Page 23 of Falling for the Boss

“I don’t know much, but she said there were paparazzi outside of the hospital this morning when she went in. Her emails are filled with media requests, and they have been calling her work nonstop.”

I didn’t need to hear any more to know how bad this was. How annoyed Sutton would be that her personal life was interfering with her work. She’d filled me in on her job last night, her face lighting up whenever she talked about all the people she wanted to help. It gave her control in a world filled with chaos. I recognized her passion. And I respected it.

“She’s going to bail on me before we get started,” I said, suddenly concerned that I’d lose this woman before I even had her.

Wait. Lose her? She’s not mine, I reminded myself.

“That’s why I was thinking that we should make some kind of statement. We confirm the relationship but ask that the media please refrain from stalking your girlfriend at her place of employment,” Kayla suggested.

Before I considered what a statement like that might do, I nodded my head and waved her away.

Reaching for my cell phone, I fired off a text to Sutton, apologizing and asking her if I could make it up to her tonight. I didn’t expect her to respond since she was at work already, so I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t. But when four hours had passed and there was still no message from her, I pulled up my texting app and realized that it hadn’t been delivered yet.

She must have turned her phone off.

’Cause everyone was fucking harassing her.

I grabbed my things and stormed out of my office as Kayla yelled, “Where are you going?”

“I’ll be right back,” I growled. “Pull the car up.”

“You have a meeting in twenty minutes!” She chased after me as I stepped into the elevator without her.

“Guess I’ll be late,” I said as the doors closed, shutting Kayla’s worried face out of my view.

I drove like a maniac, pissed off, possessive, and concerned. When I got to the hospital, I hopped out of my car and walked through the front doors like I owned the place, pretending not to see the handful of press still hanging around. They went nuts when they saw me there, shouting my name and hers.

“Where is Sutton?” I asked the nurse who was watching me through narrowed eyes from behind a sheet of Plexiglas.

“I know who you are,” she said, but her tone told me she was not a fan.

“I’m sure you do. Can you page her? I need to see her. Now.”

“You’ve turned our hospital into a circus.” She shook her head, but I saw her reach for the phone and linger over the intercom button. “Take the elevator up to floor three and meet her at the nurses’ station there. Otherwise, those people will never leave.”

I knew better than to argue with her, so I did as she’d demanded, practically sprinting for the bank of elevators before pressing the button a hundred times in rapid succession, as if doing that would make it come quicker. When I stepped through the doors on the third floor, Sutton was leaning over a desk, talking to one of the nurses, her long red hair tied back into a ponytail that had me thinking dirty thoughts.

I moved in her direction; she still hadn’t noticed me, but other women had started to.

“Hey,” I breathed out, and she whirled around quickly, her eyes widening with surprise.

“What are you doing here?” She grabbed my sleeve and pulled me away from the desk, which was now filled with smiling nurses and who I assumed were doctors.

“You’re really not going to introduce us?” one of them shouted, and Sutton’s cheeks turned red as she ignored the request, still pulling me around a corner.

Once we stopped moving, I looked right at her and said, “I was worried.” My hands had started shaking by that point because I was so riled up, so I stuffed them in my pockets.

Sutton tugged on my arm once more, moving us into a room where a few small bunk beds sat, perfectly made.

“Is this a real-life on-call room?” I asked because I had very little knowledge of hospitals aside from things I’d seen on TV.

“What? Oh, yes, it is. Joseph, what’s wrong? Why are you here?” She looked worried…for me.

I stepped forward, closing the distance between us before I reached for her shoulders and tucked an errant piece of red hair behind her ear. Her eyes closed with my movement, and it took everything in me not to bend down and start kissing her.

“I needed to see that you were okay. I heard about the press and the phone calls,” I tried to explain, but I wasn’t sure my words were coming out right.

She swallowed hard, her eyes avoiding mine. “It’s been a lot,” she said softly. “I wasn’t prepared.”

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