by Evie Claire
Maybe.
Chapter 21
Lorie
Lorie hadn’t anticipated Victoria offering to meet for lunch on Monday when she’d texted with the request hours before. But there they sat, both picking at salads.
“So, what do you need to talk about?” Victoria asked in the inviting way she always did. Lorie’s shoulders relaxed. Maybe Phebe was right. Sisters had to stick together these days. Victoria seemed to understand that unwritten girl-code.
“This is incredibly hard for me tell you.” Lorie ran her hand over the low bun at the nape of her neck.
“Oh, don’t let it be. I’m here for you, Lorie. Whatever you need. That’s the way this job works.”
Lorie placed her palms on the white tablecloth, framing her salad bowl with her forearms. Focusing on them, swallowing a lump that tried to stop her, she forced out the words she’d rehearsed all morning. “I am romantically interested in one of the physicians I call on.”
Victoria paused, setting her fork down and shifting in her seat. She crossed her legs and started pumping a foot, nervously. Lorie’s attention turned to the foot.
“Married?” Victoria asked.
“Single.”
“Prescriber or researcher?”
“Prescriber.”
“And he reciprocates these feelings?”
Lorie nodded.
“Okay.” Victoria shifted in her seat again. “I do need more answers from you, but first, you need to understand the implications of this type of relationship.”
“That’s why I asked for the meeting.” Encouraged by Victoria’s response, Lorie pushed her salad away and leaned over the table.
“If there is any type of what the company would consider an inappropriate interaction between a sales representative and one of his or her prescribing physicians, the first thing that happens is that all sales data for that physician is removed from the sales data used to determine bonus structure. It is retroactive for as long as the sales representative has been responsible for calling on the physician.”
“So that there’s no question about the reason behind the prescriber’s decision to use the representative’s drugs?” Lorie clarified.
“Exactly.” Victoria nodded. “Now, the definition of illicit is a gray area. If this is a mild flirtation that has gone no further than that—no harm no foul. If it is more than a harmless flirtation, that’s where the company would step in.” Victoria leaned in, her voice lowering. “The physician immediately comes out of a representative’s call deck, and they are forever forbidden from professional interactions with that prescriber.”
“Okay, so, hypothetically, would it impact only me, or my entire team?”
“If it is deemed inappropriate, your teammates could continue calling on the physician, but the prescriber’s sales performance would no longer count for anyone on the team.”
Lorie’s heart fell.
#Jamaica
It wasn’t just her life and livelihood she was fucking with. It was Quinn’s, Kate’s, and Allen’s. In addition to a trip to Jamaica, there was a serious payday with the top sales award. The wrong answer here would rob them of that when they had done nothing wrong. The fault was all hers, and she felt the weight hanging around her neck like a ten-ton gorilla.
“Do you have any other questions?”
“Ummm, no.” Lorie averted her gaze and shifted in her seat.
“Listen, it’s none of Durden’s damn business what you do in your personal time.” Victoria leaned even farther in, tapping a nail on the table to emphasize her point. The gaze peering out of her blue-rimmed glasses growing more serious than Lorie had ever seen before. “You are a good sales rep. You’re passionate about this job. And if you keep it up, you’ll have my job in a few years.” Evidently hearing the passion in her voice, Victoria checked her anger over the unfair boundaries of work and play, sat back, and composed herself. “However, there are rules everyone has to follow. You need to be absolutely certain of the choices you make here.”
“I understand that,” Lorie said, nodding emphatically. Making up her mind about what she had to do.
Victoria leaned back into her chair.
“Keeping everything I just told you in mind.” Victoria fixed Lorie with a pointed look—one that made Lorie feel like she was on her side instead of Durden’s in the matter. “Is there a prescriber that needs to come out of your call deck?”
Lorie swallowed hard and slowly shook her head. Victoria nodded even slower and she breathed deeply.
“No.”
Back in her car, Lorie took out her phone and fired off a text.
Can we meet for coffee tomorrow morning?
Chapter 22
Saam
Seven A.M. on a Tuesday morning found the side-street coffee shop blessedly bare. Even the employees behind the counter were barely awake. Still, Saam picked a secluded corner table he assumed Lorie would prefer. Hunched over his dirty chai latte, scrolling through the AMA app on his phone, his legs bounced so erratically under the table the foam spilled over the brim.
Shit.
He froze, shaking his head and sliding a napkin under his cup. He hated feeling so on edge.
Nerves weren’t a thing he was accustomed to dealing with. Doctors were supposed to be above such influences. Like med school somehow drained one’s emotions and dulled the nerves. Until now, he had been blissfully unaware of the catatonic state of his life. Lorie had changed that.
When her text came in yesterday with a meeting request instead of flirty fun, it set him on edge.
He went back to his messages. Reread the text for the hundredth time to be sure he hadn’t missed anything. Then his legs went back to bouncing. About the same time, the door brushed open and Lorie walked in, seemingly bringing the sunshine with her. For a moment, his nerves vanished. There was nothing but her. God, she was gorgeous. The curve of her face, the gentle, almost shy way she greeted the world. She did crazy things to him.
“Hey.” She extended a small wave to the coffee shop workers as she passed.
Saam’s head fell to the side while he watched.
Who does that? She didn’t owe strangers a greeting. They weren’t expecting it. It was just her. Who she was.
“Latte?” he offered, rising slightly and waving her over to the corner table.
“Thanks.” She took it and a seat, slinging her bag over the back of her chair. “Oh, I brought you something.” Turning to the tote, she fished around for a second and then pulled out a box emblazoned with the Lampalin logo. “Durden gave me two. Management sends small gifts when certain sales goals are reached. I don’t need two.” Lorie’s gaze darted quickly from the box to Saam and then back again. The box trembled in her hand before it found the table’s solid surface. Is she nervous, too?
Saam took his seat slowly, watching her fidget.
“You can use it for your latte right now. I’ll get them to wash it out for you.” Lorie grabbed the box off the table, took it to the counter, and returned in under a minute offering him a clean travel coffee mug, brightly colored with Lampalin’s purple and electric orange motif. She was bouncing around the place like a ping-pong ball. Without asking, Lorie took his coffee and poured it into the mug. Finally, she took her seat, and sighed, forcing herself to calm down and focus on her cup.
“Saam…” She stopped herself, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “Dr. Sherazi,” she corrected. “We have to end this.” She waved a hand between them.
Saam stiffened in his chair. Shaking his head, he opened his mouth to speak.
Until she stopped him by raising her hand and clenching her jaw.
“I am incredibly attracted to you, but I made a selfish choice when I crossed this line.” She lowered her hand to the table and traced a finger between them. “At the time, it felt right, part of it
still feels right, but if our secret got out, there would be repercussions for so many other people. I can’t do that to my teammates.” It was then that she pointed those big brown puppy dog eyes of hers squarely at him. Brimming with so many tangled emotions, his heart leapt at the possibility that she might not be feeling what she was saying. When she pulled back from him and cast her eyes to the floor, that hope burst like a bubble.
“What’s wrong with what we’re doing? We are consenting adults.”
“Yes, but we are also bound by a professional relationship. I have two choices here.” Lorie splayed a couple fingers over the table. “I can come clean to my company and affect five lives, or I can come clean to you. End this.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “And only affect ours.”
Saam shook his head, not seeing any logic in her reasoning.
“Two days ago, we agreed to keep this between us and see where things went. What’s changed?”
“A lot. I asked my boss a hypothetical—what if I was attracted to a physician?” Lorie looked away, shifting in her seat. “The picture she painted wasn’t pretty.”
“You knew this going in.”
Lorie’s face fell, she studied the space on the table between them. “You never prescribed Lampalin before.” She extended one finger on the tabletop. “You do now.” She unfolded another one beside it. “My team will probably win a sales award and a big bonus because of you.” A third finger ticked off her point. “If Durden knew about us, that sales award goes away, I get flagged by HR, and you get a reputation.” One by one, Lorie curled each finger back, balling her hand into a fist. “There’s no way that math works for anybody.”
Saam stiffened in his seat, letting her words trickle into the left side of his brain. The rational part of him was the only one capable of functioning at the moment. The rest of him, hell, it might never work again. She was ending things. The resolution grew stronger in her with each passing reason.
“As a physician you took an oath.”
“Do no harm.” Saam nodded, it was rote recollection for any medical professional. “I hardly see how that’s relevant here.”
“I’m trying to do no harm for everyone involved.”
“I get it.” Saam crossed his arms over his chest, leaning into his chair back, forcing himself to remain as cool as he could. He was a doctor, damn it, indifference was something he did well. “Your job is more important than me. I’m in the same boat. We forgot it for a while.” He forced a fake, breathy laugh. It got her attention.
“That’s not what I’m saying.” Her focus shot back to him, eyes intent—but not as distant as they were before, hands splayed on the tabletop beside her latte. “You are perfect. The situation we’re in sucks.”
He didn’t ask for her to elaborate, choosing to run a hand along the spiky hairs at the back of his neck instead of speaking. Stalling. Giving her time. It was obvious her brain was working fast, thoughts flashing through her mind, some she shook her head at, others made her grimace. Something was coming. He would give her room to find it.
“You don’t really know me, Saam,” she said after taking a deep, cleansing, yoga-type breath. “You see what I want you to.”
“I see you. I’ve seen the you no one else does. And I like that girl, too.”
Lorie hid her face in her hands, a low, tortured sound escaping from behind them.
“Five years ago, you didn’t know me. Five years ago, I was crowned Miss Magnolia and started preparing to compete for the Miss Georgia crown. Up until that moment, my entire life had revolved around chasing a title and the crown that came with it.” Lorie rested an elbow on the table, propping her chin on her palm.
Saam said nothing, uncrossing his arms and leaning into her over the table, hopefully encouraging her to continue sharing what she needed to get out.
“Six months before the pageant, my father made a bad business deal and my family lost everything—our house, the farm, even our cars. His investors lost big, too—some were lifelong friends. They turned on my dad, said the most awful things about him. It’s a small town. People do that. And there’s no hiding from it.”
Lorie swallowed, shrugging her shoulders like the weight was still there.
“Normally, I would’ve retreated into competition. Only pageants are expensive. We would have easily spent ten grand had I competed. I couldn’t ask that of my family. But I also couldn’t face the truth of my father’s failure. I was ashamed of losing everything and what people were saying. My whole life had been spent crafting a perfect image for people to judge. And in an instant”—she snapped her fingers—“everything disappeared.” Lorie looked up, first at him, then to the ceiling. Blinking rapidly, coaxing tears back behind her sad brown eyes.
“You love your father. Obviously.” Saam placed a hand over hers. “But you can’t blame yourself for his decisions.”
Lorie turned away, searching for her words again. “I know. But I also didn’t have to be so helpless. My parents didn’t have to pay for my pageants. Had I gotten a part-time job, I might have gotten that Miss Georgia title, too.”
Unable to sit still anymore, Lorie stood up, and paced to the other side of the table. The coffee shop was still quiet and empty save a single soul who was trying to make sense of the menu board. Saam stood, too, his chair legs scraping against the concrete floor startling Lorie so badly her shoulders leapt up to her ears. He stalked to her side, joining her in the quiet corner.
“We all have things we regret, Lorie. I don’t want this to be one of mine.” Saam gently took her elbow, stepping into her so she knew she was the this he referred to.
“Me, either.” Her face darkened and she slid from his grasp. “I watched one dream wash away, and I couldn’t stop it. I’ve got new dreams now, and I don’t want to watch them wash away when I can stop it.” She turned into him, studying the lines of his face, the way his lips worked over one another, but wouldn’t look him in the eye. “As a physician, you promise to do no harm. I’m leaning into that responsibility here. People could get hurt over my mistake. So, ending this is my decision. Mine.” Lorie chewed nervously on her bottom lip, having finally gotten out the words she needed him to hear.
“Mistake?” Saam questioned.
“We were reckless. If we hadn’t been alone at camp, we wouldn’t be here right now.” Lorie stepped away. “We got caught up in this.” Lorie circled her hand between them. “We didn’t think about our actions affecting other people’s lives, too.”
Her words landed in his gut like lead buckshot. He was a mistake. They were. And if that was how she truly felt, only an asshole would try to change her mind. He ran a hand up the back of his neck, staring at the floor, thinking.
“I’m not going to change your mind, am I?” Saam quirked his face into lines that were just as tired as her excuse. They knew what the consequences were when they started.
She gave a feeble snivel. “It feels right to me.” Lorie turned, resting her back against the wall, and looking away. “If our secret got out, I’m not the only one who would pay. I can’t compromise other people’s financial situations.”
“That’s it then?” Saam asked, picking at a small nail hole with his thumb because he needed something to do. “We walk away, keep our mouths shut, and nobody pays the price.”
“No. We pay the price.” Somewhere in the gaze she cast his way Saam could see a flicker of her truth, the regret she had over what she felt she had to do. He leaned into her, hoping what he was seeing was really there, and then the flicker was gone. She shrugged off the wall and reached for her coffee.
“I’ll ask Quinn to call on you and Dr. Dukes for a while.”
Saam stood staring at the blank space where her body had been. His mind was in a tailspin. He made a fist, pressed it gently against the wall, and pulled his shit together.
“Are you kidding? Dr. Dukes would h
ave an emotional meltdown if you stopped coming around.” He forced a smile while he clenched his teeth.
“You’re being too nice about this.” Lorie frowned.
“Friends.” He offered a hand, but the word lodged in that weird place on the way out, the one that outed him to Amal when he was lying. He cleared his throat to cover it and clasped her hand in his.
“Goodbye, Lorie.” He gave a curt bow, grabbed his new Lampalin coffee cup off the table, and made his way to the door.
He refused to look back, no matter how badly he wanted to. That would be the asshole thing to do. Drag this on, guilt her into second-guessing her choice, force remorse over the decision she’d made. No, he wouldn’t be that guy. He’d taken a chance. He’d lost. He was done with recklessness for the day.
Chapter 23
Lorie
Lorie: The more I think about it, an outdoor reception is . October in Georgia will be perfect.
Liza: Jay is consulting the Farmer’s Almanac for weather predictions before he’ll even talk about it
Liza: BTW—are you bringing a plus-one?
Lorie’s stomach rolled, forcing her to push away the lunch she’d just ordered. It had been weeks. Why was Saam’s face the first image she saw when Liza asked?
Lorie: Working on it.
Lie. Since she’d ended things with Dr. Sherazi she had put all her energy into work. Where it belonged. Having a wingman would be nice, a bit of cover so she wouldn’t have to rehash her small town’s history ALL. NIGHT. LONG. Would it be inappropriate to see if she could borrow Brody for the night? Or maybe she could talk Quinn into it.
Liza: Good
Liza: I’m meeting with Alice soon to see if the campers can make me custom garlands. They will be for aisle décor.
Lorie: Good :)