"Carl!" I jumped at my sister's shout, clutching my chest as a gasp flew from my dry mouth. "What kind of problems have you been having with that woman from just now?"
"She's tried to grope me a few times— been really aggressively pursuing me despite the rules against inter-office romances. I've always brushed her off. About two weeks ago, she saw me with another woman and lost it. Just was really upset for some reason. I've never given Eva any indication I was interested in her." Dismalness struck my chest like a hard fist, and I started down the stairs after taking a deep, stabilizing breath. "I haven't seen much of Eva since, but she'd find reasons to come to my office to talk to me or have a 'consult'. A week after I started here, she and I were in the elevator and she shoved her hands down my pants."
"You never reported it?"
I paused at that question, and Laurie scuffed lightly at herself.
"Of course not. We'll talk about it more. Do you want me to just grab take away and go to your place?"
"I feel like I'm going to throw up." My stomach roiled at my admission, and I pushed my way into the open air to gasp for breath. "I can't believe this is happening— Laurie, the fuck am I supposed to do?"
"We'll figure it out, Carl, okay. So, just... calm down. Sit somewhere and breathe. I'll stay on the phone with you." Leaning against the front of the building where the glass walls gave way to brick, I dropped my briefcase to run both hands through my hair. I could just feel that bitch watching me— sitting in her car, all happy at the fact that she's got a good shot at ruining my life. Sliding down to sit, I tucked my head and fisted my hair as my panic rose.
Chapter 9
Melissa
My thumbs hovered over my phone screen, and my brain pounded from the effort of trying to find the right words. The backlight lowered, and I tapped the text box absently to keep my phone from locking. Beyond the edges of the tea cabana, the rain was heavy but not sheeting— just the perfect fall to keep my allergies at bay.
"I just have to do it." Hyping myself up, I forced my thumbs to tap the screen, gradually making out the words I wanted to say. "Just type it— Dad, I—"
Just then, my phone started to ring, and I dragged down the notifications bar only to pause. The blood drained from my face, my shoulders slumping as defeat beat me down. My dad's name flashed in white on green, and I closed my eyes briefly before answering the call.
"Yeah, Dad?" Instantly, I was tired and a little queasy from the knowledge that I wouldn't even get a 'hi, how are ya?'. True to form, my dad took a breath to begin talking at me, and I propped both my elbows on the table to hold my forehead against my palm.
"I met a woman, and you'll never guess how loaded she is. She makes your mother look poor."
I put my phone down, but I could still hear my dad spewing out sewage about this woman. My stomach flopped dangerously, my mind focused on those six, awful words no dad should say about his daughter's dead mother. Terry is right.
In a daze, I put the call on speaker, but nothing much my dad said managed to process in my head. "Pretty soon, I'll be able to retire for good. Sell the auto shop, finally. I'll admit, I'm gonna miss working on cars, but with her kind of money, I can always just buy a fixer upper and do whatever I want, no matter how expensive it is. It'll be so great not to pinch pennies anymore!"
"... You're a horrible person, you know that, Dad?"
My dad blubbered a little in shock at my soft, almost wispy declaration. It almost felt like the words weren't coming from my mouth even as they slithered into my ears.
"I really don't understand why you sound so proud. You have nothing to be proud about. You literally triggered me to have a really bad asthma attack, and then you didn't want to own up to almost, intentionally, putting me in the hospital, so you don't call me for days. Then, when you finally work up the courage to call me, you're talking about scamming some poor woman? Do you honestly think I care? Do you think it makes me anything but ashamed that you're my dad? The only time you call me is to tell me how you screwed someone out of thousands of dollars for auto parts when you really just pocketed it. But 'they're unfathomable rich. It's not like they'll miss a few thousand dollars' as if that gives you an excuse to be a terrible, ugly human being.
"You know, Dad... now that I'm thinking about it, I don't remember the last time you said, 'I just want to see how you're doing'. You never call me unless you want to brag about something shady you did, or something you just bought, and it's always about you. You never ask me about my cat. You never ask me about my day. If you didn't have to breathe, you'd never stop talking about yourself. So... stop calling me. I don't care, and you obviously don't either." And I hung up on him. This time, I wasn't going to let him talk over me. I wasn't going to let my dad dismiss me. If he ever contacted me again, it better be to say he was sorry and he'd be better. And then, if he didn't live up to that, I wouldn't give him a second chance.
He didn't deserve anything from me.
Straightening to flop my head back, I winced when I hit something, and I twisted sharply. Opening my mouth to yell at whatever inanimate object had the audacity to bang my head, my mouth dried immediately. The naked, dripping wet chest that whirled around to face me rippled with tension, and my eyes almost boggled out of my head. Trailing up, my pupils blew as a familiar, shocked face flooded my vision.
"Melissa?" Carl sounded as surprised as I felt.
My chest tightened as all my emotions hit me square in the gut. He pulled out his ear buds, his features twisting in concern. Huge, fat tears started streaming down my face, and I grappled my chest with both my hands. My lungs were on fire, unable to expand from the sheer magnitude of my feelings crowding them.
"Oh, shit— hey—"
He leaped over the wooden railing of the cabana, crouching on the bench to snatch my purse off the table. My wheezes rose above the rain, blood pounding against my ear drums as my heart rampaged through my chest with no care.
"Here— here, close your eyes and focus. It's okay." Holding my inhaler to my mouth, Carl cupped the back of my head gently. His soft, soothing words barely breached my muddled mind, and I managed a shallow breath of medicated spray. "It's okay. I'm here. Just relax, Mel."
My head spun even as my inhaler did its job, and Carl set it down with a clatter to gently stroke the length of my throat. Icy prickles pierced between my ribs and gripped my heart, and I clenched my jaw hard as I took great, heaving gasps through my nose. Shivering hard, I cracked open my throbbing eyes but immediately shut them again. A strangled noise escaped me, my fists flying to bang weakly on Carl's chest.
"Fuck! Fuck! God damn—" Grinding the slurs through my teeth, a sob tore from my throat. Panting furiously, I glared through my tears as steam practically poured from my ears. My brief attack left my breathless, flames engulfing my chest and spine. Tremors gripped every muscle in my body, and hot air that I couldn't replace invaded the thin space between my brain and my skull.
"Melissa?"
The coo snapped my eyes up, and I tensed as Carl cupped both my cheeks. His touch was so warm, battling the frigid cold that threatened to overwhelm me.
"Hey... what happened, huh?"
"What the Hell is wrong with him?" My voice broke harshly, and my lips tingled wildly as I pursed them together.
Slowly, Carl dragged his palm down to my chest, and I automatically took as big a breath as I could manage. The worry in his eyes didn't ease, but the tension in his face did, and he nodded a little to himself.
"He didn't even say 'hi'!"
"You wanna talk about it?"
Shaking my head hard, my hair whipped at my face, and I sniffled hard. Leaning back, Carl sat down with a low grunt to let the silence fill the air. The rain hitting the concrete sidewalk behind me slowly filtered back into my scope of comprehension, and my goosebumps started receding. An ache began to pound behind my eyes.
"... He told me he met some richer-than-God woman that made my mom look poor." Out of the corner of my eye, Carl t
ensed at my rasp, his eyes boring holes into the side of my face. Glaring hotly at my phone on the table, bitterness stained my tongue. "She's probably some young divorcee that blackmailed her ex into supporting her lifestyle somehow. Scum attracts scum. He said he was gonna bag her and get all her money. What the Hell kind of person is he that he says that like he's proud of it? That he's got this amazing, genius idea and— I mean— he's balding, for God's sake!"
Blurting out that last part in utter disgust, a hard shiver lodged between my shoulder blades.
"That... I really don't know what to say to that, Mel. I'm sorry you have to go through all this."
Reaching with trembling hands to wipe my face roughly, I sniffed painfully before grabbing my purse.
"For what it's worth, I didn't even notice you or hear anything you said."
"You got what you wanted, though." His gaze on me turned questioning, and I plucked out a tissue from the packet to cast him a sidelong glance. "I had an asthma attack, and you saw it this time."
"You had a panic attack that triggered an asthma attack, so it really didn't help me much. I'm sure it felt a lot worse than it was because of the former."
Scrunching up my nose in distaste, I ducked my head to blow and wipe as discreetly as I could.
"Do you want me to give you the names of a few therapists to help you through this?"
"No— no, I... I think it was a one-off... I hope it was, at least. It's just— my dad said that, and I gave him a piece of my mind, and then you just happen to be standing behind me..." Casting him a curious glance, my eyes ached to explore his faintly defined chest. Carl swiped back his wet hair, his earbuds dangling off his neck and drawing attention to his collar bones. "Why are you running in the rain?"
"Ah, my sister's in the tea shop. I was waiting for her to come back. I didn't even see you over the railing."
He rubbed his neck, almost bashfully, and my heart fluttered lightly at how hot he was. Every time I saw Carl, he got more attractive. Not good.
"I always wished I had siblings. My parents didn't want me, you know? But that never stopped my mom from making me feel like she did. She and I had our problems, right, but she never made me feel like I wasn't her daughter. My dad... he never shared that view." The memories of when I was thirteen and my mom found out about my dad's cheating the first time popped into my head, crystal clear— as if it'd happened yesterday. "My mom sat me down one day after school and told me my dad's cheating wasn't my fault. That she may not have wanted kids, but she was blessed and couldn't imagine her life without me. I may not have been planned, but I wasn't unwanted."
"Do you figure she married your father for you?"
Despite how hard I tried, my lower lip puffed out in despair, and I nodded dully.
"She sounds like an amazing woman, Melissa."
"She was. I think I blame myself an appropriate amount. I know it's not my fault, but it's still my fault, you know? If that makes sense. There's plenty of blame for all three of us."
For a second, Carl looked like he was going to say something but decided against it. Just sharing that made me feel so much better, and I absently reached over to grab his hand. He smiled, relief and tenderness shining in his eyes, and squeezed my hand.
"Thanks, Carl."
"You're welcome." Twisting to glance behind us, Carl cleared his throat a little before nodding firmly. "If you have another emergency today, go to the hospital and shoot me a text, okay? Have you used your CPAP machine yet?"
"Not yet. I'm kinda nervous, to be honest, but... I just wanna sleep through this emotional stuff, so I'll definitely use it tonight and let you know in the morning." Standing up when Carl did, I mimicked his nod as satisfaction softened his features. "Thank you, again— I'm really sorry about that."
"I'm not gonna lie... I'm really enjoying being the hero and swooping in to save you." Even as uncertainty glimmered in Carl's eyes, he reached to touch my hip— like he couldn't stop himself.
Electricity skittered up my side and down my outer thigh, but he was quick to pull his hand back. This time, though, there wasn't any awkwardness as he shuffled out from the cabana. Only offering me a little wave, he returned to his sister, and I bit my bottom lip hard. Man... if only I could kiss him.
Chapter 10
Carl
"Thank you for doing this for me, Laurie." My sister flashed me a tight smile as she straightened her little vest, and I opened the door to the HR offices for her. She looked good, her plain, black skirt suit very smart and professional, and her hair up in a tight bun. It eased some of my nerves to have her here, but that same anxiety came surging up my throat when I saw Eva was already here.
That horrible woman was flipping through a magazine, her low heel dipping leisurely. When Eva heard the door open, she looked up and froze, her eyes going wide when she saw my sister. Confusion battled my already raging emotions, and I glanced between the two over thinned lips.
In her heels, Laurie was almost the same height as me, and I could almost smell how intimidated Eva was. A wilting flower, my sister was most decidedly not, and she sauntered up smoothly to the reception desk to talk to the woman behind. Eva watched my sister with panic tightening her face, making her look gaunt and haggard.
Of course, Laurie advised me not to say anything to Eva, ever again, but I seriously wanted to ask what got her feathers ruffled.
This investigation had taken less than a whole business week, and that was strange in itself, as well. Usually, it'd take months to resolve as they were trying to catch me doing something I wasn't. This hospital would hire a private investigator, pull, and analyze cameras— the whole nine yards— to cover their butts.
And they should, because I can sue their hats off for defamation, and I will sue Eva for all the emotional distress that bitch caused me. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, and Laurie was leaving today. She'd only planned on staying three days, but she could see how this was eating away at me. At least her professor thought this was a great experience and counted it as long as she brought back materials to prove she'd done it.
I was going to send that man a bottle of whiskey in thanks.
"Carl? This way, please. Who do you have with you? This is just an information gathering session to determine whether you stay suspended and the investigation begins."
My head whipped to the side, and I inhaled a shallow breath as my heart threatened to burst through my ribs. Thank God for my sister when she walked over to confidently hold out her hand. The man assigned to my 'case' automatically took it, and my sister smiled politely.
"Eric Dane. I'll be taking Carl's statements to determine what to do next."
"It's a pleasure, Mr. Dane. I'm Laurie Northrop. I'm a law student at Harvard, but my brother has agreed to allow me to advise him."
Following my sister and Eric through to his office, I held my breath when I crossed the threshold. Behind me, Eva made a strangled choking sound, and my confusion threatened to drown me. It was just a friggin office, no smaller than mine, but it felt so tight and claustrophobic when I sat down.
"So, why haven't you already began to investigate when you suspended Carl?"
"Well, as you know, he's only been working here for two months, and considering the extremely favorable deal that we pulled to get you, I was hesitant to just believe the report. The suspension is just procedure until we gather enough facts to determine whether or not the allegations have any merit." Facing me once he sat down, Eric frowned under his sharply shaved, thin goatee, and I clenched my jaw hard. "I know it's entirely possible that you may have had a one-off encounter before realizing your patient was, in fact, your patient, given how slow your office is. I also know it's just as possible that what was reported may not have been what it seemed."
"What did the report say?" Somehow managing not to growl out my question, I arched a brow quizzically. Eric's eyes narrowed on me, and I had to forcibly unstuff my shoulder caps from my ears. "I already know who reported me, I just don't know why. I
have never and will never compromise my job for anyone."
"There were two instances detailed in your report. One for a red-haired woman by the name of Melissa Jackson, who you were seen having lunch with and supposedly getting intimate with in your car." I almost choked, and my sister reached to pinch my knee sharply as anger surged through my veins. "The second is with a blue-haired woman who, obviously, was misidentified. From what information I received, it seemed like the woman may have dyed her hair to be less recognizable, but that's obviously not the case."
Gesturing to my sister, Eric didn't take his eyes off me, and I inhaled deeply through my nose. The air only fanned the flames lapping at my chest, but I couldn't blow up here. I couldn't risk my job over Eva's lies.
"As I said, I was hesitant to believe the report as not only were the physical descriptions for the women somewhat different, but that you'd attempt explicitly forbidden relationships so soon after coming here. Also, you have no patient with blue hair. I checked. So, really, my questions are regarding this Melissa Jackson." Clasping his hands together, Eric turned his gaze to my sister to nod in acknowledgment. "I apologize for the mix up, Miss Northrop."
"Apology accepted. I understand that the circumstances could've been construed different than they were. Carl and I haven't seen each other in a long time, and he didn't know I'd dyed my hair. To a stalker, at a distance, it could've seemed like flirting." Laurie emphasized the word with an arch of her brow, and I was suddenly so, so glad that I'd spilled the beans. Not about what happened with Mel in the exam room, but in the public places, yeah. "I find it extremely suspicious that whoever reported Carl had seen him multiple times even though she and he do not live in the same town, and she has seemingly no reason to be in those places. With our meeting at the Italian restaurant, I could call that a coincidence, maybe, but the second... much less so."
My Forbidden Doctor: A Secret Baby Medical Romance Page 5