“I’ll bet.”
He stops at a red light and glances over at me. “You can come over and see it sometime, if you want.”
“Thanks.” I hope he doesn’t think I was angling for an invitation. Watching a sunset with Drew in his Esplanade condo seems like something we would do if we were actually dating, not faking it.
And on the subject of faking it, there are a few things I need to clarify before we get to the Tates’.
“So I want to make sure I have our story straight,” I begin.
Drew raises an eyebrow. “Our story?”
“Yeah, for when people ask about our relationship. On Monday, you told the Tates that I was your girlfriend. But when we met with Dr. McGregor and Heather, we said we were going to start dating.”
“Ah,” he says with a small smile. “You want to define the relationship.”
“Well, yeah, I guess I do. I had to meet with someone from HR yesterday morning?—”
“You did?” Drew interrupts, sounding surprised.
“Yeah, I was going to text you about it, but I knew it was an OR day, and you were on call, so I didn’t want to bother you.”
“You can always text, Ally,” he says. “I put my phone on silent while I’m operating, but I check it between cases. What happened with HR?”
“I met with a woman named Gloria,” I tell him. “She basically wanted to go over the whole thing again, and I repeated everything we told Dr. McGregor and Heather. She asked if Ifelt pressured because of the power differential, and I said not at all.”
“But there is a power differential,” he says, glancing at me again. “That’s undeniable.”
“Sure,” I admit. “But you never pressured me. I told Gloria you’ve behaved like a gentleman, and I’m dating you because I want to. I think she was convinced.”
“Thanks, Ally.”
“No problem.” I pause. “But we still need to define the relationship. Are we just starting to date, or . . .”
Drew stops at another red light, and his eyes flicker toward me. “If you’re okay with it, it’s probably best to give the impression that we’re in a committed relationship. It fits the narrative we want to project, that this isn’t just a fling.” He pauses. “And it’ll help me out with the Nina Tate situation.”
“So boyfriend and girlfriend, all of that?” I need to be absolutely clear about this. I don’t want to claim I’m Drew Malone’s girlfriend if he’s telling people we’re casually dating.
“All of that,” he confirms. “If that’s okay with you.”
“It’s fine with me,” I say slowly. “But people might wonder how it happened so fast. And we don’t want HR to question whether we started dating before we told them about it.”
“But we didn’t,” he points out. “There was only the tennis that one time, and there was nothing inappropriate there.”
“True,” I agree. “But we’re basically saying we went from dating to a committed relationship within a couple of days. And you told the Tates I was your girlfriend before we talked to anyone in HR, so if they ever talk about it . . .”
“Some relationships move quickly,” he says mildly. “And I doubt the Tates will compare notes with HR.”
He makes it sound so simple. “Okay.”
We’ve reached the outskirts of Somerset, and Drew turns left onto a country road. I realize he isn’t even using GPS navigation; he knows the way to the Tates’ cottage from memory.
“So you’re pretty close with the Tates, huh?” I ask. “You’ve been to the cottage before?”
He shrugs. “I’ve been to their cottage a couple of times. I got to know them pretty well after I operated on Amber three years ago. She was in the hospital for a couple weeks after the surgery.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t have her transferred to Toronto. Not that you’re not capable, of course, but?—”
“Oh, everyone was surprised they didn’t transfer her to Toronto,” he says wryly. “The Tates could’ve taken her anywhere in the world, and Somerset’s the smallest neurosurgical center in the country. Not to mention I’d only been an attending surgeon for three months.”
