“It’s okay,” I hear myself blurt out. “You don’t have to explain anything.”
“Explain what?”
Dark eyes settle on me, and they’re just so beautiful and kind and gentle that it leaves me no choice but to force myself to go on.
“I’m saying you don’t have to go through with it.”
He takes a step toward me, and I have to fight against the urge to take a step back.
“Because I get it, I really do—”
“You’ll have to be more speci—”
“I know you’re not in love with me!”
Chapter Three
KONSTANTIN WAS ALREADYexpecting Kazeyuki when he entered his office.
The hospital director was seated behind his desk, a pen turning between his fingers. The desk itself was a sprawling dark wood thing that Eve had chosen for him when they'd moved from New York, and it was the only piece of furniture in the room that didn't look like it belonged in a hospital. There were toys under it. Kazeyuki could see them from the doorway: a stuffed bear with one ear chewed flat and a plastic stethoscope that their son Stefano liked to use on anyone who sat still long enough.
“Are you busy?” Kazeyuki didn’t see any point in beating around the bush.
“On the contrary, I’ve been waiting for my turn to congratulate you and Ms. McKenna.”
Kazeyuki crossed the room and settled on the leather couch across from the desk.
Konstantin waited patiently.
"You're supposed to tell me this is illegal."
And there it was.
Konstantin set his pen down on the desk and leaned back. "Not when there's documented evidence, over a prolonged period, attesting that it was the patient who took the initiative to pursue her physician." He picked up his coffee, took a sip, and setit back down like a man who had rehearsed this conversation long before it arrived. "And not when said physician's hospital director had the foresight to transfer the patient's care eighteen months ago, making said physician no longer her doctor of record."
It was rare for Kazeyuki to struggle with comprehension, but that was exactly what he found himself doing after what his friend had just revealed. A part of him wanted to think Konstantin was simply pulling his leg, but...
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“If that’s your way of asking if your relationship with Ms. McKenna is illegal,” Konstantin drawled, “then the answer is no. It’s not.”
Kazeyuki’s mind started putting things together. Konstantin asking for Katherine’s records out of the blue and, a week later, Konstantin telling him that he would appreciate if Kazeyuki were to keep him updated.Regularly.
At that time, Kazeyuki had simply thought it was because Katherine’s case was of interest to Konstantin, being a neurosurgeon himself. But now?
Kazeyuki slowly shook his head. “Youanticipatedthis would happen. And yet instead of taking steps to stop it, you actually made sure of the opposite. Why?”
“I wasn’t making sure of anything.” Konstantin’s voice was calm but firm. “All I’m saying right now is that nothing’s happened that requires my involvement. Ms. McKenna has beenmypatient for the past eighteen months, not yours—”
“And so all the times that she consulted me?”
“I appreciate your assistance, but that’s all you’ve done. I’m her doctor, not you, and so no physician-patient relationship was ever violated. Whatever happens between you and Ms. McKenna is, as far as this hospital is concerned, a private matter between two unaffiliated individuals."
"It seems everything's going my way, then."
Kazeyuki’s tone was perfectly courteous, but Konstantin wasn’t fooled by it at all.
He rose from his desk, took his coffee with him, and joined Kazeyuki in the sitting area, lowering himself into the chair opposite. The leather creaked under his weight. Between them sat a low table with a glass surface, and on it a small wooden car that Stefano had left behind after his last visit to the office. Konstantin picked it up, turned it once between his fingers, and set it back down.
