Page 15 of Daddy's Double Surprise

“Hey, sicko, you’re seriously missing out. It’s freakin’ Liam Holmes.” Her snickering like a school girl matched the crimson blush on her cheeks. She was giddy with the attention of a celebrity way too old for her, but I figured every girl deserved to have a crush.

“Yeah, I’ll pass. I’m not interested in that.” I rubbed my face and breathed in a deep gulp of air.

“Yeah, I know what you’re interested in.” She smirked and wagged her eyebrows. “By the looks of it, he’s interested too. Dang, girl. He did nothing but check you out all night so far, and when you ran off like a dummy, he looked like he was gonna chase after you. A bit obvious, don’t you think?” Luna rolled her eyes at me as I cringed in more embarrassment.

“He really did that?” I asked. I felt like throwing up again already.

“He really did. Is this just a fling or what?” Luna hovered by my door, which stood open. We weren’t talking very loudly, but I couldn’t risk that Dad might hear so I whispered my reply.

“He asked me to dinner. And I told him yes…” Even though I was still feeling emotionally raw, my lips curled into a smile. I bit the bottom one to temper the reaction. I felt giddy.

“Oh God,” she hissed, snickering. “This is so bad.”

“I know, right?”

The flush of warmth I felt every time I thought of Carter was consuming me. After Chad, I was ready to just place a pause on my love life and let my heart do its thing for a while. But Carter had gotten to me so quickly, I never saw it coming. He was sweetand funny and kind, and I’d never once seen him lose his temper about anything. Total green-flag energy.

“So, what if you don’t stay?” Luna asked, but in the background we heard Mom calling for her. “Crap,” she hissed. “Later, you tell me everything.” She darted out of my bedroom and shut the door behind her while I sat there feeling so mixed up emotionally.

If I stuck around for any length of time, I was going to get too hung up on a man I could never have. I had already told him I’d have dinner with him, but at that dinner I had to make it clear to him—and myself—that a relationship probably wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t want to date someone in LA when my desire was to live as far away from my father as possible.

And I hoped when I told my heart that, it obeyed me.

10

CARTER

Joseph Pratt, the CEO of the pharmaceutical company that was woefully handed down to me by my father, stared at me in horror as I recounted how patients had been coming into the clinic asking about drug trials. The genuine reaction wasn’t something anyone could fake. His eyebrows were high, mouth agape for most of this discussion.

“It appears some of our clinics are worse than others, but all of them were affected in the past sixty days.” I ran a hand through my hair and tugged the cuffs of my shirt sleeves down onto my arms. It perturbed me that people were going behind my back and thinking they’d get away with it. If I wasn’t so determined to do the right thing, I’d have sold the company and washed my hands of the whole thing.

But hearing about Sunny’s friend made me feel obligated to stick around and clean up this mess. I knew that if people in positions of power did nothing or turned a blind eye to the corruption they saw, it made them just as bad as the people who were actively involved in the deceit.

“You’re telling me,” Joseph started, “that we have doctors encouraging sick, elderly, and financially unstable people to joindrug trials just to make money?” The flash of anger I saw in his eyes again confirmed to me that he knew nothing about this before today’s meeting.

“Yes. Somewhere, somehow, our recruitment team has gone off the rails. Now, I can’t just go there and burst in with accusations. If we’re going to do this right and shut it down, we need to stop this at the source. Pinning this on the doctors at the clinics won’t work.” I’d already thought this through. I knew the doctors I had working for me, and many of them were doing their clinic hours as volunteers because they cared about people. Whoever orchestrated this likely played to that weakness, offering them money in exchange for this service, which they likely painted as something super helpful.

“This is awful, Carter. I won’t stand for it.” Joseph rose and tucked his tie into his suit coat, and I rose too. I had plans with Sunny this evening that I didn’t want to be late for, but I appreciated him taking the time to talk this out with me. It was a serious matter we really needed to address soon.

“We can’t let it keep happening. Baiting at-risk patients into these trials is risky. Not only could the ethics board remove every license of every doctor; they could shut down these clinics, and the community needs them.”

“I agree, it has to stop. I’m standing with you. We’ll get to the bottom of it.” Joseph stretched out his hand to shake mine and I took it, offering a firm grip. It was good to know I had him on my side.

As I strolled out of the sleek modern offices, I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed Jackson at the clinic. I’d taken the afternoon off to deal with this situation, and he was covering for me. His voice was stern when he answered.

“South Town Clinic, how can I help you?”

“Jacks, it’s me. How’d the day wind up?” I blinked into the bright sun and fished in my pocket for my key fob.

“Oh hey, Doc. Day went great. Just sent the last patient home. Oh, and Ms. Sunny Douglas waltzed out of here saying she has a hot date.” I heard the jest in his tone before he even said, “Not sure who that could be, could we?”

The grin spread on my face without my permission, but I let it. I was falling so hard for this girl, and we made dinner plans for this evening. Sure, she was still hesitant, and she spoke plainly when she said she wasn’t interested in a relationship in case she moved back to Tampa, but if all I could get was more time with her, I was going to cash in on that. It might just change her mind and coax her into staying.

“I don’t know who that could be.” I was, of course, lying. Jackson knew I had it bad for her. We talked about it this morning, how Liam Holmes couldn’t even steal her attention from me, how we had sex right there in the reception area of the clinic. He would keep my confidence, but he’d razz me about it the rest of my life.

“I hope you have a great time, Doc. You deserve this. You’ve been through so much.” The way the conversation shifted from happy to a tone of somberness stole my words. I didn’t know how to respond, but he continued when I didn’t. “No worries about the office. I’ve got it on lock. Have a good evening.”

“Thanks, Jackson. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I hung up and strolled to my car with a skip in my step. So far the day had proven productive and positive. With Joseph on my side in this, the investigation would go further. I knew we had to get down to the facts and let the board know what was happening before one of these people baited into joining our drug trials ended up like Sunny’s friend Kira. That would be devastating and lead to lawsuits and scandals.

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