Dr. Grump’s Surprise Baby (Bossy Bachelors #2)

19. Emily

CHAPTER 19

EMILY

“ S o how’s pediatrics?” Sara asked.

The two of them were in the cafeteria having lunch together. Emily had told Sara that she had to meet in the one o’clock hour, which wasn’t true — Dr. Nash was comfortable letting her take her break whenever she wanted to, as long as there were enough people on the ward to cover it. But she knew from experience that Dominic would be in the cafeteria during the twelve o’clock hour, and she didn’t want to see him.

“It’s good,” she said, taking a bite of her tuna fish sandwich. The French onion soup smelled delicious today, but soup and salad had been something she’d eaten with Dominic, and it was impossible to choose it right now without thinking about him.

She didn’t want to think about him. Every time she slipped and allowed it to happen, she found herself getting unbearably sad.

“Pediatrics is good,” she said, forcing herself to focus on her friend. “It seems like I haven’t been over there very long.”

“I mean, three weeks isn’t that long,” Sara said.

“No, but things move so fast in the hospital,” Emily said. “I’ve gotten to know a lot of new patients. And they’re not like the ER patients, you know — they usually stick around for a good long while. That’s something I like about it, although it’s always a big party when we get to kick someone off the ward and send them home. It just happened today, actually. Little girl named Caitlin with a kidney disease. We got it under control. She’s not going to need dialysis.”

“Oh, that’s great.” Sara grinned. “I hate it when kids have to do dialysis.”

“Me too. But I love the kids,” Emily said. “They’re so special, Sara. I’ve always liked our patients, but the kids just bring such a positive attitude to being in the hospital. It’s so surprising to me. They’re going through what’s probably the worst experience of their lives, and I walk into those rooms every day and they have a big smile for me. It really puts things in perspective, you know? It’s hard to be upset about anything in your own life when the kids in pediatrics are smiling at you every day.”

“Maybe Dr. Berger should transfer to pediatrics,” Sara said with a laugh.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, just that he’s moodier than ever lately. I thought he might be easier to be around after the three-month cut, but it hasn’t been like that.”

“I would have thought so too,” Emily said.

She had been pleased to see her friend make the cut. She’d known that Sara’s place hadn’t been guaranteed, and a part of her had wondered whether her own decision to drop out of the ER internship program had saved Sara. There was no doubt that her place had been given to someone. But she would never ask, and she would never suggest the idea to Sara. Besides, it probably wasn’t true. There were others who could easily have been cut but were still around.

But she agreed with Sara that trimming the fat should have put Dominic in a better mood. Chad had been cut from the program, and surely not having to put up with him day in and day out would make anyone’s life better. And then — though she didn’t like to think of it in these terms — there was the fact that she herself was gone. That had to be making Dominic’s life easier.

Although, is my life any easier because I don’t see him anymore? It certainly hadn’t improved her mood any to be separated from him.

“How can you tell he’s moodier than ever?” she asked her friend. “I would have thought he was already pretty maxed out on the moodiness scale.”

“Yeah. I don’t know. It’s like he’s walking around with a storm cloud over his head,” Sara said. “If you ask him a question — even a perfectly normal one — he just about takes your head off. Most people have stopped talking to him. If I need to know the answer to something, I’ll ask a nurse if I can. They’re the only ones who aren’t intimidated by him these days. Although I guess you wouldn’t have been, back when you were in the program.”

“You don’t think so?”

“You were the only one he ever got along with,” Sara said. “He was even mentoring you for a while. He liked you. And I know you didn’t mind him, although I don’t know why you’d want someone like that to be your mentor. Is that the real reason you switched specialties? To get a new mentor?”

“Of course it isn’t,” Emily said. “I didn’t need to switch specialties for that. I could have just opted out of the mentorship.”

“That probably would have pissed him off even more.” Sara sipped her milkshake. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Catching up on my paperwork.”

“Do not ask me to believe that you aren’t caught up on your paperwork,” Sara said.

“Okay, I’m getting ahead on my paperwork.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you work too hard?”

“Yes, you have. Frequently.”

“You should start listening to me. I was going to ask you if you wanted to come to the Chicago Symphony. They’re doing a film score thing. You like movies, right?”

“I don’t mind them.” Emily shook her head. “I don’t think I have time for the symphony.”

“Even now? I know you’re not working the crazy long hours you were when you were in the ER.”

“I am, actually,” Emily admitted. “I know I shouldn’t. Dr. Nash doesn’t insist on it the way Dr. Berger did.”

“So why do you do it?”

“It feels good to work,” Emily said. “It’s a good distraction.”

“A distraction from what ?”

Emily bit her lip. That was a question she didn’t want to answer. “I just… like it,” she said. “I like pouring myself into my work.”

“Well, Dr. Berger has definitely rubbed off on you in that way, at least. Good grief,” Sara laughed. “I never thought you would end up just like him in that way. I wonder if he knows?”

“I’m sure Dr. Berger isn’t paying that much attention to what I do,” Emily said. “He’s not in charge of me anymore, so why should he worry about what’s going on with me?”

“I don’t know,” Sara admitted. “But I do think he would be proud of his protégé if he knew.”

“I’m not his protégé. I’m not his anything.”

“Okay, jeez. Why are you getting so sensitive about it?” Sara asked, her eyebrows shooting up. “I wasn’t criticizing you.”

“No, I know you weren’t,” Emily sighed. She decided on a half-truth, since it was obvious that her friend could tell something wasn’t right. “The truth is that, even though I chose to switch specialties, I can’t help feeling like a failure sometimes. I was accepted to this really difficult program, and then I didn’t make it through.”

“Everyone knows you could have made it if you had wanted to,” Sara said loyally. “We talk about you all the time, you know.”

“You do?

“Oh, yeah, you’re a regular topic of conversation,” Sara said. “Everyone knows that you were top of the class. Some people say we’re lucky you left when you did, because someone else would have been cut in your place.”

“Oh, don’t think like that,” Emily said, even though she had just been thinking something along those same lines herself. “Everyone who is still in that program deserves their spot. I’m the one who couldn’t hack it, even if I was smart enough to get through. For my own reasons, I just couldn’t do what needed to be done. I have to live with that every day.”

“Do you wish you could come back?” Sara asked her.

“Sometimes,” Emily said.

“I bet Dr. Berger would let you. He knows you were the best.”

Emily shook her head. “I wouldn’t think of asking him. It would be too humiliating. And besides, I wouldn’t let me come back if I was him. Not after I quit the way I did. The people who deserve those places are the ones who tried their best, who still try their best. Not the quitters.”

“You know what?” Sara declared. “You’re too hard on yourself, Emily.”

Emily, who had said that very same thing to Dominic, found it difficult to agree when it came to herself. If she had been just a little harder on herself, she wouldn’t be in this predicament. If only she’d had the strength of character to simply not sleep with her boss! How much willpower did a person need to resist going to bed with the person who controlled the fate of their career?

Of course, that was easy to say while he wasn’t sitting right across from her, staring her down with those eyes that seemed to look right into her soul. Easy to say while the palm of his strong, dexterous hand wasn’t pressed to hers. Maybe she had never really had a chance at resisting him. Maybe it had been a foregone conclusion right from the very start.

And maybe Sara had a point. Maybe she should get out of this hospital. Follow her own advice and start living life again.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll go to the symphony with you.”

“Oh, yay!” Sara said. “I’ll see about getting us tickets, okay?”

“I’ll pay you back, just tell me how much.”

“Yeah, for sure. We’ll work it out,” Sara said gleefully. “Okay. I need to get back to work. Dr. Berger is insane about people coming back late from their lunch breaks.”

“I know he is,” Emily said heavily.

“Do you need to hurry back?”

“No, Dr. Nash is pretty cool about it. I’ll go back up when I finish my sandwich.”

“All right,” Sara said. “I’ll text you about later, okay?”

“Sounds good.”

“See you tonight.” Sara grinned and hurried off.

Emily watched her friend go. It hurt to think that Sara was going to be spending the rest of the day with Dominic, even though she knew that Dominic wasn’t going to make himself any fun to be around.

What Sara had said about him being even more moody than ever before — that was interesting. Emily wondered what the cause of that might be.

Because it was certainly true that getting rid of the worse interns should have cheered him up a bit. He no longer had to carry the dead weight that he’d been dragging around for the past three months. In addition, narrowing the field to only the better half of his interns should have meant a little less work for him — not that anything ever meant less work for Dominic, she thought wryly. No matter what came his way, he would find a way to take on more somehow. But it should have given him the chance to focus on the things he felt were truly important. He could entrust some of the less precise, difficult tasks to the interns now without feeling as if he had to be looking over their shoulders every minute of the day. He could start to trust them.

Somehow, she didn’t think that was what was happening.

And a part of her wondered if the reason he was unhappy now was the same reason she was unhappy now. Maybe he was finding it difficult to be away from her. Maybe he also had mixed feelings about the fact that she’d chosen to switch to pediatrics.

But if that was how he felt, she thought, he should have said something when she had told him she was planning to go. For that matter, he should have said something when she had confronted him that day after they had stayed too long at lunch. She had given him so many chances. If he’d wanted her around, he could have told her that any time, and he hadn’t.

Whatever his problem was now, it couldn’t have anything to do with her.

And she wasn’t going to waste any of her time worrying about it.

She finished the last few bites of her sandwich, got up to throw her trash away, and headed back up to the pediatrics floor. She had patients who were waiting for her. And one thing in which she and Dominic were in complete agreement on was the fact that the needs of the patients were more important than whatever petty dramas were taking place in their personal lives.