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“You’re good at your job and I’m fine with a professional friendship, but even if I wasn’t involved with Ha-joon, I have no desire to have an association with you outside of work. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but you are pushing the issue, and your comment last night that I haven’t been specific enough—I cannot be any more specific and firm than that.”

“No,” he whispered, blinking at me as if he’d never seen me before. “No, you cannot, but—I don’t understand. We have—it’s not that I’m an Alpha.”

“No, you’re the type of Alpha that I don’t want in my personal life, Gerald.” I sighed when I realized that wasn’t going to be enough. “Youneedto be Alpha. You want to be deferred to. That’s the judgment. You were disappointed with me that I sat with my friends yesterday instead of you. Ha-joon would be disappointed he didn’t get to sit with me.”

“That’s what—”

“That’s not what you felt, and if you are honest with yourself, you’ll see the difference.” I studied him, sad when I saw genuine confusion and sadness in his aura. “I’m an Alpha too. I can sense more than a normal vampire. I can tell. I’m also not a pup. Idon’t need guidance.” I let out a slow breath. “Ireallydon’t need the judgment.”

“I understand,” he muttered. He waited until I was almost to the elevator. “I’m sorry, Ellie. I really didn’t—I didn’t think…”

“I’m glad to hear it.” I decided to be nice since he’d really helped me and the hospital out a lot. “Talk to Renee. She can get you on a better path and to accept where you’re at. She’s working miracles with me after all.”

I was glad when he didn’t hurry after me and left it alone.

I did text Ha-joon and let him know that I had a calm conversation with Gerald and made it clear that what he said was the truth. My Alpha was very, very,veryhappy to hear that.

And then he made me ridiculously happy that night.

Several fucking times.

Shit, why had I been avoiding him again?

I was an idiot. No, not really but… Yeah, maybe that too.

Now that we’d had time resettling after the board had been kicked to the curb and with the department heads being the new board, the next few weeks we were focused on the future of ASH. We’d made a hospital-wide announcement that we were making appointments to listen to proposals and we were encouraging people to give them no matter their level.

And we meant it.

Every morning before most of the practices opened, we were gathered to listen to them with someone bringing in breakfast. There had already been a shocking one that everyone had dismissed because of who the appointment was with.

But I’d known he was a diligent worker, and if he had something to say, I would always listen. And I was right. An industrial mopping robot might not have been revolutionary, but when a man from the maintenance staff who wasn’t even a manager had charts and numbers crunched… I was fucking impressed.

Plus, he was right. The value was there and the right move. Our maintenance staff was stretched too thin and always responding to issues, so they never had time to handle their assigned cleaning responsibilities. We were always calling outside cleaning teams and that was way more expensive than having our own people.

But some of the presentations were also some duds.

Duds to the point that their department heads were embarrassed. One even acknowledged that he should have checked what it was first before wasting all of our time and would do better in the future.

That was worth the dud meeting. A chastising where I didn’t even have to open my damn mouth was my perfect type. Seriously, that was amazing and a live example of how people should step up and stop leaving so much for me to handle.

Especially when Alan, Sean, Renee,andCarla were all very involved in presentations from their departments. One Carla even rescheduled right in front of all of us saying it wasn’t ready yet and needed another week at least. She admitted that she didn’t think it would work with ASH, but that wasn’t her decision to make.

However, it was lazy in its current state, and if it was to be presented, she would let anyone in her department present shit.

Awesome. Really.

Alan had been in charge of the schedule and managing all of this while I’d been handling the fallout of the board being kicked to the curb. I appreciated it, but that was how I was surprised when Thursday morning Ha-joon walked in… And I’d had no idea.

It did explain why he hadn’t wanted to see me Wednesday night.

“Oh, so there wasn’t any pillow talk about this?” one of the department heads teased me.

Without even realizing I was going to, I launched the muffin in my hand at his head. I simply shrugged when he couldn’t hide his shock. “That was unnecessary and out of line. You know it was.”

“Especially when several people here are shocked and confused,” Ha-joon added. “So everyone here didn’t know.”

“You’re an ass,” I told the department head, glad when he held up his hands in surrender and apologized.