the meeting came to an end, Holly took the side staircase, the one they used for emergencies, up to pediatrics. Pediatrics wasn’t all bad. The only thing she couldn’t stand about pediatrics was whenever a patient died. Seeing children die was too hard on her.

  She was a mother, a bereaved mom at that, and each of the cases pulled at her heartstrings. Every time she lost a patient, her grief for Romalia resurfaced. Every time a patient survived and was discharged, her grief tripled. She saw Jamie in every case, and her heart clenched whenever a child couldn’t be saved, because she’d never be able to accept it if Jamie couldn’t be saved.

  She kept herself busy the entire morning, helping with two newborns and making sure that all the infants in the nursery were doing well. She stayed there for a spell, since being around newborns calmed the swirling thoughts in her head. It was the effect the nursery had on a person who was open and connected to little ones.

  However calming the nursery was, it also filled her heart with a pang of despair. Being in the nursery caused her to relive her pregnancy and Romalia’s death and the days filled with doubt before Jamie—the little fighter that she was—pulled through and survived.

  Holly missed Jamie fiercely. She missed the days when Jamie had been a baby, holding her in her arms, her tiny hand stretching out to grab her hair. She missed the way Jamie’s little hand gripped Holly’s finger as she drifted off to sleep in Holly’s arms, as if to make sure her mommy was still there.

  Holly regretted that she’d never entered Jamie into baby competitions, that she’d never shown the world how gorgeous her little baby girl was. But she’d been terrified of Jake finding out. She still was. Especially now, after that stupid mistake of a night. He’d fall in love with Jamie and take her away, of that much she was sure. And then Holly would have nothing. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She should have never decided to become a doctor. She should have listened to her father and gone to work for him. She’d put everything in jeopardy the minute she came to Boston.

  Holly sighed as she slipped out of the nursery. Her stomach was grumbling from hunger, which was no surprise since her appetite had been off ever since she’d slept with Jake. She headed to the cafeteria for lunch. Spotting Rev and Cindy seated at a table, Holly decided to join them. Holly didn’t follow their conversation, but she heard the sporadic bouts of laughter coming from Cindy whenever Rev said something. Holly delved into her club sandwich, her hunger desperate to be sated, but when she looked up after taking a mere two bites, she saw Jake entering with Moira. Her appetite dissipated at the sight of him.

  “You’re leaving already?” Rev looked at her barely-eaten sandwich.

  “I guess I’m not all that hungry. Besides, I still have to check up on something.” She scurried away.

  “Holly, you hardly touched your food!” Cindy yelled, which only made Holly walk a faster while cursing Cindy in her head for making a scene. She sank down on the stairs, the one place in the hospital that was her safe haven, and waited for her beeper to go off, announcing that Teresse needed her for something. When no call came, she returned to pediatrics and hung around there for a while until Aggie handed her a discharge form and asked that she drop it off at reception.

  When the elevator opened and she stepped out on the ground floor, she saw Jake talking with Dr. Embers a few feet from his office. The discussion seemed to be a serious one. Jake seemed pissed off at something, and his voice traveled.

  “I don’t care. Make it happen,” Jake said through clenched teeth.

  Holly’s eyes grew big. His parents were silent partners, which probably gave him rank over someone like Embers. Hurriedly, she handed Pam the form and walked back toward the elevator that would take her to the fourth floor, needing to get away from Embers in case he decided to blame her for whatever it was Jake wanted him to do. Frustratingly, two nurses as well as both Embers and Jake joined her, preventing escape. She really didn’t want to be in the same space, never mind in an elevator, with either of them, but she had no choice but to listen to their deep discussion. It turned out Jake wanted Embers to share his responsibilities with Moira. Embers was clearly not happy.

  Holly could feel Embers’ eyes boring into her. Thankfully, he got off on the third floor, but Jake remained, joking with the nurses about his conversation with Embers.

  On the fourth floor, Jake walked out, turned, and looked back at the elevator until it closed again. Holly remained in her corner, riding the elevator up to the sixth floor. Immediately, she took the stairs back down, only to walk into Jake who was standing directly in front of the stairwell door.

  “Something tells me you are trying really hard to avoid me. Or is that just my imagination?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. Excuse me, I have work to see to,” she said, pushing past him.

  Jake grabbed her by the arm, gently, and pulled her back. “Holly, please don’t do this,” he begged in the sweetest voice.

  “Don’t do what? What do you want from me?” she asked, in an I-don’t-believe-this type of tone.

  She rewound that part in her mind, since she knew that posing that kind of question would only lead to one thing: her giving in to him again. And she couldn’t.

  Jake’s hand slid to Holly’s waist and she tensed. He leaned his head down, and Holly moved her head to the side before his lips could make contact. Big mistake, as the movement merely caused his lips to brush against her ear. The contact sent a zing of electricity down her spine.

  “Jake… We can’t… We can’t do this,” Holly stuttered. That part of her brain that desperately wanted Jake threatened to take over.

  “You know, I nearly killed a patient a couple of days ago,” Jake whispered, his breath hot against her ear. “I couldn’t get you off my mind. You’ve consumed my brain, Holly.”

  Holly forced herself to step away from Jake. If he hadn’t been able to get her off his mind, if she was consuming his brain as he said, then why hadn’t she heard from him?

  Jake straightened. He looked at Holly with an expression she couldn’t quite place.

  “I’ll be in my office till about seven,” he said, and ran down the stairs.

  Knowing that Jake wanted a replay of the other night set her body aflame. She struggled to concentrate on the charts she had to fill out. Why did he have such an effect on her?

  Her phone beeped a couple of times: all dirty messages from Jake. He mentioned something called Ben Wa balls and cock rings. Sex toys! She never should have mentione
d sex toys in the car that night. He was messing with her, with her feelings, with her heart. He was playing on the rush of hormones that surged through her whenever she thought of the way he made her feel.

  When most of the staff headed off to dinner at six, Holly decided to pay a visit to his office. Hesitantly, she knocked twice. She couldn’t believe she was doing this to herself again. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she stay away from him? She was a junkie, and Jake was her only fix.

  The door opened. Jake stepped aside to let her in, then flicked the lock behind her. The air around them was tense for a few seconds, before Jake grabbed her and pushed her back into the wall. His body caged her in, his chest crushed against hers. He ground his hardness into her, each small movement rocking against her felt heavenly. He let out a low growl in her ear before nipping at the skin just underneath with his teeth. His mouth came down on hers, gently at first, before turning into an all-out attack of lips and tongue. Just as Holly wanted to suck his lip into her mouth, he wrenched away, moving his mouth to feast on her neck instead.

  Holly’s hands twined in his hair, pressing his head closer to her neck. She panted against him as he rocked into her harder. As the heat between them intensified, her hands made their way down to his trousers, where her fingers fiddled with the button. Jake, not far behind, reached for her scrub pants, pulling them down, and Holly slipped one foot out.

  Jake moved to lift her shirt, but Holly shook her head desperately. “No, leave that. I might get paged,” she whispered, fast and out of breath. Thankfully, he did as asked. Not wanting to waste any time, he lifted her leg to wrap around his waist, and was inside her in less than five minutes, slamming her back into the wall. Holly bit down on her lower lip, trying hard not to make a sound, but when that became too difficult, she clamped her teeth on his shoulder, forcing another groan from him.

  Bending, he lifted her up by her buttocks, and lowered her to the floor, putting her down gently on the carpet. He fucked her like a beast, his thrusts unrelenting and savage. Orgasm after orgasm pulsed through her, and he clamped his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams of pleasure

  An incessant beeping sounded in the room, and for a moment Holly was certain her mind was beeping from the pleasure. He laughed.

  “Is it urgent?” she asked.

  “We have five minutes… tops,” he replied.

  Holly rolled him onto his back and positioned herself on top of him. “Five minutes is all I need.”

  Four and a half minutes of hard pounding and riding Jake’s cock, Holly felt him jerk as he reached an orgasm. He moved to pull out, but she stopped him, not wanting his cum to cover her body. Jake pushed her off and scrambled to his feet, grabbing her pants off the floor and throwing them at her.

  “Relax, I can’t get pregnant, okay? I have a NuvaRing.”

  He frowned and shook his head. The disgust radiated off him in waves. Holly sighed. He was the last person on earth she would choose to get pregnant by again. She pulled her scrub pants back on, then walked out of his office while he was still trying to get his pants on. Though Holly was loath to admit, but that was a record. For a moment, she’d felt proud and victorious, but now all she felt revulsion. It burned through her stomach and her chest, before finally settling in her heart. She was a fucking loser when it came to Jake Peters. The guy didn’t want her, for crying out loud, and the fact that he’d hardly kissed her tonight just proved that he wanted only one thing, a good fuck.

  She felt cheap and worthless. Her mind kept yelling, Slut! Slut! Slut!

  How could she have done that to herself. Was it because of their history? It was precisely because of their history that she should doing the exact opposite. She should have told him to go fuck himself.

  Her mind kept playing her thoughts over for her. She’d probably give in to him again. She could see clearly how it would play out from now on. He would follow the same pattern; ignore her for two weeks, then touch her or whisper something in her ear to get back into her pants. And, sadly, she would probably give it to him. She hated what she was doing to herself, but she knew why: she was fucking addicted to Jake Peters.

  The next morning, Holly was working in the ER when a fifty-year-old man was rushed in. A cardio case. Holly was readying herself to lose the patient to Tanya and Embers, when Moira rushed up to her. Holly gave her a breakdown of the man’s vitals, what medication she’d administered, and what steps she had gone through, while simultaneously doing CPR on him.

  “We need to get him to the OR, now!” Moira yelled, grabbing the end of the bed. A few nurses pushed, while Holly continued with her efforts to resuscitate the patient.

  “It’s Scallanger, right?”

  Holly nodded.

  “You’re scrubbing in.”

  Holly smiled as a warm feeling washed over her. She was finally getting the opportunity to assist with a cardiac surgery again.

  The case turned out to be a difficult one, but Dr. Peters needed her help. Holly wasn’t merely an observer. Moira Peters imparted information much like Dr. Somers had done, guiding Holly on how to do a certain stitch, showing her a different way to cut, and so on. Holly was in seventh heaven—so much so, thoughts of Jake never once entered her mind. She was handling a heart again.

  The times Moira did take over were when Holly didn’t have enough hands and fingers to do everything that needed to be done. Five hours of fighting later and working as fast as they could on a heart that should not have been beating anymore, they saved the man’s life.

  Holly felt on top of the world.

  She accompanied Moira to update the man’s wife and family. That was the part Holly loved most about her job, when she was part of giving families hope and more time with their loved ones.

  Excusing themselves, Moira asked one of the nurses nearby to show the patient’s family to his room. Then turning to Holly, she asked, “You’re an intern?”

  “I am,” Holly replied, trying to ignore the skeptical look on Moira’s face.

  “You have amazing skills, Holly. And some that most interns don’t even know about yet.”

  “Dr. Somers taught me a lot. He was old, he had Parkinson’s, and his eyesight isn’t always as good as it should be, so I ended up doing a lot of things for him.”

  Moira smiled. “You have no idea how lucky you are. I’m sure he showed you the long-lost technique of massaging a heart by hand.”

  Holly knew what she was talking about. She nodded.

  “Not many doctors know that technique anymore. I myself struggle with that technique instead of using the technology we now have for that.”

  “Provide me with more chances to scrub in, and I’ll show you why it’s better than the technological approach.”

  “Aren’t you in pediatrics?”

  “I had no choice but to switch over. It’s a long story.” Holly was smiling like an idiot.

  “Okay. Once, maybe twice a week, I’ll let you scrub in with me. I can’t show favoritism now.”

  Holly laughed. She couldn’t help but like Moira, who reminded her so much of Amelia.

  “See you soon, Scallanger. I’m off to hunt for an apartment.”

  “See ya!” Holly yelled back, running to the stairs so she could phone Rod with her amazing news.

  “I knew it! I knew if she worked with you once, she would use you,” Rod told her.

  “How did you know she’d be working here?”

  “Holly, I’m with Jake twenty-four-seven when he isn’t at Downsend. He’s been begging her for a while now to take the job.”

  “Take the job?”

  “Oops.”

  “Spill.” She was curious.

  “Don’t tell a soul I said anything, but he owns like seventy percent of Downsend.”

  “Wait, what? It isn’t his parents?”

  “Nope, they wanted to make sure that the deal was final, and confirm with the hospital board that they were prepared to accept Jake’s help, that’s all. Jake didn’t want anyone to
know about it, so his parents let it be known that they were the silent partners when it’s actually him.”

  “Seventy percent? How much money do you think that cost him?”

  “Holly, that family is rolling in it, that I can promise you.”

  Even though she knew that, she didn’t like hearing it, because not all their family rolled in it. He had a little girl who was constantly denied the little things she wanted because there wasn’t enough money to go around. She listened halfheartedly as Rod kept going on about what a good investment the hospital was for Jake and Kate. She hated Kate, and she hated Jake even more.

  Holly sighed.

  “Well, I can say with certainty that I’m going to have a cardiac case at least twice a week, so I have to give Teresse the news. She is so not going to be happy about this. But it’s so freakin’ amazing.”

  Rod laughed. “I’m glad you found your surgeon, Holls. She’s really good.”

  “I know, her last name is Peters.”

  Rod laughed.

  “I’ve got to go. See you.”

  “Good luck with Teresse! Bye.”

  Holly remained on the stairs, staring at her phone. A part of her wanted to give Jake a call, or send him a message telling him in detail what an asshole he was. He had enough fucking money to buy a hospital, but his daughter had nothing. Holly didn’t want his money, but she wanted to give Jamie everything her heart desired.

  Of course, she couldn’t do that; she knew how it would end. Finding out that they had more than she’d originally thought made her worry more about what she was up against if Jake eventually found out about Jamie. Holly hated the situation she was in, hated the worry, the insecurities, hated everything about it.

  She looked at her phone one more time. It was open to one of the sexual messages had sent before their encounter in his office. Exiting her inbox, she shoved the phone back into her pocket, and pushed herself up off the stairs.

  Charles would fight on her behalf if she asked him, but he didn’t have that kind of money, and she knew in the end she would lose.