Page 17 of Careless Whisper (Modern Vintage Romances #11)

Reggie

S o, it was terrible when Elias became head of the department—like really bad—but that was a walk in the park compared to what Dr. Maren Loring’s entry into Harper Memorial meant for me.

“What’s her damage?” Luther wanted to know.

I didn’t know where to start.

In the eight weeks since she’d joined the department, Maren had accidentally left my name off the rotation schedule twice, then blamed admin software when I asked about it.

She pulled me from two surgeries mid-prep because she had a bad feeling about my readiness.

Then there was the time that she told a resident, loud enough for me and everyone else at the nurse’s station to hear, that “ Nurse Sanchez lacks the clinical judgment required for a Level I center .”

She’d reassigned a medical error that wasn’t mine and had already been documented as hers—until I pulled the chart to prove it.

Cindy hadn’t been happy with Dr. Loring about that, but she’d also told me to keep my nose clean, especially when Maren cut me off in rounds every time I opened my mouth and then complained I wasn’t contributing.

And last week? Well, that was a doozy! She told a patient’s family member that I was “ in training ”, as if I hadn’t been doing this for a decade.

“What’s it with you and everyone from Stratford?” Cindy had growled when she was known to be the calmest person I knew. “They’re out for your blood. Dr. Graham has calmed down, and now we have the Dr. Loring show.”

“Imaging how I feel!” I told her, feeling very worn out.

“I tried to talk to Dr. Graham about it,” Cindy told me sympathetically. “He said he’s had a chat with Dr. Loring and?—.”

“I know,” I cut her off. I didn’t need to hear about how Elias was throwing me under the bus, again .

“I am so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” What the hell else was there to say? If an attending wanted to make your life hell, your life would be hell!

“I really thought I was doing you a favor.” Cindy shook her head in despair. She’d assigned me to Dr. Loring four weeks ago, which was when the shitshow began.

It made sense on paper. The cardiac rotation was short-staffed (as always), and Maren’s research trial came with a flurry of complex procedures that needed a nurse with experience.

I ticked the boxes, and I was the best option.

So, Cindy asked me to work with Dr. I Am The Biggest Bitch , and I agreed, even though my stomach turned every time I saw Maren’s name on the schedule and knew what she was capable of.

I’d worked on a clinical trial for her in Boston and it had been the beginning of the end.

But I foolishly thought that since Elias seemed to have grown some gray cells, maybe Maren had as well.

Oh no! Dr. Maren Loring had not graduated from Mean Girl School.

She corrected my charting in front of junior staff, asked pointed questions about supply errors that didn’t exist, and more than once told me to “stay in my lane” when I suggested an alternate chest tube position for a patient whose anatomy had been challenging to navigate.

And every time, I kept my mouth shut because I remembered Boston—I remembered what happened the last time I defended myself against Maren Loring.

But four weeks on, even Cindy was getting exhausted from the drama.

She pulled me aside once after a long valve replacement and said, “This isn’t sustainable. Two attendings. One nurse. I can’t referee both sides.”

I understood, and I told her I’d handle it even though I had no clue how to, especially when an order hadn’t been entered correctly because one of the post- op residents forgot to confirm the transfusion note in the chart. I noticed it mid-case, called it out, and resolved it. The patient was fine.

But Maren went nuclear .

She waited until the room cleared out. “You almost cost us a transfusion window, Sanchez. If you can’t stay on top of orders, you shouldn’t be in cardiac surgery.”

I stared at her, not sure why she was making this my problem.

Go after the resident who fucked up, lady .

“It wasn’t my order. It was still pending from?—”

She cut me off. “So, you’re blaming someone else for your oversight?”

And there it was. The familiar script. The trap. I’d seen it before.

“I caught it,” I said, keeping my voice level. “I fixed it.”

She smiled maliciously. “And you want a pat on the back for that?”

The next day, I was called into Cindy’s office.

“There’s been a complaint filed, officially ,” she said, not meeting my eyes.

I already knew.

“By Dr. Loring,” she added.

I nodded.

“She claims you missed a transfusion prep window that put the patient at risk. The resident backed her version.”

Of course, he did. He was the one who fucked up, and it was so nice of Dr. Loring to offer my head for the chopping block.

Cindy looked tired. “I’m logging it as a formal report. I have no choice.”

“You know that wasn’t my fault. Don’t you?”

Cindy nodded. “I do. But…I don’t know what to do, Reggie.”

You and me both, sister!

If I thought Elias would be any help, which I didn’t, I’d have been wrong, so I avoided that disappointment, at least.

Always looking for the silver lining, aren’t you, Reggie?

“I heard,” Elias said when he accosted me as I stepped out of an on-call room.

I was starting to lose weight. The stress of working for Maren was killing my appetite to the point that Luther was getting worried.

“Huh?” I gave him a blank look. I didn’t have the energy to deal with Dr. Elias Graham, not when his fiancée had put me on back-to-back shifts from hell. It was either kick me out of rotation or kill me on it.

“I just think,” he continued, “you could try to be more careful. Maren’s part of a clinical trial, and there’s a lot of visibility. Any small error will make all of us look bad.”

“I know, Dr. Graham,” I replied wearily, my eyes downcast.

He frowned. “Are you feeling okay? ”

I nodded. “Yes, Dr. Graham.”

“Damn it, Gigi. You need to protect yourself.”

I glanced at his angry face. “Why?”

“What?”

“Why do I have to protect myself? Why can’t we work in an environment where that isn’t necessary? Why is an attending being allowed to bully me?”

Elias rolled his eyes. “Stop being dramatic. No one is bullying you. We’re all under pressure because of these trials, and we’ve applied for private funding, which we won’t get if we fuck up.”

He meant, if I fuck up, didn’t he?

I shook my head. There was no point. Just yesterday, I had looked up flights to San Miguel de Allende.

“Yes, Dr. Graham,” I said emotionlessly. “Is there anything else?”

He opened his mouth, closed it, and then, after giving me a disgusted look, left.

That night, Luther insisted on driving me home because I was in no shape to drive myself. In his truck, he gave me a hoodie because I was shivering. It was eighty-two degrees outside, and I was shaking.

“The way you’re working and not eating, you’re a prime candidate for a nasty infection,” Luther muttered. “You’re not okay.”

He ordered Thai, and I ate some tom yum soup but couldn’t stomach the pad Thai. Luther was right; I was not okay. I knew what this was. I stopped eating when I was depressed—which brought anxiety along for the party and left me feeling like I was right now—blank.

The opposite of depression was not happiness but engagement with the world and yourself. I was living in a dark cloud and feeling helpless.

“You want to tell me why Maren Loring is after you?”

I sat on my couch, hugging a cushion to me. I was still in scrubs and Luther’s hoodie. One of the best ways to deal with depression was to talk about what was pulling you down—I knew that from my psych rotation.

So, I told him everything about what happened in Boston.

The patient’s death. The lie. Maren’s threat.

Elias’s betrayal. How I stood in front of a review board, stripped of my confidence, and watched the man I loved say nothing while I drowned.

I told him how I begged for my job and left with nothing but shame and how I built myself back, brick by brick, in Seattle.

And how, now, it was all happening again, and I was…

“I’m so tired, Luther,” I whispered. “I’ve worked so hard to stay on top of being a good nurse, being professional. And it’s never enough. I always have to prove myself twice over, and one whisper from someone like Maren undoes everything.”

He wrapped an arm around me, and I let myself cry for the first time in months. Ugly, gasping, hot tears that I couldn’t stop once they started .

After my crying jag, Luther made me chamomile tea.

“You need to take some time off,” he advised. “You can’t keep going back to the same place that’s doing this to you.”

“I’m not going to run,” I protested. “I’m not weak.”

But I felt so fucking weak. I used to love my job, and now I hated going to work, hated the anxiety that was slowly giving me an ulcer, the heart palpitations that came when I thought about what was in store for me.

“How have I allowed Maren to do this to me? I should be stronger than this,” I lamented.

Luther kissed my forehead. “Why do we have to be stronger than cruel people? Why can’t people do better? I hate that the onus is on the victim of bullying to fight it, not on the bully to become a better person.”

“The onus is on the…survivor”—I was no one’s victim—“of bullying because it’s the survivor who is suffering, not the bully.”

Luther was about to reply when my phone rang. It was the concierge.

“Hi, Quinn,” I said wearily.

“There’s a Dr. Elias Graham here for you.”

I looked at Luther in confusion. “It’s Elias,” I whispered.

Luther took the phone from me. “Hey, it’s Luther.” Quinn knew who he was as he came here often with his partner Giovanni. “Send him up. ”

“What the fuck?”

He put the phone down and looked at me. “I’ll deal with him.”

I sniffled. I really wanted to hide under the covers but I didn’t want to be that person, the one who was afraid.

I shook my head. “No, I will.”

Luther eyed me carefully and then slowly gave a nod of approval.

The doorbell rang, and I rose slowly. I wiped my face with my hands and walked to the door.

“Hey.” Elias looked at me with stricken eyes. “Are you crying?”

“ Was crying,” I corrected him. “Why are you here?”

He was in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, freshly showered. His hair was still wet.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked softly.

I didn’t let him in. “Why?”

“Dr. Graham,” Luther spoke from behind me. I turned to see him, and he was standing with his arms crossed, like a sentinel protecting me.

“Luther.”

“An attending is bullying one of your nurses, and you do nothing about it?” Luther demanded.

I gave the slightest shake of my head, hating that Luther felt he had to defend me because I couldn’t do it myself. I was so embarrassed.

“Luther, I want to talk to Reggie. ”

“Then talk. I’m just here as a witness, in case you want to fuck her over again .”

Elias gave me an accusatory look.

“Oh, please, your fiancée is telling stories about Boston to anyone who’ll hear them, and you’re annoyed with me for telling my closest friend?” The nerve of the man.

“Maren is not my fiancée, and she hasn’t told anyone about?—”

“Yes, she has,” Luther interrupted him. “Told five nurses yesterday in the cafeteria about how Nurse Sanchez’s negligence killed a patient and got her fired. She even shed a tear for the patient, saying she blamed herself because she trusted Reggie.”

My breath caught in my throat. Now, the strange looks everyone was giving me made sense. They knew what happened and… God !

“If she has, I will have a conversation with her,” Elias replied sternly.

“ If ?” I let out a sharp laugh and leaned back into Luther.

“Did you hear that, Luther? If she has. He still thinks she’s innocent in all this.

” My tone dropped to a snarl. “Listen here, Elias Graham, and listen well. Your fiancée screwed up in Boston, not me. I told her to check on the patient—she didn’t.

She told me to stay in my lane. Which, by the way, is something she says to nurses a lot. ”

“Said it to Nina yesterday,” Luther confirmed.

“She’s arrogant and spoiled and, thanks to people like you, has skated free of blame every time she screws up,” I continued.

“Don’t make accusations you can’t substantiate,” Elias barked.

“You didn’t support me then, and you aren’t supporting me now,” I screamed at him, feeling hysteria claw at my insides.

“I was trying to?—”

“Do what?” I snapped, my voice hoarse with unshed tears and pain. “You didn’t protect me. You didn’t trust me. You still don’t.”

He looked down like he couldn’t bear the truth of it.

“I’m tired of having to prove myself to people who should already know who I am.” I put a hand on the doorknob. “You say you care about me? Then act like it.”

“I do,” he beseeched.

“Not enough,” I whispered and slammed the door in his face.

Then, I turned into Luther’s arms and cried some more.