“Anyway.” Carla bounces back. “Speaking of tall, dark, and brooding, your bodyguard is already in your office.”
My head comes up.
“Is Ridge here already?”
Crap!
“Mmm-hmm. He got here just before you. I thought that the two of you might have come in together.”
“No way. Why would you think that?”
“Because he’s your bodyguard and all that.” She looks at me for a moment through narrowed eyes. “Anyway, he’s set up at his table.” She leans in across the desk and drops her voice to a stage whisper. “He is even broodier today. Is that a word? Broodier. I swear he has a perpetual scowl, which is sooooooo sexy. I don’t think I’ve seen him smile, but I’m sure that would be something to behold.”
I snap before I can stop myself. “Enough now! Could you please be a little more professional in the workplace?”
“Wow. Okay. Sorry, Robyn.”
I turn on my heel and walk in the opposite direction of my office, toward the wing that holds the consultation rooms. I hear her chair scrape behind me.
Damn, I think she’s following me. I pick up the pace.
“Robyn. Hey. Hold up a second. Where are you going?”
“I have things I need to do.”
“You said you had a stack of admin a mile high.”
“I’m going to see a patient first.”
“Which patient?”
“Onyx.”
She frowns. “Why can’t you go and put your bag and your coffee down in your office first, like you always do? If I didn’t know better, I would think that you were running away from something…or someone.”
I snort. “That’s not it at all. It…it’s because…” I keep walking. “Because I want to check on my patient first. He’s doing well, but there’s always a risk of something going wrong.”
That sounds thin, even to my own ears.
She stops walking. I can feel her stop walking. I keep going for two more steps, and then I stop too, because I can also feel her staring at the back of my head.
I turn around.
She has her hands clasped in front of her and her head cocked to one side. It’s her tell. She is about to call me out on something.
“There are staff keeping a close eye on Onyx, who is much better. People you trust. There’s something up. What is going on with you?”
“Nothing is going on.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t give me your head-of-department voice. This is me. Something is off, and it has been off since the very second Ridge walked into this hospital. I’ve been telling myself it was my imagination, or that you’re stressed. But it’snot. There is a vibe between the two of you, and I cannot put my finger on what it is.”
I make a face. “There is no vibe.”
“There is a vibe.” She nods.
“There isn’t.”
“He made every single person in this department call him by his first name. Do you know who he didn’t tell to call him by his first name? You. He still calls you Dr. Keller. Why is that, Robyn?”
