Page 30 of Intense

And I hate it.

I hated it the first time I ever laid eyes on him, back in our final years of residency. He breezed in from Dublin with that delicious accent and flawless record and took everything I’d been working toward without even breaking a sweat.

My fists clench just thinking about it.

The years I’d sacrificed and the horrors I had endured to get to the top of my field—gone. Erased when this asshole decided America needed to be the next place he conquered.

And I was stupid enough to think I could take him down. And I tried, in the worst possible way, to do so, and he still remains victorious.

His eyes scan the room. We all remain still, like we’re the ones about to be interrogated, like none of us dare to even breathe too loud in his presence.

Fuck that.

I stand, plastering on a smile so false it feels like it’s going to crack my face.

“Dr. Quinn. What a pleasure to have you join us for lunch.”

His jaw twitches, the corner of his mouth curling into that contemptuous little smirk.

“Is it?”

He steps toward me, and my heart pounds, hating itself for noticing the way he moves. The way he carries that lethal confidence.

I wish he wasn’t so damn handsome. I wish he were balding and puffy and middle-aged so I could hate him without this dull, traitorous ache in my chest.

But no, he has the brains and the looks.

The perfectly black, swept-back hair. The chiseled jaw, the white teeth. Tattoos crawling up the side of his throat, even around his ears, like vines choking out anything soft that might have lived in him once.

Again, no one else could get away with that as a surgeon.

Yet here he is.

His rules. His kingdom.

“Yes. Would you like a coffee?”

A smirk dances on his lips, and then he squints, closing the distance between us until I can feel the heat coming off him.

“Why are you being nice to me, Dr. Miller?” he says in that low, mocking tone, pitched for me alone.

“I was planning on spitting in it,” I whisper.

“I’d poison yours.”

The threat slides between us like something intimate.

“I could get you fired for threatening me,” I hiss.

I look up into those glacial eyes, and I swear I stop fucking breathing. He knows exactly how to get under my skin. And he simply doesn’t care.

“If you’d like to lodge a complaint, email me and I’ll do my best to rectify the situation. Although, the wait time is up to three years. And hopefully, you would have found new employment by then.”

He rolls up his sleeve and checks his watch, as if I’m nothing more than an inconvenience wedged into his schedule.

“How’s your brother?” I ask, biting back a grin I know will infuriate him.

I bet he hates that he had to call me to save Conan’s life. The best heart surgeon in the state didn’t have the balls to operate on his own brother. But I saw his pain. The one time I’ve seen Finn vulnerable. And I didn’t like it. So I don’t tend to bring this moment up unless he pushes me to.