Page 109 of All's Fair in Love and Blood - A Romantic Comedy Novel

Jaycie didn’t need to know any of that, so I answered with a simple, “It was.”

She grabbed a complimentary breadstick. “Maybe you could give me some advice on how to make him forget his mystery woman.”

Just as I’d imagined, I wanted to grab that breadstick out of her hand and smack her with it. She would be getting no such advice from me. I didn’t want Kane to forget about me. If I couldn’t forget about him, it was only fair. I refrained from violence and instead asked her a question, “Do you really want to be with a man who’s in love with someone else?”

She thought for a moment.

I’d thought this would be a no-brainer.

“Well,”—she nibbled on her breadstick—“I mean, sometimes you need someone to help you forget.”

“Believe me, you don’t want to be that person. When you really love someone, no one else can make you forget that.”

She patted my hand. “Aww. Have you been that person?”

“No, but I’ve hurt a few men when I couldn’t give them my whole heart because it belonged to another. I don’t wish that on anybody.”

“Ouch.” She sounded shocked. “Are you still in love with that person?”

“Yes,” I whispered. So much.

“Anyone I know?” she teased.

When I sat quietly, wide eyed, not knowing how to answer her, dawning swept over her face.

She dropped her breadstick. “Oh. Oh. Oh!”

Oh, oh, oh was right. The question was, what was I going to do about it?

What a Girl Wants

I fidgeted while sitting on the couch in Auggie’s office. My heart was racing, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t put on enough deodorant this morning. I was afraid to raise my arms for fear of what damage had been done to the underarms of my blouse. Every pore I had was sweating as I waited for my father to tell me what he thought of my plan.

Auggie sat across from me on a leather accent chair, looking between me and his laptop screen. Consternation was written all over his face. It didn’t help my state of being. Not only did I have to worry that Jaycie was blabbing to everyone that I was still in love with Kane—that had made lunch really awkward, by the way—but now I feared that I had disappointed my father once again.

Auggie finally set his laptop down on the coffee table between us. With a huge exhale, he said, “I’m impressed with you.”

I relaxed a bit and smiled. “Really?”

He smiled back, but it was subdued. “You have excellent insights and you grasp the nature of what we do here. And, of course, your medical expertise is second to none, not even Pamela’s.” That was a huge compliment, considering Pamela was a brilliant doctor in her own right.

I clasped my hands together. “But?” I knew there was one coming.

He scrubbed a hand over his face before running it through his hair. “Kane sent me his plan as well. He asked me to evaluate both.”

“Why?”

“Because, Scarlett, he plans on resigning, dependent on my findings.”

I blinked a dozen times. “What? He would quit? Why would he do that?”

Auggie leaned forward. “Why do you think?”

My cheeks began to burn, and my eyes started stinging with tears.

“He loves you.” Auggie said it so bluntly. “He wanted me to evaluate his plan to see who I believed the board would pick.”

“It’s him, isn’t it?” I managed to ask the question he obviously didn’t want to answer while a great sense of disappointment and, admittedly, relief washed over me.

“Yes,” Auggie confirmed.

I wiped my eyes. “I’m not surprised. He’s brilliant.”

“That he is. Regardless . . . he’s willing to resign and help you with your plan. He knows if he drops out of the running, the board will want additional candidates to evaluate. He wanted to make sure his plan was enough for you to clinch their approval over anyone else.”

“I’m not going to cheat. I don’t need his help,” I said indignantly.

“He figured you’d say that.”

“Then what is the purpose of all this?” Other than to humiliate me. Or was Kane trying to make his point that I wasn’t meant for this job?

Auggie turned his screen toward me. “Kane included an interesting idea in his plan. He believes we should expand our services here, including a new division dedicated to forensic pathology.”

I couldn’t help but smile, though it was pretty subdued, as I was trying to keep my emotions in check. Of course, he was brave enough to include it in his plan. I had considered something like that but thought I would look like a fool suggesting such a thing. The fact is, clinical and forensic pathology did go hand in hand. Clinical forensic pathology is needed for both the living and the dead. And all forensic pathologists were trained in clinical and anatomical pathology.

I quickly scanned Kane’s overview, which laid out how the kind of technology we used here at Armstrong Labs would benefit the forensic pathology community. How he envisioned Armstrong Labs bringing together the medical community to further advance the causes of the living and the dead. He really was brilliant. It was both frustrating and enviable.

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