Monday
The chair below me squeaked as I rolled across the small clinical room. According to my planner, in approximately five minutes, I’d have a new patient walking through the door. That in itself wasn’t entirely unusual, but I’d be lying if I said the name on the patient file didn’t make my cock twitch to life.
Sophia Mitchell.
The possibility that it was her was small. There were thousands of women named Sophia across Boston, and I doubted all of them went by Sophie. But just the mention of her name—the name I’d come to know from eavesdropping on her yesterday—was enough to excite me.
Why was I so intrigued by her to begin with?
My foot tapped incessantly against the vinyl floor. At any moment, a nurse would bring this patient through my door, and I had to chill the fuck out. The likelihood that it was her was so small, so absurd, that it would be a horrible twist of fate for her to end up in my room. And if it wasn’t her, I needed to stop thinking about how many ways I wanted to take her, because a half-erect dick poking out of my scrubs was not a good first impression for an IVF doctor.
The door handle wiggled and pulled free. I sucked in a sharp breath.
God fucking dammit.
My throat was suddenly filled with a lump, chased by my quickening pulse. Sophie, dressed in a little yellow sundress and sandals, stared directly at me, eyes widened in what I could only assume was horror. She turned to the nurse, her face paling and making her freckles stand out more than they already did. If I wasn’t so stunned myself I would have taken the time to appreciate how beautiful she looked.
“Is this a joke?” She asked quietly, her pretty mouth barely forming the words.
Janice, the nurse, stared back in confusion. “Uh…”
“It’s alright, Jan. I’ll handle it,” I said, the words feeling hollow. She glanced between me and Sophie, the concern dripping from her features. She nodded to herself, seeming to accept the situation, then turned and headed out of the room, leaving me alone with a horrified Sophie in my doorway.
“It’s a prank. This has to be a prank,” she whispered, her fingers shaking as they touched her lips. I remembered she did the same thing when she saw me notice her watching me from her window, and… fuck, now I was back to thinking about that.
“I can assure you, little voyeur, that I had no idea that the ‘Sophia Mitchell’ on my appointment calendar was you,” I said, and like a freight train full of boulders, the regret of calling her out hit me. The moment it processed for her, her cheeks heated, red as a sunburn, and she honestly looked like she wanted to murder me.
I’d probably let her.
“Come on in.”
Her shoulders rose and fell with each exasperated breath. Her nostrils flared with every exhale, and if we were in one of Jamey’s cartoons, she’d be physically steaming. “You want me to come in there? With you? And talk about my in vitro fertilization treatment? Absolutely not.”
“Come on. I’ll keep it professional,” I insisted, already knowing deep down in my gut that I absolutely could not do that.
“You just called me a voyeur,” she spat, a little hint of venom in her words. “You call that being professional?”
She was right. I could admit that. “Won’t happen again,” I said, raising my right hand and crossing my left over my chest. “Scouts honor.”
Her eyes narrowed, suspicion clouding her vision. “You were a scout?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Ugh,” she scolded in disgust, turning on the ball of her foot. “I’m out of here.”
I was on my feet before I could even make the decision. I bolted to the door, each step matching two of hers, and caught her wrist in my hand only a meter from the doorway.
She swiveled again, bright blue eyes blazing as she glared up at me. I held her wrist tight enough to ensure she wasn’t going anywhere, but loose enough not to hurt her. Not only did I not want a medical malpractice lawsuit on my hands, but something about her made me want to hold her, comfort her. “Listen to me,” I said softly, my gaze flicking down the hall to ensure we were alone before landing back on her captivating stare. “You’ve set aside your time and your money to be here. You want this. There isn’t a better treatment facility in Boston, and you know that. Get your money’s worth, Sophie. Talk to me.”
Her face softened a little, though still etched with annoyance and anger around the edges.
“I’ve looked at your file,” I continued. I pulled her toward me, just an inch, and she let me. Her breath hitched, her pulse below my fingertips a steady, too-fast drum. “I know why you’re here. Let me help you.”
She steeled her jaw as she mulled over her options. I could practically see the gears turning in her mind.
“I can help you,” I whispered. “I want to help you.” I meant it. Truly, from somewhere deep in my iced-over heart, I wanted to help her. I’d seen patients like her before, I knew how hard it was.
Slowly, she wiggled her wrist from my grasp and rubbed the skin I’d covered. “Fine,” she murmured, “But you’re not putting anything inside of me.”
I snorted, unable to contain the chuckle sneaking up my throat. “Deal,” I said firmly. I tried to disguise my grin.
————
“So, you have polycystic ovarian syndrome, correct?”
She nodded her reply. The conversation was heavily one-sided, with me asking questions about her health and her giving short, one-word answers or nothing at all, and for once I found myself wishing that my patient would have a conversation with me during the questioning process.
“Did your mother have any issues with pregnancy?”
“No,” she said. I waited for more, but she didn’t open her mouth again. For fucks sake.
“No problems at all? That’s unusual. Often reproductive issues like this are hereditary.”
“If she did, she never told me. She had my brother, Aaron, when she was twenty-three. Then me four years later.” Her gaze was fixed on one of the posters on the wall—a mother holding her baby, smiles on both of their faces, and below them, quotes from thank-you notes our office had received. My patients always stared at that one, always imagining themselves as the mother in the photo, but it broke my heart to watch her do it.
“Okay. Let’s get some bloodwork done to check your hormone levels and see what’s going on there, alright? In the meantime, we’ll need to do a pregnancy test to ensure you’re not currently pregnant as the medications we’ll need to put you on could interfere—”
“I’m not pregnant,” she cut in, her words like a knife.
“I understand. But we need to double check, okay?”
She crossed her arms over her chest as she slowly dragged her gaze back to me. “Fine. Whatever.”
Quickly, I shot a message to Jan, requesting she take Sophie for her pregnancy test before we got into the nitty-gritty. Might as well get that out of the way before I said what I needed to next—I knew she wasn’t going to like it, but it was standard procedure for our PCOS patients. “We’ll also need to do an internal ultrasound to make sure there are no cysts inside your uterus.”
Her face paled as she stared me down, her lips parting just a hair as she breathed in. “I don’t feel comfortable with that.”
“I’ll schedule it with our ultrasound technician. I wouldn’t be the one to do that,” I explained. Relief washed over her face, and I kicked myself for hating how much she clearly didn’t want me to touch her. I can change your mind.
“Fine.”
A knock on the door cut the tension. Jan poked her head inside, a little plastic cup held in one hand.
“Jan’s going to take you to do your test, then once we have the results we can continue.”
Sophie didn’t look at her. Instead, she looked at me, something unreadable in those bright blue eyes, something similar to fear but not quite the same. I could put the pieces together from my years as a reproductive specialist, I knew the look, despite it being so specific, so different. I knew she didn’t want to take the test, and I knew exactly why. She didn’t want another negative. Didn’t want to see it, to hear the words. Didn’t want it to hurt her again.
“I know,” I said quietly, pursing my lips together for emphasis. “We have to check, Soph.”
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she nodded her head before picking herself up and defeatedly following a confused Janice out the door. And even though I had a mountain of paperwork to deal with and could have spent the next ten minutes getting things done, I couldn’t do anything except think about her every second she was out of my room.
————
“I’m sorry for yesterday.”
My leg bounced again as I stared at the screen, ticking off boxes. It was the first time she’d spoken since coming back from her pregnancy test, and I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. “That’s unnecessary,” I said blandly, trying my best to keep my eyes off her body as I ticked ‘physically fit.’
“I want you to know that I don’t expect you to actually have dinner with my parents,” she said. She was wringing her hands in her lap, something she’d done yesterday before running across our joined lawns and grabbing me the same way I’d done to her ten minutes ago. I wondered if it was her way of dealing with nerves. “I’ll figure something out. Tell them I got pregnant and that you died or something.”
I hid my smirk with the back of my hand. “Already planning my death, Soph?”
The glare she leveled at me told me that yes, she definitely was.
“Honestly, it’s fine,” I continued. I wrapped my fingers around my knee, forcing my leg to stop bouncing. “I don’t mind pretending to be your fiancé. I’m happy to have dinner with your parents if you need.”
“There’s really no need—”
“Consider it a favor.” I turned my chair toward her. I knew what had to be done—a favor for a favor. My mom couldn’t take Jamey forever, and it was already becoming a hassle after only a few days. “And besides, I already know how you can pay me back.”
Confusion rippled across her face before making the stark shift into angered shock. Her brows rose, her nostrils flared again, and god fucking dammit if I wasn’t already confused about how I’d upset her again, I’d be transfixed on how cute she looked when she’s mad.
She stood from her chair, purse clutched in one fisted hand. My mind spun, combing through thought after thought at how I’d said something offensive. “Are you fucking serious?” She hissed, the words icy and frigid, wrought with annoyance and a lack of patience. “What kind of woman do you think I am?”
I could physically feel it click in my mind.
“Whoa, whoa, hold on.” I rolled my chair back a foot, putting some precious distance between us. “That’s not what I meant—”
“Bullshit.” The laugh that seeped from her wasn’t one of joy or humor. No, it was angry, filled with contempt and shock and disbelief within herself. “Is this what you do with your patients? Get them all drugged up on whatever magic fertility potions you guys use and then fuck them?”
I wanted to laugh. It sounded like a joke, but from the look on her face, I knew damn well it wasn’t. “Absolutely not. Can you let me explain?”
“No need,” she seethed, taking one step toward the door. “I hope you enjoy bad reviews and legal action.”
“Sophie—”
Metal crashed against metal. The chair she’d been in toppled, clanging against a cart with the blood testing kit atop it, sending it spinning. Her foot had caught, and I stood, crossing the distance faster than I thought I could. Down, down, down, she went toward the floor at lightning speed, and I couldn’t think of anything other than grabbing her and wrapping my arms around her to avoid the fall.
With one hand on the small of her back and the other wrapped around her wrist as I’d done before, I held her minimal weight. Heart pounding and eyes wild, she stared up at me, her lips parted in shock and confusion as to how we’d ended up in the position we were in.
The temptation to press my lips to hers overwhelmed me at once, like a grease fire spreading, one that could only be tamped down, not put out. It was wrong and unprofessional, but there was a pull there, one that had hit me the first time I’d seen her that night checking her mail, one that hadn’t left me since. She was intoxicating, even in her anger.
Righting us before I could get the chance to give in to temptation, I made sure she was steady on her feet before putting space between us again. I needed to breathe, to calm down, to regain control of myself so I didn’t end up with a class-action lawsuit on my hands.
I pushed my hands through my hair, smoothing back the loose tendrils that had escaped around my face. “I just wanted to ask you to watch my son.”
Her hand was on the door handle, a second from leaving, but she didn’t look away from me.
“His nanny quit. I can’t find anyone else. You’re next door, and I heard you had babysitting experience and worked from home,” I rapid-fired, hoping it would clear up the confusion long enough for her to stay. My breath was heavy, quick. Why do you affect me like this?
“You just want me to watch your kid?”
I nodded.
“Can I think about it?”
“Of course.”
She turned the handle. “Okay. I’ll, uh, make another appointment for my bloodwork.”
I nodded as she opened the door, unable to take my eyes off her as she squeezed through, the door held half-closed by the chair on the floor. Despite everything, the IVF, the fake engagement, her goddamn hotheadedness, her angering curiosity—I just wanted her to come back. I wanted to drag her back in, wrap my arms around her, kiss her and fucking take her on the examining table, shredding the paper covering it like confetti as I buried myself inside of her.
This was bad.
This was really, horribly, fucking bad.
