Page 10 of Undeniably Convenient

Owen is studying me. I can see him doing it out of the corner of my eye as I start attacking the spinach and artichoke dip with gusto. “Why are you still being weird? Was he a dick to you in the elevator or something?”

“No. He was fine,” I remark brightly with a mouth full of carrots and dip. I never talk with food in my mouth, and everyone knows it, so I’m not helping my cause here. I swallow and wipe my lips with my napkin. “It was his third time getting stuck in an elevator and we joked about that a bit because, legit, who gets stuck in an elevator three times? We talked, and he did his best to keep me calm when I was anything but. He wasn’t a jerk at all, and he wasn’t when I knew him before, so I’m not sure why he has that reputation now.”

“Again, what aren’t you telling us? You’re shit at hiding your thoughts and feelings, Katy.”

I sigh, my head dropping to Owen’s shoulder. I’m being weird about it, and I know I am. The truth is, it felt like he flirted a bit. Which I know is nuts. If we didn’t have the past that we have, I likely wouldn’t have thought twice about it. He was being comforting, not sexual.

My problem is I enjoyed it. The terrifying stuck in an elevator aspect notwithstanding, I enjoyed sitting in the dark with him and talking to him like that. It’s been plaguing me all afternoon—more than the fact that I have now a not-so-friendly fear of elevators—because I shouldn’t have liked it as much as I did. Not only is he my boss and quite a bit older than me, but there is also no room for those sorts of thoughts.

Not with him. Not with any man. At least not for the foreseeable future.

Owen blows out a breath. “What’s up, Kit-Kat? Spill it already.”

I look around the bar, making sure I don’t recognize anyone since it’s a popular spot for nurses and doctors to hang out. Especially on a Thursday night. “Back when I was a student, we shared a very drunken kiss one night at a party. It was his last night as a resident and my last night as a third year, and he pulled me into a corner and kissed me.”

Kenna’s eyes light up like sparklers, and she and Keegan exchange gleeful looks. “Oh. That’s just too good. You kissed your hot new boss.”

“Shhh,” I hiss at Kenna. “Quiet your freaking megaphone voice down. I did not kiss my hot new boss.”

Keegan cackles. “Ha! You just called him that.”

I flip her off. “It was seven years ago, Keegs.”

“Whatever. Tell us all about your hot”— She emphasizes the word while daring me to challenge her on it—“make-out session with him. Was he good? He looks like he’d be good. He has that tall, dark, and commanding thing going for him.” She fans her face.

He was good. Very good. But that’s neither here nor there and certainly not something I’m sharing with them tonight. “I didn’t make out with him,” I protest. “Not really anyway. It was a kiss and nothing more. He left the next day for a fellowship across the country, and that was that.”

“Until now,” she taunts.

That giggle finally breaks free.

“You’re making your hyena noise,” Owen accuses. “Why are you so nervous? Do you have feelings for him or something? Because I’ll be honest with you, it was a kiss a long-ass time ago. You didn’t fuck him, and if you think about the number of drunken kisses you’ve had in your lifetime, this isn’t chart-topping significance other than the fact that he’s your new boss.”

He has a point. I’ve had a lot of drunken kisses. It was sort of my thing until my ex came along, and soon, I’ll be trying to get pregnant, so it’s definitely not my thing now.

So why does this one feel different to me when it shouldn’t?

“You’re right,” I cede. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous about it. It was just a kiss, and it was a very long time ago. My problem is that he’s my boss. I think it’s universally accepted that it’s never a smart idea to have kissed your boss. This is a big year for me. I need him to recommend me for my fellowship and not care about the fact that I want to try and get pregnant and have a baby.”

Owen sits up straight, forcing me to do the same. He puts his hand on my shoulder and gives me a stern, serious look. “Then forget about the kiss, shove it into the do not go there again drawer, and prove to him why you deserve that fellowship.”

Again, he’s right. I give him a sharp nod, determined to put my past with Bennett behind me. How difficult can that be?

Chapter Four

“Good morning,” Wes greets us just after the change of shift with a content smile on his face. “I know you’ve all heard the rumors, and if I haven’t gotten a chance to speak one-on-one with you, I apologize. I tried to get to as many of you as I could yesterday. Some of you may feel as though this move is very sudden, but it’s time for me to step down as chief of trauma surgery.”

I take a sip of my coffee as I stand in the back of the pack, hating the bundle of nerves tightening my stomach. Cricket Peterson—my biggest competition here—is standing front and center like the suck-up she is. Part of my nerves come from the fact that I’m sad. Wes was my mentor. He’s the one who brought me here to this residency program. I’m going to miss him and the trust we had with each other.

And obviously, the other reason for my nerves is standing just to the side of Wes looking like Superman in scrubs. Especially when he slides up the sleeve of his long-sleeved undershirt to reveal his powerful forearms. Damn. I clear that away and go back to listening to Wes.

“It’s something I had been thinking about for a while,” Wes continues. “It was a difficult decision. I’ve been here my entire attending career. With that, I wasn’t going to leave this department to just anyone. Lucky for us, the perfect person fell into our laps. Dr. Bennett Lawson received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins, where he also did his residency before doing a trauma fellowship in Los Angeles. He’s spent the last five years working as an attending and then chief of trauma surgery at the Mayo Clinic. Please join me in welcoming him. Doctor?”

Wes steps aside and Bennett, tall, confident, and sinfully fucking gorgeous, steps forward. His eyes instantly meet mine, as if he knew exactly where I was standing—and hiding—all along. I catch a curl of his lips that could hardly be called a grin before it disappears just as quickly, and he shifts his focus to the crowd before him, all business.

“Good morning, everyone,” he says, and I swear, I hear two nurses nearby emit dreamy sighs. “I’ll keep this brief since I know you have patients to get back to. As Wes said, this likely came as a bit of a shock to you. I realize I’m stepping into some very large shoes, and I’ll attempt to fill them as best I can. General and trauma surgery is what I’ve dedicated my life to, and I’m beyond thrilled to be working with such talented staff at one of the best hospitals in the country.”

Bennett continues to speak, but I’m distracted by the two second-year residents near me. “How are we supposed to focus on patients when he’s walking the halls?” one teases the woman on the other side of her.

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