AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dominic cursed himself. He shouldn’t have let her know that he had been watching her that closely. “I keep an eye on what my interns are doing,” he said, wondering if she was going to see through that, thinking that she probably would.
“Well, no, we didn’t make any explicit arrangements,” Emily said. “They wouldn’t mind if I ate with you.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to disrupt your plans, if you have them.”
“No, they know I’m interning under you, so they’d understand why I made that choice,” Emily said. “I can have lunch with you. I’d like to have lunch with you.”
They went through the line and got deli sandwiches. Dominic wondered what he was doing. He had told himself that he was going to keep his distance from Emily. That it wasn’t a good idea for the two of them to be together. He still felt that way, so why was he allowing himself to cross his own boundary and have lunch with her? This couldn’t possibly lead anywhere good.
And yet, he was doing it.
They sat down at one of the tables. Dominic didn’t fully register until they had set their plates down that it was a two-seater — nobody would be joining them. Had he made that choice, or had she? He wasn’t sure. Thinking over it now, he wasn’t certain which of them had led the way to this table.
“So,” she said, sliding into her seat, “what lectures have you been at today?”
“Advances in surgical technology, mostly,” he said. “There are a couple of good ones on that subject tomorrow, if you think you might like to sit in on one.”
“I’m not sure,” Emily said. “I don’t know if surgery is the best fit for me, to be honest with you.”
“You didn’t enjoy the OR the other day?”
“It was exciting,” she said. “I really liked how competent I felt while I was in there, don’t get me wrong. But I think I prefer working with patients when they’re conscious.”
Dominic chuckled. “Well, you still have time to try out other specialties, if that’s what you want to do.”
Emily nodded. “I know,” she said. “I’m still thinking through a few options. I think those women I met this morning might try to recruit me for their private practice.”
“Oh, God, you’re not going into private practice, are you?”
Emily laughed. “You don’t want me to?”
“It’s such a waste of a good physician.”
“Remember the first time we met?” she asked him. “You threatened to cut me from your intern program. And now you like me so much that you don’t want me to go into private practice.”
“What can I say? You won me over.” He shrugged. “You must have known that would happen.”
“Well, I did hope it would,” Emily agreed.
“So tell me how the conference has been so far,” Dominic said. “You said you’d been learning a lot?”
“Yeah, it’s been great,” she said. “I’m glad I came. You know, you should really make this mandatory for interns in the future.”
“If I have to make it mandatory, they’re not the kind of interns I want to come anyway,” Dominic told her.
Emily grinned. “Fair point, I guess,” she said. “So it’s kind of a test?”
“Well, not really. I didn’t think any of you were going to show up,” he said. “I wasn’t testing you. But I do feel as if I’ve learned something about you, now that I see you here.”
“I wasn’t the only one from our group to sign up,” Emily said, opening her bag of chips.
“I noticed that too. Any thoughts on what happened to the others?”
“I know Sara had a personal conflict.”
“I would have been surprised if she’d made it,” Dominic said. “I know she only put her name down because you asked her to.”
“No, I don’t think that’s true…”
