Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I was trying to fly under the radar—pass through the foundation program without drawing attention to myself. Sleeping with a consultant wasn’t going to help my cause. Hospitals were cauldrons of gossip and speculation. I wanted to keep my head down and focus.
Shit, I hope he hadn’t told anyone. He didn’t seem to be a man who bragged, but who the hell pretended to be someone else for an entire evening? Shock started to give way to anger. Who the hell did he think he was, tricking someone into bed with him? Not that he actually tricked me. Or at all. It was just if I’d known who he was—why hadn’t he told me? I slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand. He hadn’t had the chance to tell me anything about his job. I’d banned him from saying anything at all—not without the forfeit of a shot of tequila.
I quickly typed Parker a message asking her why I’d had dinner with a man called Jacob Cove when she’d told me my date was meant to be some guy called Beau. Presumably Beau had been the doctor going abroad next week. Rather than Jacob who was very much, and very inconveniently, right in front of me.
And then it dawned on me: The five doctors who had just filed into the lecture theatre were the consultants responsible for our rotations in their departments.
Jacob was going to be my boss.
My boss who’d seen me very drunk. Very naked. And very loudly screaming his brother’s name as he made me come.
Seven
Jacob
I always told myself that, despite disagreements with my brothers, I loved them all and always would. I always knew we’d withstand the general banter that cut a little close to the bone and occasional serious arguments that so far had only once turned physical with Nathan over a naan bread.
But not anymore.
Beau fucking Cove was dead to me.
I pushed my hand over my head. What the actual fuck was happening right now? Flashes of Saturday night swept through my brain. Her scent—that fucking scent she had that was impossible to place but was feminine and sexy and had driven me wild all evening as we sat next to each other in the restaurant. Her legs as they smoothed against mine, her lips, shiny wet from my kisses. Her hair and the way I used it to anchor her head so I could watch her as she came.
Fuck.
Beau’s annoying face flashed up on my phone—a response to the message I’d just sent him asking him why the fuck the woman I’d taken to dinner on Saturday night was staring back at me as one of the new doctors starting the foundation program at my hospital. I cancelled the call, wondering about the likelihood of dying of a stress-induced heart attack at thirty-six. My phone lit up again.
I dipped into a supplies cupboard and answered it. “I can’t believe you would do this to me. You know what Dad always says about keeping our private lives private, and it’s like my only rule. I’ve never broken it despite the countless times I might have been tempted.”
“Jacob,” Beau said, trying to interrupt me, but I wasn’t about to let him.
“You could have just told whoever your friend is that you couldn’t make it. You could have just been fucking honest. No, you have to put my integrity on the line. You have to put yourself and your fucking feelings first because no one else fucking matters, do they?”
“Jacob?” Beau said again.
“Well that’s it. I’m never doing anything again for you. If you’re set on fire, don’t expect me to piss on you.” I felt better for getting it all out.
“I didn’t know she was starting at the Royal Free. I promise you.”
“But I bet you didn’t ask either.” Beau never thought about the consequences of anything he did. “I’m sick of your baby brother bullshit. She’s now in a compromised position and so am I.” I didn’t tell him how I’d been positioning myself for the past two years to take over the running of the foundation doctors program from Wanda. Everyone knew it was a test to see if you were leadership material. Everyone who did a good job running that program—and frankly some who only did a mediocre job—ended up heading up departments at this hospital and others in London. Beau thought he’d just made a silly mistake when in reality, it had potentially career-threatening consequences. I couldn’t be fucking a doctor on the program when I was trying to take over running the program.
“I’m taking it from your complete overreaction that the night didn’t end at dinner. It’s not my fault if you couldn’t keep your meat and two veg in your jeans for the night.”
“Excuse me, I didn’t realize I needed to check in with you before I slept with someone. If I’d thought for a minute that she was working at the Free, there’s no way I would have touched her.”