Page 20 of The Love Operation

“I find myself thinking about you all the time,” he says. “I’ve never been this attracted to anyone in my life. I know you’re right. But then, these little what-ifs keep popping up in my mind. What if we went out? Determined if this was just lust or maybe—”

“Mr. Thompson—”

“Please call me Isaac.”

I shake my head. “Maybe what? Maybe, if circumstances were very different, but as it stands right now, there is no way. None. People would accuse me of getting the chief position because we were dating. If it didn’t work out, you might vote against me out of spite.”

“I wouldn’t do that. I’ve done my homework. I already know you’d make a great chief. What could theoretically happen between us wouldn’t change my professional opinion of you. You’re talented, hardworking. Deserving. And you have my word.”

“How do I know your word means anything?” I start to pace. “But even if that was true, I have to be very careful. I take risks every single day. It’s a part of my job. It’s why I’ve been successful, but this can’t be one of them.”

His face turns serious, eliciting a crackling sensation all over my body. “Can you really look me in the eye and tell me you feel nothing?”

I turn my head, breaking our eye contact. “What I feel doesn’t matter.”

My chest aches. I want to give in, more than he knows. Because he’s right. I feel something here, even though I’ve tried to deny it. And if he had any other job, I’d say yes in a heartbeat.

I swallow the lump in my throat as he steps nearer.

“One date,” he whispers, so close to my ear that I feel his breath against the side of my face.

A shiver scurries across my skin, like the gentle caress from the wings on those fairies that made his suit.

“One date,” he says again. “Maybe we’ll hate each other, and we can put this behind us.”

“What if we find out we do have something? Then it’s torture because we can’t do anything about it.” A cloud wisp slowly moves across the sky. The breeze catches the edge of my hair, a soft reminder that everything between us is already in motion.

He shrugs. “If we have something . . . then we figure out how to overcome the barriers. Love makes room.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means—go on one date with me, a real one, where we really get to know each other, and then we figure everything else out once we know what we’re dealing with.”

“And if we don’t have something, you won’t let it influence your vote for chief.”

“I’m a businessman. Like you said, I wouldn’t be where I am now if I let my heart get in the way of my head. I know how to separate the two.”

“And if we did work out . . .”

“A bridge we cross when we come to it.”

When.

I think back to all my other relationships, all my failed relationships. I picture saying yes to Isaac, and then I picture our relationship after a few months of bliss, dissolving like all the others.

Something’s wrong with my dating life, and until I figure out what it is, why all my relationships end when I never see the end coming, then I can’t take this kind of risk. There’s too much at stake.

I shake my head. “I can’t,” I whisper. Because I’ve worked too hard to open myself up to this kind of vulnerability.

He doesn’t get it. He can’t. He’s a White man. Everyone would excuse him. But my character would be called into question if anyone got whiff of even one date. This coffee meetup was already too risky.

He steps in front of me then. Our eyes collide like storm clouds, lightning striking between them. My chest rises and falls faster. My temperature spikes. My whole body aches to lean in, to kiss his lips that are as lush as Harriet’s greenery.

“It doesn’t have to be a date,” he says, almost pleading. Gone is his corporate charm. He’s laying himself out there. There’s raw desire in his eyes, and it’s not just sexual. That’s the worst part of all. “We can go out, as friends,” he adds. “Cordelia.” He says my name like he’s memorizing it. Like he wants to write it into his bones. “Just one night. Just one damn night where we pretend none of it matters. To see.”

His fingers twitch at his sides like he wants to reach for me but isn’t sure he should. I want him to. Just once.

And then my phone chimes. I don’t know who it is, but it reminds me that I have work to do—rounds, then surgery.