“It becomes your business when she's living in your house. She's taking care of your sister. You look like someone punched you every time she leaves a room."
I looked back down at the schedule and pretended to read the fine print.
“I'm perfectly fine,” I insisted.
“You’re not fine, and neither is she.” He stood up and grabbed his coffee. “Three days in Boston. A hotel. Evening events. Perhaps, something will finally happen between you two.”
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” He headed for the door but stopped at the threshold. “By the way, August is attending the conference too. I thought you should probably know that.”
He disappeared into the hallway before I could formulate a response. I sat there in the silence, staring blankly at the schedule.
August. Of course that man would be there. He was probably planning to corner Mireya again. He would push his offer and remind her that she had options better than staying here with me.
I grabbed my phone, my thumb hovering over her name. I almost texted her to ask if she had made a final decision about the job.
I set the device down.
Not my business. Not my place.
The Annual Medical Conference arrived in the blink of an eye and the flight to Boston passed without any major issues. I sat in the first-class cabin and worked on my laptop the entire time, ignoring the flight attendants who tried to offer me drinks and snacks.
Mireya was sitting somewhere back in the economy section. I had spotted her briefly in the airport terminal. And I maintained my distance, just as I had been doing for the past month.
The hotel was a renovated historic building downtown—dark wood paneling, brass fixtures, thick carpets muffling footsteps. The lobby swarmed with conference attendees wearing name tags and blue lanyards, clustering around registration desks.
I stood in line behind a family arguing about room keys.
Then I saw her across the lobby.
Mireya stood at the far end of the long check-in desk. She was wearing a pair of dark jeans and a soft gray sweater. Her hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail. She had her leather bag slung over her shoulder while she talked to the clerk.
My pulse spiked just from the sight of her.
It was ridiculous. She was merely standing there, existing in the same space as me. Yet, my body reacted as if I had just finished a five-mile run.
A clerk called me forward to an available station. I gave my name and started the standard check-in process.
“Dr. Cross,” the clerk said, his fingers typing efficiently on the keyboard. “A reservation for three nights?”
“That’s correct.”
“We have you assigned to a king room on the fourteenth floor.”
“That will be fine.”
I noticed movement to my left. Mireya finished her transaction and started to walk away from the counter. Then she stopped abruptly. She turned around and walked back to the desk.
“Excuse me,” she said to her clerk. “I think there’s a problem with my reservation.”
The clerk frowned and typed something into the computer. He looked at the screen and frowned even harder.
“I'm showing a booking for a Mireya Rosen, but it appears it was never confirmed by the agency.”
“What do you mean it wasn't confirmed?”
“The hospital administration placed the reservation, but there was a system error, and somehow it was cancelled… Oh, my...” The clerk looked at us apologetically. “I'm incredibly sorry, but we simply don’t have any more vacant rooms available for you.”
