Page 51 of Late Harvest

“Then support me when I do this, Guinn.”

A pause and then a sigh from the phone. “All right, man. I’ve got your back. Like always.”

Sebastian exhaled a long sigh, rubbing his eyes. “Thanks, brother. I know you do. Listen, as long as I have you both, we need to get some security for around here. We’re living in a neighborhood, and I don’t trust the paps.”

“Not to mention stalkerish women pissed that their dream guy is off the market. At least for a while,” Melody added.

The blood in Remy’s veins froze. Stalkers? A familiar frisson of fear lanced down her spine, and she couldn’t help the physical shiver that followed it.

Sebastian, missing nothing, narrowed his eyes in concern. ‘Don’t worry,’ he mouthed again.

Don’t worry? Don’t worry?? Crazy—possibly violent—stalkers? One more aspect of this she naively hadn’t considered.

She cradled Chicane, his erratic breathing now back to normal. She wished hers was.

Twenty million for St. D’s. Eyes on the prize, Remy. He won’t let anything happen to you.

Her gaze traveled automatically to the photo on her mantle.

But what if something happened to him?

Chapter Twenty-One

Growth happens outside of your fucking comfort zone…squirm, bitch.

—From Remy’s Badass Bitch Affirmations

Remy

“You asked to see me?” Remy stood in Brinder’s open doorway, stifling a small yawn.

She’d just finished her four morning cases and it was time for a late lunch break. Mondays were long OR days for her, but she loved the cadence of the routine. Normally, she never experienced anything close to exhaustion until the evening, when she finally came home to relax and unwind with Chicane.

Today, however, she’d struggled to focus. She’d swallowed more yawns than she had since her early residency when her body was still adjusting to the brutal schedule.

Her struggles were just a frustrating continuation of what she’d dealt with since Sebastian walked out her door yesterday, sauntering to his car with a carefree wave to freaking Jerome the Pap.

Sebastian had left her home—ugh, their home—around three with promises to text her and keep in touch on the plans he was putting in place. Since then, Remy had barely functioned. She’d opened the latest digital issue of a medical periodical, but after reading the same line four times, she gave up and slammed her laptop closed. She’d tried to watch the Netflix series about supernatural events and government conspiracies set in the eighties everyone had raved about, but her mind kept wandering. She’d thought about going to the gym to swim a mile or ten, but worries of paps following her put an end to that. She’d finally given up and gone to bed at eight-thirty.

Images of Sebastian Wheatley, future husband and thief of sleep, had flickered through her mind like a 1980s film strip. She’d finally dropped into a fitful sleep around one in the morning. When her alarm chimed a few hours later, Remy did something she’d never done before. She hit snooze.

Four times.

With no time to get her customary laps in, Remy had downed her black Americano from the kiosk in the hospital lobby and jumped into surgery. When she’d finished the last case of the morning, her circulating nurse had informed Remy that Brinder wanted to see her in his office at her first opportunity.

“Remy?” Brinder’s faded but still-posh British voice cut through the wanderings of her strained, weary mind.

She shook her head quickly, bringing her gaze to her boss’s concerned one. “Sorry.” She smiled self-consciously, pushing down a surge of ire at Sebastian Wheatley’s intrusion on her well-ordered life. “Bonkers day yesterday and then I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Come in, have a seat.” Brinder stood and motioned to the couch in his office. Remy knew it was a pullout. All the execs had them in case of bad weather. It was safer and easier when they could catch some winks while staying at the hospital, sometimes for days on end. But it was still the most comfortable sofa bed she’d ever sat on. Brinder had a freakish gift for acquiring sumptuous upholstered furniture.

As Remy stepped forward and sank into the couch—willing herself not to yawn in her boss’s face—Amani whisked efficiently behind her and closed the door with a quiet snick.

Brinder relaxed into the chair next to where she sat. His eyes flitted across her face. “You look like death warmed up,” he observed, not unkindly—but accurately.

Remy had a mirror. She knew what she looked like this morning, and it certainly wasn’t paparazzi-ready. “So do you, Dr. Desiiigh. But that’s every day, now that little Jude has joined the party,” she deflected with a smirk.

“Touché,” Brinder chuckled, but then it faded all too quickly and he shifted into boss mode.