Jenga sat next to her food bowl, which was now filled with dry kibbles, and stared accusingly up at him.
He sighed. “You’re not going to eat that, are you?”
He gave in and opened a new container of wet food from the cupboard, spooned out a glob, and shook it off into Jenga’s bowl. Jenga dove on it and he had to fend her off with one hand while using the spoon in the other to mix it up a little.
“Let me stir it, you fiend.” Olivia would give him a lecture, no doubt, if she came home and there was an uneaten bowl of dry food in the cat dish. He could hear it now.What did you do, try to poison my cat? Why wouldn’t she eat?
“Because she’s a spoiled little brat,” he answered. Jenga didn’t get wet food often—only when she had medicine to take, or when he came over to feed her, and she stared him down until he caved. Jenga erupted into a quiet purr as she devoured her dinner. “I hope you get fat and Olivia has to put you on a diet.”
He sometimes thought about getting a pet of his own, but the necessary commitment gave him anxiety. While responsibility was something he could handle, he didn’t have much time to himself. Work and family obligations kept him away from home. Olivia had to call on other people to care for her cat, and he didn’t want to be that kind of pet owner. Olivia loved her cat, but she was too busy for the furry little fiend. Being a doctor did that.
Growing up in the household they had, Olivia should have known better.
Both their parents were doctors as well. They’d never lacked money, but family time wasn’t something they had in abundance. Their father had been Chief of Medicine at UCLA Medical for over a decade, and was nearing retirement age. Mom worked under him as head of neurosurgery. Two doctorsworking hundred-hour weeks to maintain and progress their careers didn’t make for incredibly involved parents. Sure, he and Olivia had turned out okay, but given the firsthand experience they had with that sort of thing, he’d have thought Liv would be a little more conscientious in her choices.
When Jenga was finished and licking her paws daintily in satisfaction, he coaxed her into chasing a wind-up mouse across the kitchen floor. This lasted for all of ninety seconds before the lazy, food-stuffed cat gave up and stalked away to sleep on the third floor of an obnoxious carpeted cat tree.
With a shake of his head, he retrieved his briefcase and shoes from the entry. He wasn’t sticking around to watch Jenga nap. He had copious amounts of work to do, on top of planning his approaching evening with Cami. Today was Tuesday, which gave him three full days. In seventy-two hours, he was going to take her apart.
9
Wednesday afternoon, Olivia breezed into Des’s office, flopping a shiny leather purse onto one of his visitor chairs before lowering into the other one. Des arched a brow, eyeing his sister with expectation. He didn’t know what she wanted, but she never came to the office he shared with his business partner, Gabriel.
“Don’t look at me like that.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I just got off a twenty-four-hour shift.”
Des winced. When Liv wasn’t working, she was on-call. Trauma surgery was long, hard work. She did it well, and was well-compensated. If the designer label on her handbag was a testament to her paycheck, her half-assed hair bun and wrinkly blouse were a testament to her work ethic.
With a tap of his mouse, he closed his email then leaned back in his office chair, folding his hands in front of him. “So what brings you here instead of home for a nap?”
Liv leveled her eyes at him, mouth quirking up at the corners with an almost-smile. “Mom and Dad want you to come for dinner.”
He grimaced. He loved his family, but he dreaded meals with them. Having all three in one place just made it easier for them to gang up on him. None of them liked or approved of his line of work. He wasn’t keen to spend three hours listening to them theorize ways to improve his perfectly satisfactory life.
“When?” He picked up the small flip calendar on the corner of his mahogany desk. It wasn’t large enough to show his full schedule, but it gave him a decent idea of what his weeks looked like.
“Friday night.”
“No.” It came out faster than he’d intended, the denial too eager to be polite. No way would he cancel his plans with Cami, not for anything short of a natural disaster. While an evening of “constructive” family criticism did rank somewhere between a fender bender and a small tornado on his scale of things he’d be willing to endure, he tried to soften the blow: “I can’t.”
Olivia stared. “Do you even have anything on your little calendar for that night?”
“It’s not on my calendar,” he smirked, “but I do have plans. I can’t change them.”
“You know how hard it is for Mom, Dad, and me to have the same night off, Desmond.”
He hated when she used his full name. She used it as a not-so-subtle way of sayingI’m your big sister, and you should do what I say.
“Yes, I do. And you should all know better than to assume I don’t make plans for Friday nights. I need more than a few days’ notice.” His phrasing made it sound like his Fridays were busier than they were, but Liv didn’t need to know the ins and outs of his social calendar.
“What’s so important you can’t reschedule?” At the challenge in her voice, he scowled, but chose to remain silent. As only asister could, she narrowed in on the implication like a military targeting system…and fired. “Do you have a date?”
Something in the way she said it, incredulous and a bit smarmy, rankled. Des squared his shoulders. “As a matter of fact…”
“Are you shitting me?” Liv straightened in her seat, leaning forward like he’d told her the most scandalous political secret. He pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation, but she ignored him, bouncing in her chair, the motion threatening to unravel her bun completely. “That’s incredible. You have to bring her to dinner.”
“Like hell,” he scoffed. “Even if it was that kind of thing—and it’s not—there’s no way I would subject her to you people.”
“It’s not the kind of thing where you eat dinner?”
