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“It’s not my place,” he agreed, letting out a slow breath and meeting my gaze. “But I love that woman like a younger sister, and I won’t stand by to watch another man emotionally abuse her so she thinks he’s good enough for her. I won’t. Not again. This time, I’ll just slit your throat and dump you somewhere, so never forget that.”

And then my boss walked off as if he hadn’t just threatened my life and gone so far over the line it was ridiculous.

Then again, I had no intention of hurting Ellie and I was nothing like Fitz, so… There really wasn’t any concern. Still, it was shocking that calm and reserved Dr. James had just behaved that way.

What a strange, strange day.

And even stranger place?

Rain hitting my cheek snapped me out of my thoughts… And gave me an idea. Rain hadn’t been in the forecast, and now I understood part of Dr. James’s attitude as he looked up.

Even more than that, I was from the UK. We were always prepared for our frequent rains even if they were light or we had mostly moderate weather. The rain always,alwayscame at the most inopportune time, so I’d learned always to be prepared.

Hell, Mum had smacked it into us to never leave home without an umbrella.

And I knew a certain woman who liked to walk across the campus of the hospital to the parking garage to get some air instead of going through the building. She enjoyed the night that way because she always worked too late.

Meaning it was an opportunity for me.

I had to wait about twenty minutes, but Ellie came out of the administration building like normal and ready to walk across the parking lot only to slow down when she saw the rain. She sighed and glanced up as if asking if someone was testing her patience.

I moved up next to her and opened my large umbrella. “You’re parked a few spots down from me.”

She let out a soft gasp, letting me know that she hadn’t seen me and I’d startled her.

I didn’t give her a chance to come up with an excuse or get away from me, moving my other hand to her lower back. “Let’s go.”

I bit back a smile when she followed my lead, but then a couple minutes into our walk snapped out of it and realized what had just happened. She cleared her throat and went to move away so my hand wasn’t on her.

But my reflexes were faster.

I slid my hand to her hip instead and pulled her closer as I leaned in. “You’re getting wet, Ms. Reed. You don’t want to get all wet here, right?”

The look of retribution she shot me was delicious and I wanted her to retaliate, smack me even. To my utter disappointment, she didn’t, simply pushed my hand off of her hip.

She cleared her throat and focused straight ahead. “I like the color palette for your offices. Your mother did a great job getting it completely refreshed so fast. The maintenance staff said shewas the best general they’ve ever had for that normally annoying task.”

Part of me wanted to pout that she’d brought up my mum so I couldn’t flirt, but I did like how much she and my mum were getting along. My mum was important to me after all. “I totally forgot with the accident and jumping into surgeries when I’m rusty.”

“And your new cheetah friend,” she mumbled, shooting me a side glance.

I loved that she was jealous even if she didn’t realize it. “We both know exactly what that was.”

“Yes, I heard all about how impressive you were from that nurse as she gushed about you to other staff,” she said with a fake sweet tone.

We’d reached the parking garage by then and I stopped to shake out the umbrella… But she kept walking towards the elevator.

I caught up to her just as the elevator opened. We rode it up in silence and then I escorted her to her vehicle even if I’d walked past mine to do so. “I’ll see you at home.”

She turned to probably blast me, but I was already walking back towards my car… With a smile on my face. I had hope again. She might not be ready to be with someone or open to it, but she was just as affected by me as I was by her.

That gave me hope.

11

Ellie

Technically, I had weekends off. Yeah, like I didn’t have to work past five but always did. I did try to religiously take Sundays off to really rest and recharge. But people weren’t surprised to see me at the hospital on Saturday or that I even had meetings scheduled.