Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 19358 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 97(@200wpm)___ 77(@250wpm)___ 65(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19358 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 97(@200wpm)___ 77(@250wpm)___ 65(@300wpm)
I felt the burn of his stare on my back as I left the room.
As soon as I was out of sight, I closed my eyes and blew out my breath, wondering why the fuck my heart was racing and my skin was tingling.
You would think I had a thing for egotistical assholes.
2
XAVIER
I’d been out of line. There was no doubt about it.
But Honovi Baptiste was a gorgeous man—slender and olive-skinned with sleek, black hair pulled back into a low bun. This late in the day, a few rogue wisps had worked their way free and caught the evening sun as it streamed through the conference room window.
In our previous meeting, I’d had a chance to see the put-together hospital attorney lose his cool. And when he’d gotten angry, the apples of his cheeks had turned a delicious ruddy pink.
I’d simply wanted to see if I could make it happen again.
Wanting Honovi was out of line, too. I’d only been back in Hobie for a few months, only been working here at the hospital for the same. The last thing I needed to do was fuck up my fresh start by sleeping with the attorney defending us all from an entitled patient.
As I made my way back to the surgical wing, one of my favorite post-op nurses lifted her eyebrows. “Why are you still here? I thought you left hours ago.”
I tilted my head back toward the admin hall, where the conference room was. “Meeting with an attorney about the Loflin case.”
“Again? I thought you already met with them. Multiple times.” Bobbie’s forehead scrunched. “What’s complex about an appendectomy?”
I didn’t bother explaining it. The truth was, I wasn’t supposed to discuss the case with people without an attorney present anyway. “You know how legal stuff is,” I said instead. “I’m headed home in a bit. Just wanted to check our post-op patients’ charts, now that I’m done being interrogated by Mr. Baptiste.”
Her eyebrows furrowed as she followed me to the nurses’ station, where I took a seat at one of the computers to log in and review the charts. “Oh, Hon was the attorney you met with?”
“Yes, why?”
She shrugged. “It’s just weird. He specializes in family law. The hospital’s legal team is based in Dallas.”
I looked up at her while the information sank in. The hospital and I were being sued for millions, and they’d farmed the case out to a divorce and custody attorney?
She continued without needing a response from me. “Well, I guess no one can complain about having to spend time with Hon,” she said, a dreamy look coming over her face. “He’s so sweet. And good-looking. My sister has a huge crush on the guy after he helped her with her custody case. I keep trying to tell her he’s gay, but she still thinks she has a shot.”
The news that the angry attorney was gay was unexpected. He’d been so damned generic, so neutral in our meetings thus far, that I hadn’t been able to discern a single thing about him. But maybe that was because he was out of his depth. Surely a small-town family attorney didn’t have the slightest idea of how to handle a large medical malpractice suit.
As Bobbie continued sharing her thoughts about how attractive the man was, I couldn’t help the coil of heat in my gut. I wouldn’t mind taking my frustration over this case out on the pretty lawyer’s naked body.
Unfortunately for me, my parents were still hanging on to hopes that I’d reconnect with West Wilde, the man I’d met in high school and dated in med school, now that I was back in Hobie. I hadn’t disabused them of the notion because of my pride.
The truth was, West had found me dull and uninspiring. “There’s just no passion there, you know?” he’d said. No, I hadn’t known. What I’d thought was a perfect relationship had, apparently, been mediocre at best. That revelation had been soul-crushing. It had taken me a long time to let anyone else in, but I’d finally found someone special in Atlanta.
And that had turned to shit, too.
After West, I’d been once bitten, twice shy. And after Zach, I’d been twice bitten, don’t even fucking think about it shy.
So I was done. Done with relationships and completely here for quick and dirty fucks wherever I could get them.
Unfortunately, Hobie, Texas, wasn’t a hotbed of activity on the apps. And almost the entire town’s gay population seemed to sport the last name Wilde.
Which meant I was coming up on desperate times. And that attorney was a delectable treat.
“What makes you think Mr. Baptiste is gay?” I asked as casually as possible. My sexuality wasn’t a secret because I assumed most people knew that West and I had been a thing back in the day. But I made a point not to talk about personal stuff at work.