Page 6 of The Love Operation

I glance at the clock. “Oh, by the way, I made the short list for chief.”

She slaps her desk. “You didn’t lead with that?”

I shrug.

Then she’s up, bouncing like we’re teenagers again. She pulls me to my feet and throws her arms around me.

I laugh, soaking in her congratulations—until my gaze lands on a stack of papers on her desk.

NeuroCognis is in bold type across the top, and it hits me: She hasn’t been talking much about the study, and it’s due to start—wait, tomorrow. For weeks, her memory study, the chief position, and occasionally my dating life have made up 90 percent of our conversations.

“How’s the study going? I can’t believe I’ve lost track of time. It’s tomorrow, right?” I ask, pulling away, and her face instantly goes twitchy. “What is it?” I plant my hands on my hips, ready to tear someone up. “Did they pull funding? Push the timeline? Tell me what happened—I’ll start a full mutiny.”

She chuckles, then sighs. “No, it’s not that. The study’s on. Everything’s going great, actually. It’s just that . . . you can’t be in it.”

“What?” My voice spikes like a patient’s leg when the electrocautery tool gets too close. Though, honestly, I can’t say I didn’t see this coming.

I’m well versed in NeuroCognis. I stood beside Delenn through the entire process—helped sketch out early ideas, sat in on pilot animal trials, read the IRB proposal before it was submitted.

She’d lit up when she first explained it: You know how memory works—neural pathway, reinforcement, long-term storage, right? What if we could shortcut that? What if we could optimize memory formation, make it instant?

Her plan: combine targeted brain stimulation with a novel drug cocktail to fast-track memory encoding and recall.

Watch a complex surgery once, remember every detail forever. No burnout. No endless repetition. Just surgical-level recall—on demand.

It could change how surgeons, pilots, and other high-performance professionals are trained.

I believed in her study then. I still do.

And yes, I want in, not just because I want to support her research, but because I want that edge. It would make me a better candidate for chief. A better chief.

“How do we get them to change their minds?” I ask.

Her shoulders drop. She hates disappointing me, but I’m not easily dissuaded. I go after what I want—with skill and relentless determination. One no is not the end for me.

My phone buzzes.

I glance at the screen. “It’s the clinic,” I say as I answer the call.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” my nurse Anna says, her voice with its usual tremble, “but your one o’clock is already here.”

Poor Anna. No matter how nice I am to her, she’s low-level terrified of me. “It’s twelve forty-five. You’re telling me this because . . .”

“Oh! Sorry. I should’ve started with that. It’s one of the bigwigs at the hospital. He’s seeing you for back pain.”

I roll my eyes. “Does he want preferential treatment?” I realize my tone is a little too sharp for Anna, so I take it down a notch. “I’ll be there at one o’clock. Not a minute before. If he has a problem with that, he can see Dahlia.”

“Dahlia offered, but he’ll only see you. And he refuses to put on a gown.”

My blood boils. Arrogant piece of . . . “Well, you tell him that my clinic starts at one o’clock. If he didn’t want to wait, he should’ve come at his appointment time.”

“But he’s—”

“No ‘buts.’ He might be able to throw his weight around with other providers, but he will not do that with me. One o’clock.” I pull the phone away from my face, then think of one more thing that makes me smile. “Oh, and Anna?”

“Yes, Dr. Wren?”

“You tell him that all my new patients get examined in a gown. No gown, no appointment.” Then I hang up.