Page 4 of Worth the Risk

My chest went tight at the thought of her coming alone. I should’ve been by her side. Instead, we’d agreed to arrive separately and avoid spending too much time together. It was easier to pretend we were nothing but colleagues at the hospital—there was work to focus on—but social situations made it harder. I always had to force myself not to stare at her, usually stuffing my hands into my pockets so that I wouldn’t touch her.

This charade was getting old, but we were so close to the finish line. The board would decide who got the promotion in a couple of weeks. If I secured the position, I wouldn’t have to worry about being seen as the attending that couldn’t get his hands on one of the nurses in his department. I’d no longer be in the ER, and I’d have the kind of power in the hospital that made people ignore a relationship that might otherwise have been seen as inappropriate.

And if I didn’t get the promotion, all of this secrecy would have been for nothing.

No. I couldn’t even think like that. I needed this job. It would show the world that I was worth more than anyone ever thought I would be. Besides, I couldn’t stomach the idea of putting Zoey through all of this secrecy for no good reason.

“We sold even more tickets than anticipated,” Dr. Hirschi said as he took a champagne flute off the tray of a passing waiter. “I think we’re going to reach our goal. We’ll have five new POCUS machines by the end of next month.”

“POCUS?” Delilah asked.

“It stands for point-of-care ultrasound,” I said, shaking my head slightly at the fact that she didn’t even know why we were here tonight.

“The hospital is going to use the money raised here tonight, combined with some earmarked grant money we’ve recently received, to buy five advanced perioperative nerve block and regional anesthesia systems,” her father said, sounding like he was reading from a brochure. “These are premium ultrasound machines that can map out nerve pathways and monitor vitals while patients are under.”

“That sounds advanced.” Delilah turned her eyes to me with a bright smile. “You must be excited to get those new machines.”

“Why would he be? He works in the emergency room, where I doubt he’ll ever even see those fancy new machines,” a voice said from behind me. I used the excuse of turning to face the speaker to extract myself from Delilah’s grip and put a little space between us.

The man who joined our conversation uninvited was Dr. Hayes. He was one of the few doctors at the gala who wasn’t in the hospital’s employ. Instead, he ran a private practice and held privileges at Lakeview.

He smirked with all the arrogance I’d come to expect from him over the years. Hayes was a talented clinician, and I respected his skill, but he never missed an opportunity to remind us that his chosen path bought him medical autonomy while those of us employed by the hospital were just cogs in a corporate machine, answering to suit-wearing administrators who cared far more about the bottom line than the patients downstairs.

He wasn’t exactly wrong, but I generally didn’t like his attitude.

“Am I right?” he asked Dr. Hirschi. “Will you be keeping those new machines locked up in the OR storage bays?”

“They’ll never leave the surgical floor.” Dr. Hirschi flicked his wrist in a dismissive gesture that made Dr. Hayes roll his eyes. “That’s how things work in a hospital. Equipment is assigned to certain departments.”

“And I bet the ultrasound machine you guys use in the ER is a decade old.”

I couldn’t deny it. “Maybe older. And we have to share it with the ICU.”

Dr. Hirschi frowned, and I knew that I should care that I was probably pissing him off, but it seemed that I had a limited amount of shits to give when it came to keeping the man happy, even if my promotion was on the line.

Then, I saw her. There was a shift in the crowd to my right, and I had a clear line of sight to the bar. It was that long, dark brown hair that caught my attention, and I forgot about the people around me, even as Hayes and Hirschi got into a somewhat heated debate about the advantages of private practice versus a hospital with corporate oversight.

Zoey’s body was wrapped in a strapless dress made of midnight blue silk. There was a slit up the side and I saw a flash of her toned leg as she stepped closer to the man she was speaking with. A smile lit up her face, and I felt a stab of vicious jealousy until he turned his head, and I got a good look at his face.

Jake. Zoey’s brother.

One of the few men I’d be okay with her spending time with while she looked so beautiful and everyone thought she was single.

“I’m bored with this conversation,” Delilah said, gripping my arm. “Dance with me, Ford.”

I opened my mouth to decline, but Dr. Hirschi chuckled and spoke before I could.

“You kids go ahead. Have some fun.”

Delilah’s grip on my arm tightened until her fingernails dug into me even through my tuxedo jacket, and she pulled me toward the dance floor. I could have pulled away, but I didn’t see a way to do it without causing a scene.

There was a string quartet playing on a small stage, and a few other couples were dancing. My hands settled on Delilah’s hips as she looped her arms around my neck and pressed herself closer to me. Tightening my grip to keep her in place, I shifted back, purposefully keeping as much space as I could between us. She pouted as she looked up at me.

“Is there something wrong? You seem so stiff…”

I sighed through my nose, biting back the urge to tell her that I’d rather be anywhere else than in her arms. It felt too much like a betrayal of the woman I should have been spending time with.

Think of the job. There’s too much riding on this.