Page 49 of Sinful in Scrubs

“I’ve got to go,” I said with a groan. The gravity pull of her was strong.

The evening air was brisk and helped bring me back to reality. I walked a few blocks before grabbing a cab. My house was dark and quiet. Everyone was asleep. I locked up and went to bed in a cold, lonely room—all alone.

“Welcome, Dr. Walker,” Nurse Hernandez called out my name as I approached the nurses’ station the next morning.

I raised my eyebrows in question as I approached her, expecting her to give me details on a specific patient or let me know that we had incoming.

“I have a message here for you from James Collins.”

“The chief hospitalist? I wonder what it could be about,” I said as I took the scratch sheet of paper with her handwriting scrawled across it. It just said to come to his office as soon as I got in. That didn’t make any sense.

“Did he say what this was for?” I showed her the piece of paper, as if there were something hidden there that I couldn’t see.

She just shrugged. “No, that was it. He wanted you to check in with him, I guess before you started your shift.”

“Interesting,” I muttered to myself. “I guess I’m going there if there’s nothing urgent.”

She shook her head. “No, we’ll be good.”

I made my way out of the department and up to the administration hall, where most of the administration offices were located. James Collins had his office there. The door stood wide open.

I knocked, and he looked up from his computer at me. “Ah, come on in. Take a seat. Close the door.”

Crap. Closing the door was never a good sign.

“So, I don’t know how to say this, Marcus, so I’m just gonna cut to the chase. I received an anonymous call about inappropriate dealings with other staff members.”

I gulped. As far as I knew, there hadn’t been anything inappropriate. Every interaction that Emma and I had had thus far was completely consensual.

I shook my head. “I’m baffled,” I admitted.

“Says here you were seen leaving the hospital with Dr. Emma Chen.”

My brow furrowed, and I shook my head. “Yeah? So? We’re colleagues. Sometimes our schedules line up, and we leave at the same time. I don’t see how?—”

“Yeah, well, apparently, she had a very…” He steepled his fingers together and shook his head as he thought of the word he needed. “Not professional presentation.”

“I understand.”

“To the review board,” he added. “And guess what? Your name came up. Well, let’s just put it this way—she’s not some shining star you should hook your wagon to.”

“Are you trying to warn me off being friendly with my colleagues?” I asked.

His face twisted as he tried to find the right words that wouldn’t get him into trouble.

“Look, Marcus, between you and me, she’s got a bit of a reputation.”

“For being a damn fine surgeon,” I offered.

“Her skills aren’t in doubt. It’s her…” He hesitated. “It’s that she sometimes lets her private life get in the way of her professionalism.”

As he spoke, my eyes narrowed. This sounded a lot like somebody was making trouble for her.

She had told me her ex seemed to have some kind of professional grudge against her. Maybe this was connected. Maybe this was completely separate, and I was making connections that really weren’t there.

“You’ve got a promising future with us here at Manhattan Memorial, and I’d hate to see you jeopardize that for any reason,” James said.

I had pretty much stopped listening to him. My career wasn’t at risk. I knew that I could take my skills and go to any hospital and be welcomed. But this sounded almost as if the hospital—and whoever this anonymous report came from—would make problems for Emma.

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