It’s Complicated (Her Billionaires #5)(68)
Author: Julia Kent

Sigh. “Yes.”

“Has he pursued you even as you try to blow him off?”

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t. But now I like him even more.”

“His grandfather is one of my Alzheimer’s trial patients.”

“No way! So did he know you when he saw you at the hospital at the birth?” Josie felt like someone had hit her between the eyes with a cannonball. Wait—what? Had Alex known who she was before?

“I never asked him that question,” she answered slowly. A dawning insight opened up before her. Alex had brought Ed to his appointment and had known damn well who Josie was—must have known, in fact—the day she brought Laura to the hospital for Jillian’s birth.

What did that mean?

“Maybe your hooking up wasn’t a simple coincidence.”

“I highly doubt he triggered your labor from afar, Laura,” Josie replied dryly.

Laura laughed. “No, not that. Just…maybe you two clicked because Alex already knew who you were and was interested.”

This was why she missed Laura so much. Putting all this together was beyond her ability these days. An extra perspective—no, Laura’s perspective—gave her a better grasp of the messy pieces of her emotional chaos.

“I’m meeting him for coffee in the morning, so I’ll ask him then.”

“You’re giving him a break?”

“I’m letting him buy me a latte.”

Laura snorted. “You let me buy you lattes and you don’t sleep with me.”

“You have more than enough bed partners, Laura.”

“Tell me about it. You try fitting four people in a bed.”

“Four? You have a new guy?”

The two laughed, Josie relaxing for the first time in weeks. It felt so good to talk and reconnect. And then—

Waaaa! “Baby’s up. Gotta go,” Laura said over the wailing. “Let’s talk soon!”

“Okay. I’ll—”

Click.

She worried the troll doll’s hair into Pippi Longstocking braids. So Alex may have remembered her from Ed’s appointments.

Hmmmm. Coffee tomorrow morning was suddenly more interesting.

Chapter Twelve

With a headache the size of a doctor’s ego, Alex’s day couldn’t have started off any worse. He’d come in to work at 5 a.m. to meet quickly with a small group of administrators and one lawyer. Funny how none of his fellow physicians were in the room. Medicine by litigation was a harsh reality these days. Every action had to be thought of in terms of a potential lawsuit.

By 6:15 the meeting was over and his headache had dissipated somewhat. So far, the baby in the case was doing fine, though still in the NICU. Being peppered with questions designed solely to test his professionalism and judgment hadn’t been pleasant. He had run through the details of the birth in his own mind a thousand times over the past few days, questioning and playing Monday-morning quarterback. It was a judgment call.

The lawyers had made sour faces when he’d said as much.

More meetings would come.

More headaches, too.

“You look nice today,” said a pinched voice. Alex was waiting for the elevator to take him downstairs, to catch a train and meet Josie at seven. The voice belonged to Lisa, who clutched a chart to her bosom and smiled.

“Thanks,” he said, distracted. The vise grip on his eye sockets didn’t help. He fidgeted with his tie, finally sliding it off. Wearing these stiff clothes—a starched oxford, dress slacks, grown-up shoes, and the tie–didn’t help his headache. Anything other than casual clothes and scrubs made him feel like a phony.

“How’s the case going?” she asked, moving closer, speaking in a conspirator’s whisper. “I heard someone higher up has a bug up their ass about you.”

“What?” He’d carefully shielded himself from office politics like this. The gleam in her eye was precisely why. Some people viewed this kind of social volleying as a game. Alex didn’t play games.

Other than the games that involved chasing Josie in her panties…

“Rumor has it you were distracted. Didn’t read the strip properly.” Of course he had! The contractions were—oh, he’d gone over this in the endless loop in his mind.

“Rumor is wrong,” he spat just as the doors opened. She followed him on, pushing a button for the second floor.

“It must suck to have your professional judgment questioned.”

“You think?” Keeping the acid tone out of his voice just wasn’t happening. Her eyes widened; he could see her expression, a silver blur, in the brushed stainless steel doors.

“Maybe you’re just…busy.” His toes nearly curled inside his shoes with the implications dripping from that word.

He snorted. “Which residents here aren’t busy?”

“You have a new kind of busy in your life, Alex.”

“Lisa, spit it out. I don’t have time or energy for this kind of passive-aggressive bullshit.” Angry and frustrated, he let himself vent, turning her into an easy target. She didn’t make it hard, but it wasn’t fair to her. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he regretted them.

And yet it was the truth.

“You were…busy that night in the on-call room, Alex. One of the other shift nurses saw you in there with that Josie woman.”

Lisa had him there. The birth had happened later that shift, shortly after Laura’s baby had come.

“If three different attendings, two lawyers, and eight thousand hospital administrators can pore over those files and say I did everything correctly, Lisa, I’m not too worried about the titters of one shift nurse who claimed to see me taking a break in an on-call room,” he snapped back, regret gone—poof!—replaced by outrage.

A wily smile graced her lips as the doors opened and she walked out. He jabbed the “Close” button and nearly punched the wall as the elevator made its way to ground level.

What the hell was wrong with him? Disappointment and humiliation poured over him like an acid bath. Years of striving to be the laid-back, low-key doctor who loved births and enjoyed supporting new lives as they emerged into the world could come to a painful reconsideration if this didn’t go well.

And most of all, a baby lay in the NICU. Balancing a low-intervention approach and a mother’s need for as positive a birth experience as possible with a healthy outcome for mother and baby was hard. Incredibly hard. His approach had to be grounded in science – evidence-based research – and the average person would be surprised to learn how achingly difficult that could be in a hospital setting where fear of lawsuits dictated too many medical decisions. Fortunately, there should be no long-term complications, but the breathing problems were serious enough to warrant further observation. Could he track the specific issues back to some choice he’d made during the birth? No. And neither could the lawyers.