“No.”
“Okay. I’ll, um, just…I’ll be around. Text me if you need anything.”
“I will.”
“Okay, great.” With that, she left his room, forced herself to walk calmly yet briskly down the hall, and fished the key that was still in her dress pocket.
In the safety of her room, Winnie looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Pink cheeks, messy hair, rosy lips. Definitely like a woman recently and well shagged.
She turned on the shower and adjusted the water to cold.
SIXTEEN
LORENZO
Thank God he was back in Boston, where he was more than happy to immerse himself in people’s cavities, so to speak.
The last day of the conference had been uneventful. Nevertheless, a low current of electricity hummed in his bone marrow, uncomfortable and energizing at the same time. He avoided Winnie until the car service picked them up to bring them to the airport. On the flight, they both were very immersed in their laptops and had taken great care not to have an arm brush an arm.
“Do you need me here in Boston?” she’d asked as they got back to his apartment.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “But if you’d prefer to stay here and drive down to the Cape tomorrow…”
“I think I’ll head back. I miss my family.”
“Yes. Okay. I’ll be in touch.” He started to say something else…sorry, or thanks, or something. “Drive safely,” was the best he could do.
“Talk soon.” He watched as she walked to her car, put the suitcase in the back (he should’ve done that for her), then drove off. She waved. He waved back.
Do not sleep with your assistant. For the love of God, how had he made such a mistake?
Spontaneity was not something he ever indulged in. Honestly, he wasn’t sure how it had happened. They’d been standing in the elevator, and then without knowing he’d made the decision to move, he had her against the wall, his mouth on hers. She could’ve kneed him in the groin, slapped his face, filed a lawsuit, or simply pushed him away and said, “No way, Lorenzo.”
Instead, she’d kissed him back.
God, what a mistake. He remembered Lark saying he shouldn’t hire someone he couldn’t fire. Now he’d slept with her. She’d be stupid if she didn’t sue him.
Her hair had slid through his fingers like water, and her skin smelled like honey. She was strong and soft and (God forgive him) limber, and he?—
“Stop thinking about it, idiot,” he said out loud. Unfortunately, he was in the hospital elevator, and a resident thought he was speaking to her.
“Sorry, Dr. Santini,” she’d whispered. Later, he’d heard her say to a nurse, “It was like he knew I wanted to drop out.” So now he was psychic as well as terrifying.
In the hospital, he was in a familiar, comfortable zone, the OR running like a Ferrari under his command. He resumed his exacting demands on his residents, though it didn’t feel as automatic as usual. Almost like he had to work at putting the fear of God into them. Or fear of him, rather.
But it was necessary. Things went wrong when you were up to your elbows in someone’s abdomen. Keeping calm as blood spurted and dripped and the smell of a ruptured bowel cut through your mask and the words of the surgical nurse and anesthesiologist were coming fast and furious and you had to absorb everything and make a decision in nano-seconds…that was what he taught.
Once his residents got past a certain stage, Lorenzo did lean into the mentoring aspect of teaching. But first, one had to fare pulizia, as his grandmother would have said. Clean out. Chi è forte resiste, chi è debole cade. The strong survive, the weak fall. Take Inez Cabrera, whom he’d be appointing chief resident soon. He’d called her out on an incorrect answer two years before. “The patient is alert and oriented, intermittent generalized pain, constipation for three days, stable vital signs. Her CT shows a closed-loop bowel obstruction. What course of action would you take, Dr. Cabrera?”
Her answer had been observation, no food, IV hydration.
Wrong.
“Did you miss the words closed-loop, Dr. Cabrera? Her symptoms are likely to intensify rapidly. Would you like to observe her blood pressure crash and fever spike? Shall we observe her bowel dying, Dr. Cabrera? Shall we observe the patient herself die, Dr. Cabrera?”
“No, Dr. Santini, and thank you for correcting me. I won’t get it wrong again.”
She had returned his gaze calmly. No crying, blushing or stammering, no making excuses or cursing him under her breath.
