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I scoff. It’s bitter as hell. I shake my head, forcing his hand away. “Save your half-baked apology for someone who actually cares. You think I’d consider having a child with a lying, cheating asshole like you? I’d never intentionally poison the genetic well like that.”
He growls in frustration, slamming a hand into the wall next to my head. “For Christ’s sake, Katy. I’ve been—” Before he can finish his statement, he’s dragged away from me by the back of his scrub shirt. “What the hell?” he barks.
“You better not be my new intern,” Bennett snarls, releasing him and shoving him in the opposite direction of me.
“Intern?” Zane snaps indignantly. “I’m a fifth-year ortho?—”
“I don’t care.” Bennett cuts him off, his voice sharp but not raised. He stands tall over Zane, using his extra three inches of height and fifteen pounds of muscle to his advantage. Zane doesn’t back down, but he’s also not stupid enough to fuck with a chief of a department either. “You’re on my floor talking to my resident in a way I don’t like. And from the looks of it, she doesn’t like it either.”
“This is personal between me and Katy and it doesn’t concern you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Dr. Barrows may have nine thousand cousins who know everyone in this building, but trust me, I’m not someone you want to mess with. Remember that. If I see you anywhere near her or if you put your hands on her again, I’ll get your impotent ass kicked off your service and out of this building.”
“Impotent?!” Zane squawks, and I choke on my laugh.
“I have a feeling it speaks to you on multiple levels. Now go.”
Zane gives Bennett a scathing look and then shifts to me with an expression that tells me he’s not done with me yet, then wisely leaves the floor.
Bennett turns to me, his features softening, his gaze all over me as if searching for signs of injury. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
I shake my head. “I’d never let him hurt me again.”
He considers this. “Your ex?”
“Yep.” I rock on my feet.
“The reason you’re celibate?” he surmises.
I shrug. “More or less. He slept with two women at the same time in our bed, but that part is sort of extra and irrelevant to the fact that he’s a cheating, lying, backstabbing swine. Anyway, thank you for stepping in like that. I apologize that you had to.”
He hovers over me, his eyes searching mine, something in his I can’t quite read. “You don’t have to thank me, and you certainly don’t have to apologize. I have a persistent ex like that too.”
My head bounces. “I heard you were divorced. That was another rumor.”
“It seems a lot is going around about me.” He sighs and looks around. “My ex is the one who got me fired.”
“Oh.” Because I don’t know what to say to that.
“In case the rumor mill churns up the circumstances surrounding it, the reasons are bullshit, manufactured, and based purely on my ex’s vengeful, vindictive nature that I didn’t realize she had when I married her.”
“Oh.” Again, that’s all I’ve got. Even though I’m dying to know, I won’t ask what she did to get him fired. “I’m so sorry. That sounds… fucking awful,” I say bluntly. “She tried to ruin your career?”
“Tried and almost succeeded.”
“But you’re here now,” I offer brightly.
“And she’s calling me here, which likely means she’s trying to ruin this for me too.”
“What a bitch. Maybe you just need someone to tell her to fuck off the way you just did Zane.”
His lips bounce. “Are you applying for the job?”
My eyes sparkle. “Absolutely.”
He grins, complete with a chin dimple and pearly white teeth. “Next time she calls the floor looking for me, I’ll have the nurses put you on.”
“Deal.”
