He glanced left and right, leaned closer to her, his voice wary. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that you told Dr. Sheinberg that I’m a sucky surgeon and I should give it up and slink back to med school.” Okay, that was an exaggeration. So sue her.
“What? Get in my office.” He went for her elbow but she jerked away.
Hell if he was going to guide her around like she was being an obstinate child.
His jaw clenched. “We need to clear this up, but five minutes, Josie, that’s all I’ve got. I have patients waiting. Please, let’s do this in my office.”
“Then you better start talking fast.” The urge to start screaming right there in the hall was great. But she wouldn’t because she was reeking with maturity.
Nudging past him, she walked into his office.
He followed her and held his hands out in a placating manner.
“I’m not sure what you’re so upset about. Tim and I talked and we decided it was better for all parties involved if you were transferred before our relationship became common knowledge. I never once said you were a sucky surgeon and need to go back to med school. If that’s what it said, I was misquoted.”
Misquoted. She’d misquote him.
Tears started to roll down her cheeks, and she swiped at them in anger. “So you and Tim sat in his office and decided what was best forme?That takes a lot of freaking nerve! And how exactly did Tim know there was anything between us?”
He rubbed his jaw. “Apparently he has eyes and ears. People are talking. We didn’t have any choice.”
“Youcould have transferred!” She imagined that one had never crossed their male minds. “How could you do this to me? No resident gets transferred without a good reason, like a serious screw up, and everyone is going to wonder what I did. How could you do this, knowing it would hurt me? Last night...” She lost her voice for a minute.
Houston tossed the folder in his hand onto the desk and brushed her hair off her face. “Oh, sweetheart, this is coming out all wrong.”
When he kissed her forehead, she shuddered, wanting to let the anger deflate, wanting him to convince her that she was wrong. Her shoulders slumped, she bit her trembling lip.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt your career, I was trying to help, to protect you.”
For a second, she had wavered, had fallen into the closeness of the night before with Houston. Had wanted to trust him, believe in what she had felt from him in his arms, read in his eyes. His words made her snap. He could call it anything he wanted but help.
“That’s a load of you-know-what, Houston!” She waved the paper under his nose again, and moved away from him, not trusting herself if he touched her again. “This is your way of pushing me away. Last night I got too close, I saw parts of the real you, and I made the whopper mistake of telling you I love you. And now you’re putting distance between us.”
“That’s not what I’m doing!” he insisted.
But it was, and she knew it.
Chapter Forty-Five
Wait.
Was that what he had done?
Houston suddenly knew he had handled all of this all wrong. Really fucking wrong.
He hadn’t mean to push her away. He just wanted her to be secure in her position on staff, not subjected to rumor and innuendo about nepotism or have anyone question her placement. He didn’t want her to have to pay for his mistake in blurring the professional lines between them during her tenure at Acadia Inlet.
Houston tried to touch Josie, soothe her, but she swatted at him.
He was in deep shit, and he knew it. Josie was furious, and beneath that was a naked pain that he had caused and it made him feel ashamed.
“I didn’t mean for Dr. Sheinberg to imply you were lacking in skill. And maybe I should have spoken to you directly first, but this is the only thing we can really do at this point. As a surgeon, my responsibility lies with the patient, not you. Even if no one found out about our relationship, we shouldn’t be working together anymore. We distract each other. You wouldn’t be happy.”
And he suspected she would never gain confidence in her abilities while he was in the OR with her.
But Houston was a little scared. His apology had somehow turned into a defense of his position, and Josie looked beyond angry. She looked devastated. He’d never seen her like this. And damn it, those tears were killing him. He’d told her he would make her cry sooner or later and she wouldn’t listen to him, and now here they were. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, but somehow he had.