And his silence.
Has he found a girlfriend? The idea of him being married by the end of the semester makes something hot and ugly coil in my stomach.
Images of another woman getting fucked by Cormac shatter when my phone vibrates with a call from an unknown number.
I hold it, worrying if Pierce has found a way through the security layer block. But it stops ringing. Then a message comes in:
It’s me, pick up. - C
C. Cormac. Not… Dr. O’Rourke.
“Hello?” I say when it rings again.
“Meet me in the teaching wing. The clinical side,” he says, voice steady.
My pen stills. “Why? What happened?”
“I have a female coming in. She had a fall.”
I push away the tug that all humans with empathy get from sensitive cases.
“And you want me to assist you?” I swallow, loving his faith in me. “As part of the on-call team you needed?”
“Exactly. Are you in?”
“Yes,” I say, pulling on my shoes.
“Scarlett…” he says, breaking from the stoic tone just a second ago. “Hurry. This one is…personal.”
Female. Personal. “Is… Is this the woman you’re going to marry?”
His silence rips my heart out. “No. But it is family.”
My heart goes back online, because if it’s personal for him, somehow it’s personal for me, too. I don’t understand this possession I feel for a man who I shouldn’t want because he’s my professor, and he specifically said he can’t be involved with me.
“On my way, Dr. O’Rourke,” I say to show I’m taking him seriously.
The teaching wing is too clean for what usually happens here. White tiled terrazzo floors. Harsh, bright fluorescent lights make everything look extra ugly.
The first thing I notice is my fellow classmates Voss and Mercer. They are still and attentive. Hands readied like they’re musicians waiting for a conductor to lift his baton.
Then I see the dark SUVs lined up outside the glass double doors with sidelights. Men wearing sharp suits are positioned along the curb. They don’t pace, and they don’t look panicked.
Guards.
Mafia.
Family.
A woman.
Oh my God. I’m going to be treating a real-life mafiawife.
A man emerges from one of the SUVs. Very tall. Auburn hair. Breathtaking. Jacket over jeans, both soaked with dark blood. The woman under his arm is smaller with short, dark hair, wrapped in a coat, and she’s gripping his arms with white knuckles. Her lap is full of blood.
From a fall?
Cormac rushes out of the treatment room in tight blue scrubs. Whoa. That’s fucking hot.