Mitchell-Tanner was on the same flight they were. He was going to San Francisco, alone, but she guessed he’d find someone to screw while he was there.
The memory of his searing words landed in her chest, and suddenly, her eyes were full of tears. She felt Lorenzo sit next to her. A second later, he pushed a glass of champagne into her hand. “Drink that.” She did, in one gulp, wincing as the bubbles burned down her throat. He handed her his glass, and she took a smaller sip, unable to look at him.
People were coming onto the plane now, filing past them. “We’re going to be deep in conversation when that man walks past,” he said. “Here. Take a look at my presentation for tomorrow.” He opened his laptop. “You’ll get to see this before anyone else. Consider it a privilege of the job.”
He tilted his head close to hers as he opened the PowerPoint. Handling Unexpected Complications During Level Five Abdominal Surgeries read the first slide.
“Ah,” she said. “I’ve been dying to learn about this.”
He glanced at her and again, a remarkable thing happened. He smiled. “Prepare to learn,” he said. “Let’s take slide number four. Hepatopancreatobiliary surgery, or HPB for short, is almost always to remove metastatic or primary pancreatic tumors. Some HPBs can be minimally invasive, but for the presentation, I’m focusing on more aggressive interventions, such as a Whipple procedure.”
“Of course,” Winnie said.
His voice was low and gentle as he explained the basics of this type of surgery. The medical terminology, something she’d heard from her dad and Lark all her life, was oddly musical. Laparoscopic. Cholecystectomy. Biliary. Duodenum.
His shoulder was warm against hers as he spoke, and she appreciated that he assumed she could follow along. He was not condescending, but he sensed what terms a layperson might not understand and explained in a concise, logical way. He must be a good teacher, she thought as she finished his champagne.
“The background of your slides is a little dull,” she said. “There are dozens you can choose. If you want, I can do that for you. Maybe bullet-point some of the terms and use some visuals.”
He looked at her, a little surprised. “Well. Don’t change the text or anything.”
“No, I wouldn’t. I can just make it a little more appealing. Friendlier, easier to look at.”
“That would be…agreeable, I suppose,” he said.
“I’ll do it as soon as we get to the hotel.”
“Thank you.” He held her gaze, and she noticed that his eyes weren’t icy at all. They were just blue. A very nice shade of blue, actually. Clear, medium blue. She should probably think of something more descriptive than that, but it really wasn’t her way. “You look very nice, by the way,” he added.
“You get the credit for that,” she said.
“I think your parents get the credit for that.” Another smile. Was he flirting with her? No. But…no. She’d bet her pinky finger Lorenzo Santini, M.D., Ph.D., had never flirted in his life. “All clear,” he said.
“Sorry?”
“Your former person is on his way to steerage. You’re safe.”
“Steerage?” she said. “Don’t call it that, Lorenzo.” But she was smiling. Hey, she’d sat back there in the rear of the plane. He wasn’t wrong.
And then, maybe because of the champagne, she was laughing harder, giggling, and then her eyes were wet again, and the laughs stopped and maybe some crying was taking place.
“He didn’t deserve you,” Lorenzo said quietly, handing her a handkerchief. He had a handkerchief. Of course he did. Then he turned back to his laptop, closed the PowerPoint, and opened a different document and began typing.
It occurred to her as she closed her eyes that what Dr. Satan had done—from the second he appeared at the gate to showing her his presentation to ignoring her right now—was among the kindest things anyone had ever done for her.
ELEVEN
LORENZO
When Winnie had woken up from her nap on the flight, he’d gone over the conference program, noting which speakers he might want to hear and briefly explaining the topics. Damian Hughes was giving a talk on how to handle unexpected findings during an elective surgery. A little league topic.
“Like if you’re putting in breast implants and find a tumor?” Winnie asked.
“Yes. Like that. But that rarely happens because imaging is so accurate these days.”
“Maybe in some less-funded places, you’d be more likely to be surprised,” she suggested.
She had a point. But knowing Damian, the talk would be sophomoric—teratomas, no doubt, along with the accompanying pictures for effect. That was one way of keeping an audience’s attention. The other was to have a deep understanding of the topic.
