Page 77 of Irresistibly Risky

I swallow past the lump in my throat and nod even though she can’t see me.

“Okay. I’ll talk to Asher tonight.”

I disconnect the call and then go and see patients, already feeling lighter after speaking to my mother. But more than that, I’m back in the hospital. I’m doing injections and scheduling surgeries. I’m the doctor I’ve always dreamed of being. Mason is downstairs in the daycare, and I feel like I’m finding that groove. The one I’ve been searching for since I found out I was pregnant with him.

There’s only one thing that can derail that.

“Joe Cardone says he needs you back on the field tomorrow,” Dr. Limp—er Limbick says to me just as I leave a patient room. I sag. Dammit. Limbick gives me a displeased look. “You told me that he didn’t require you there. What’s going on, Wynter? We don’t typically blow off our high-profile clients and patients here.”

“He’s my father,” I admit, moving over to an empty patient room so our conversation is private. “Joe Cardone is my biological father, and we do not have the best history with each other.”

Limbick shuts the door behind himself and then leans against it. “I figured it had to be something like that since he was so adamant it be you and no one else. You had just started with us and are a new attending. It didn’t make a lot of sense.” He folds his arms. “Still, it’s the Boston Rebels.” Meaning over his dead body will he give up the prestige and income that comes with them. I don’t blame him for that. “Joe says it can only be you. I don’t want to put you in a position where you’re uncomfortable, but I don’t know what else to do.”

My hands go to my hips. I asked Joe why me when I first started there. I asked him what he was trying to do by forcing me to be there. And he gave me no straight answers. But unless I want to quit—which isn’t an option—I’m stuck.

“I’ll be fine. I can handle it. I’ll report back to the field tomorrow.”

* * *

All the levity I felt after my call with my mom vanished the moment I was done talking to Limbick. Not even five minutes later, a text from Joe came in.

Joe: See you back here tomorrow morning.

I didn’t reply. Anything I would have responded with would have been impudently childish, and that is not the woman or doctor I want to be. Then the last patient of the day was a total asshole. A retired football player—I swear I can’t make this shit up—who demanded I give him a cortisone injection even though his last films are over three years old, and he’s had two this year already. He needs knee replacement but wasn’t happy hearing that from a woman, so he called me a lying bitch and stormed out. The only reason he was on my schedule was because his last—male—doctor told him the same thing, and he didn’t like it then either.

Whatever.

I drop Mason at my mom’s, and then on my drive home, I try calling Asher. He doesn’t pick up, so I text him letting him know the plan for the night. Twenty minutes later, I park in my spot in the garage and fly up the elevator. But the moment I enter the apartment, my skin prickles with awareness, and my feet turn to lead, begging me not to move. Not to explore. Not to seek out the source of what I’m hearing.

Asher grunting and groaning. A female moaning. A repetitive smacking sound.

My heart gallops in my chest, and the backs of my eyes burn in shame and humiliation. I’m so sick I’m shaking with it. The reaction comes on so swiftly it actually shocks me, zapping any logical thought from my mind.

“Yes, Ash. More. Give me more.”

He groans louder. “Fuck, Sara. Jesus.”

I creep along, getting closer to his bedroom, where the sound appears to be coming from. Only a flash of something in his gym stops me, and I pause, finding the reflection in the mirror. Asher is shirtless sitting on a workout bench, and a blonde woman in a sports bra is straddling him. Bouncing on him. I forgot he has physical therapy today, and I know he has a female therapist in his crew, though I haven’t met her, and I’m positive that’s what that is, but…

Why is she in a sports bra? And why is she straddling and bouncing on him? He wouldn’t be the first athlete to fuck his therapist.

“Yes.” Her voice is ragged and breathless. “There. That’s it. More, more, more. Don’t stop,” she begs.

“Fuck! Yes!” Asher cries out, his face pinched up in concentration, flushed and sweaty. He sounds exactly as he did this morning on his balcony when he was inside me. Out of nowhere, my father’s words to my mother all those years ago venomously snake through me. “There’s only so much of one woman a man can take before he grows bored.”

My hand slams over my mouth to stifle my sob, and then before I know what I’m doing, I’m running for the door, needing to flee. Hot tears stream down my face the moment the elevator doors close and I fall back against the metal wall, barely able to catch my breath.

What do I do?

I make it to my car on autopilot, and then I’m peeling out, driving away from the building. Deep, shaking breaths burn my lungs, and I do my best to clear my thoughts. I try to think this through logically. But I can’t do it. All I can see is her on his lap. All I can hear are the sounds they were making.

Music blasts through the speakers of my ancient car as I drive out to the skating rink. I need to be alone. I need to skate and lose myself for a bit before I’m forced to deal with this. The rink is magnificently empty, dark, and cool as I set my bag down on the ground and pull out my skates. The tears keep coming, but they begin to stall along with my thoughts.

I keep coming back to one question: Would Asher really do that to me?

I know what I heard, and I know what I saw. But my brain and my heart are having trouble reconciling that with the man I’ve come to know over the last few weeks. No. I don’t think Asher would do that. And I’m furious with myself for running and not seeing the entire picture for myself.

I want to trust him.

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