18
Robyn
I take the dress bag from Carla. My insides are doing somersaults, but I’m trying not to show it. Ridge is going to be my date tomorrow night. To the biggest event on the hospital’s calendar. A function where I have to mingle with donors, and give a speech in front of a room full of people I have to charm out of their money.
And he’ll be standing right there for all of it.
Shit.
Carla is watching me from where she is perched on the edge of my desk. “You’ve gone a funny color. Are you okay?”
“Just thinking about tomorrow night. You know how much I hate those things, but I’m fine.” My voice comes out a little too high. I clear my throat.
“Last year was so much more difficult since it was your first time and you were still only Acting Head.”
“It feels just as bad this time around. Actually, it feels worse because I’m no longer Acting. I am the Head of Shifter Medicine.”
“That’s not why you’re so out of sorts. I know you.” She points a finger at me. “You’re thinking about going to the function with Ridge and you need to relax about it already. There are far worse dates a girl could be saddled with at one of these things.”
“Are there?”
“There are.” She ticks them off on her fingers. “There’s the one who spends the whole night talking about himself. Where he went to school, all of his relationships, his job, his hobbies. He’ll talk so much that you’ll switch off. Then there’s the one who can’t stop talking about his golf handicap. The one who wants to tell you, at length, about his ex-wife until it becomes clear that he’s still in love with her. All of these have actually happened to me, by the way.”
I laugh, in spite of myself. “I’ve had it happen to me, too.”
“Yep, the ones where you spend the whole night begging the universe to give you food poisoning, or a small fire, or for someone to please, please call you with a fake emergency so you can leave.”
“It’s true. I’ve done that for friends before.”
“Of course you have. You’re a doctor. Doctors are the queens of the fake emergency call.” She nudges my arm. “Look at it this way. Ridge is great eye candy. He’ll be there to keep you safe, which is no small thing right now, and he isn’t going to bore you to tears with small talk about whatever the hell the rich and important think is interesting these days.”
That much is true.
“And he’ll look the part. My only wish is that I could see him dressed up to the nines. It’ll be something to behold, alright. All of that muscle and?—”
“Carla.”
“What?” She lifts her shoulders, all innocence. “I’m only saying what every other woman in that room is going to be saying when you walk in.”
I make a noncommittal noise and tighten my fingers on the dress bag.
The problem is that Carla doesn’t know the half of it. If she knew that Ridge and I had slept together, that I told him yesterday that I still wanted him, that he shut me down, she would be singing a different tune.
I can’t tell her. I’m too embarrassed about the whole thing.
“You’re right,” I say. “There are worse dates.”
“Exactly, so get over yourself, put on the dress, and let me see how it looks.”
“Fine.”
I take the bag and head into my ensuite. I close the door behind me and look at the bag in my hands.
Carla has good taste. She’s seen me in a dress plenty of times. She knows what works and what doesn’t.
I unzip the bag, hang it on the back of the door, and start to undress. My work clothes go on the hook. I leave on my bra and underwear, pull the bag open, and then I stop.
My mouth goes a little dry.
