Page 26

Ellie

Every time I turned around, someone was all over Dr. Clark or I heard his name from lips I shouldn’t in a manner that wasn’t professional. It was constant and I’d barely left my office after the blowup in the cafeteria Tommy instigated.

Staff discussing his dumplings and hoping he would gobble them up.

Gushing how he talked about his “mum” and was such a good son who respected women.

Rambling on and on that they couldn’t believe such a good catch with a sexy accent came to the hospital.

Wow, so glad that my hiring decisions could help in the eye candy department and up the stakes in the dating pool.

When I walked up on someone actually having the audacity to say they were short of breath and asking if he could give them some CPR, I barely held my anger together and changed directions.

Not only was that against everything I was killing myself to fix about the hospital, but I didn’t want to witness any of that.

Joyce came around to check on me and wanted to share some of the gossip that cooled me off. “Ha-joon was complaining about some nurses being over the line and asking for CPR. He asked me if it was too much if he reported that to HR.”

“Ha-joon, huh?” I grumbled as I looked over what was on my desk. I felt the side glance she gave me but she continued.

“I told him that if it was me, I would talk to their bosses first and suggest they have a conversation with their staff about being professional, especially since it was in front of patients and that makes us all look bad.”

“Good call.” I swallowed a snort. “Yeah, they can all privately ask for it during his afternoon dumpling time.”

“Wow, this is a surprise.”

“What?” I asked as I glanced up at her.

“Nothing,” she chuckled. “Nothing at all.” Still, she studied me as if she’d never seen me before. “How is everything else going?”

I sighed. Heavily. “I don’t hate everyone and everything today, so that’s improvement?”

“Your bar is set so fucking low it’s disturbing. Give me some happy to reset our moods and then let’s conquer the rest of the day.”

Wow, if Joyce was coming to cheer me up—I needed her to cheer me up and not the other way around, I was in a really bad place.

I told her about the blood drives rocking. People were still pushing for more in the hopes we could lower our prices and vamps could be taken better care of. It made sense because even if shifters were as strong or sometimes stronger than us, we were mostly EMS and military.

Their animals tried to come out in times of crisis and that made more problems than helped. So even if vamps could be pains, we were generally always on the front lines, and apparently this had shown that we didn’t get enough love for that.

“And you told them that wasn’t feasible right now, but you were planning a larger reserve of blood for the next disaster or crisis, so no matter the country, they could rely on ASH,” she said, clearly having been read in.

“Yes.”

“It was a smart move. I heard from my leadership even that it was a better plan because peace was always the goal with kicking the humans out. And we’ve done it. They still war and we haven’t had one, only small disputes that get handled pretty fast.”

“Good.” I let out a slow breath and felt settled in my decision even if I’d known it was the right move.

“I was thinking one bunker of emergency reserves for each of the four continent presidents in case of crisis. All from donation with our additives. Make it public that ASH is turning a corner and recommitting ourselves to helping people and advancing medicine.”

She was quiet a few moments. “I think it’s perfect.

Make each country pay for the bunker we also always have access to so we can check the stock.

Don’t ever let that control go. One of our people checks it monthly so no one is abusing it either.

It’s all from donations with our additive donated and the process.

But they handle the blood drives and we get the extra to sell. ”

“I love you so hard right now,” I whispered, blinking at my genius friend. “I don’t pay you enough.”

She chuckled. “You do.” She cleared her throat. “And I’ve always thought you were an amazing building owner.”

I swallowed loudly. “You knew.”

She nodded. “I saw something with the company logo on your desk. I thought it odd always how nice the property manager was to me and always jumped on anything with my condo fast. It made sense when I realized you warned them that I was your friend.”

I nodded. “That, and their orders are to always take the best care of our people because I need them for the hospital. We need allowances and help too.”

“You’re doing amazing, Ellie. I know this was humiliating, but I think it’s for the best. People are seeing you in a new light and paying attention for themselves instead of being assholes and jealous people.”

I snorted.

And she sighed. “Hastings is an asshole to you because he wants you , Ellie. Seriously, you do not understand how many fans you have and how many are assholes because you’ve turned them down. They’re not looking down on you. Their pride can’t recover being denied.”

I couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d told me the sky was going to be purple that night. Yes, Hastings had hinted he wanted some fun after he was hired… But that was it . It wasn’t a dinner date invitation or anything real.

And he was so offended years later from just that?

Wow, people really needed to get their shit together and stop being so petty.

Unfortunately for my annoyance, I kept seeing Dr. Clark with the absolutely stunning Dr. Carla Geer who was the head of dermatology. Every time I turned around, she was laughing with him and they were looking over things.

Why? Just… Why? They were completely different departments in different buildings even. Why were they always together the few times I left my damn office?

So I was less than friendly when she showed up to discuss the situation that had happened with her people.

She laughed about half an hour into the meeting. Full belly laughed and I had no idea what set her off. “Oh, darling, you are too adorable.”

“Do you have a death wish poking me right now with all I have going on?” I asked coldly.

She lost some of her mirth, but I saw it dancing in her eyes. “Jealousy is adorable on you. I stand by what I’m saying. I’ve never seen you be so cute and petulant and we’ve known each other a long, long time.”

We had. She was one of the few who knew a lot about me and I trusted her with it. Others who had helped build the hospital had moved on to other endeavors or to lead less stressful lives, but Carla had always been there like Alan and Sean.

But we weren’t really friends. Trusted allies, but… There was always a wall or something between us that kept us from ever being friends.

She curled up on the chair and put her head on her arms. “All that time with that fuckhead Fitz and all the people he slept with, flaunted in front of everyone, and you never cared. You’re not even with Ha-joon and you’re so jealous that you’re adorable.”

I frowned. “What does this have to do with Dr. Clark? We weren’t even talking about him.”

She gave me a look like I was kidding myself. It confused me, but I knew I was acting… Unlike myself. I wasn’t sure I’d call it jealousy or whatever.

She wasn’t wrong calling it that either. Probably.

“Don’t be jealous,” she teased me. “He’s not my type and has only been professional.

” She nodded when I gave her a look that I didn’t believe her.

“He’s been helping the mess in dermatology.

That’s what I was trying to tell you. I didn’t come to talk gossip about the cutie or—when have I ever done that? ”

Never. I sighed and accepted her laughing now. “Wait, how is he helping?”

“He did a fellowship and is taking any shifter patients—doing an amazing job with them even. So he’s been a huge help after booting those two assholes out. Some of their staff as well.” She shook her head, her amusement gone.

Yeah, we both felt that way. The fact I’d gotten the heads-up before four of the five dermatology practices had pulled that stunt was the only thing that saved us. I hadn’t even had a chance to warn Carla and I’d apologized for that.

She apologized that it was her department that gave me such trouble when she adored me and always would. I saw how true and genuine her upset was and felt bad for both of us.

The perk was getting two toxic senior attendings out of our hospital.

The problem was dermatology was now a mess since we didn’t have people to take the needed positions.

Except, Carla wanted to redo her department since this had happened.

She wanted to split the five practices into three.

I listened to her proposal that she’d been working on with the loyal doctor who hadn’t pulled shit on us.

Basically, they wanted more residents and to put ASH back on the map for training.

They were willing to change the bonus structure to do it or share cuts with those under them. Carla and the doctor agreed that the bonuses were great but part of the toxic culture and petty that had come about. They wanted to take more attention off of that and focus where it should be.

I pulled out a map and nodded. It could work.

Especially since it was one practice from each floor.

It would be some redesign and whatnot, but for the time being, they could move into the other empty spot.

Have the renovations done while we hired more residents and baby doctors and… Yeah, it would work well.

Of the two senior attendings left who had started trouble—one thought Carla was in on the move and would be dead meat if she didn’t do it as well. She was telling the truth. I wanted to be mad at her, but after hearing what she had going on in her personal life, I mostly forgave her.

The other one was still a problem but not enough to fire him.

For now. Especially when we were short-staffed now.