Page 26 of Auctioned to the Billionaire Surgeon

“Yes, well, you told me to make the decision since Janice was out, and, well, she was the best candidate by far, but…” she trailed off, her eyes widening, the look on her face desperate.

“What is it, Cleo? Can you just spit it out, please? I have a patient waiting, and I’m still supposed to meet this person you’re not so helpfully telling me about…”

“Yes, I know that, of course, but see, youalwayshave a patient waiting, so there’s no good time to talk to you, and… well, I didn’t want to discriminate against her based on how she looks…”

“What?” I bit out, stopping walking altogether. I stared at the small woman before me, aghast. How could this kind woman I’d known for ten years be discriminatory? She was the kind of person who didn’t care about race, or gender, or anything that made a person different for any reason. “Of course we would never discriminate,” I lowered my voice and looked around. People were staring at us. “Foranyreason at all.”

A look of relief crossed her face, and a sense of unease started to grow inside me. “What could be so startling about how this person looks to even make you consider not hiring them?” I started walking towards the reception area again, thistime with a little trepidation. From the look on her face, it wouldn’t be something simple or basic, like gender or age or anything like that. Was the person deformed? Were they missing a nose? That wouldn’t matter at all to me, but we worked with so many children. They were extremely blunt and insensitive with people, so that could be an issue.

The same thing could be a problem if they had a ton of facial piercings, or huge ear gauges, or were covered in tattoos. My mind raced as we approached the door. “Just tell me what it is.”

“Well,” Cleo was wringing her hands now, and I was starting to sweat. “It’s just that she’s so…”

I opened the door and stopped in my tracks, my mouth falling open.

“…beautiful.” Cleo finally finished as I stared at the vision in front of me.

The new receptionist was behind the desk, smiling and talking to a child who was trying to hide behind his mother but smiling shyly back at her. She had long, thick black hair that flowed in shiny waves down her back and over her shoulders. She had pale skin, huge blue eyes, and bright red, full lips. Her scrubs weren’t tight, but they couldn’t hide her amazing figure. She was, in a word, gorgeous. And every dad in the reception area was openly staring at her, their eyes glued to some part of her, whether it was her tits, her eyes, or her lips.

“Oh,” I breathed. “Jesus.”

Cleo’s smile grew strained the longer I stared at the new woman.

And then the woman looked up and our eyes locked. The smile left her face and was quickly replaced by a scowl.

Cleo made a noise of startled surprise, but she moved bravely forward. She chose to ignore the obvious tension between me and the new receptionist.

“Dr. Lanetti,” she said, turning to the new woman, whose look of scorn was quickly replaced with one of horror as it dawned on her who I was, “I’d likeyou to meet…”

“Hello, Ray Ann,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster.

“Um… hi,” she said awkwardly. I think it was one of the nicest things she’d ever said to me.

“Oh,” Cleo’s mouth formed a little ‘o.’ You know each other?”

I saw fear flash across Jelly’s face. I tried not to smirk, but it was hard. I had her, and she knew it. I could finally put our little war of words and attitude to rest right here and now. I could out her for being a hostess in a scandalous gentleman’s club and fire her. I could say she was an inappropriate person to be working with kids or some shit like that.

But just as I was getting set to lower the boom on her, I saw the light come back into Jelly’s eyes. I realized what she was thinking a split second later—there was no way in hell I could use the fact that she worked at Sugar against her. Because the only way I’d know she worked there is if I frequented Sugar.

She had me by the balls. Almost literally. And I stood to lose a whole hell of a lot more than she did. I could see the headlines now, “Paolo Lanetti, prominent children’s surgeon and son of Italian businessman Dominico Lanetti, discovered to be frequent flyer at his members-only gentleman’s club.”

The public, and my father, would rip me apart. No, I’d have to play nice. Or at least nice-er than I’d been planning. “It’s nice to see you,Ray Ann.” I put an emphasis on the name I knew she hated. Why she would prefer to be called Jelly, I had no idea. But whatever. “Welcome aboard,” I said with a big, fake smile.

She gave me an equally fake grin, fluttered her ridiculously long eyelashes at me and said, “It’s so good to see you again, Dr. Lanetti.”

Cleo, clueless to the undertones in the conversation, said, “Oh, good. I just knew you two would get along. Once we can get you a nurse’s position, Dr. Lanetti will be so good as your mentor, Ray Ann. He’s done so much for nurses in the physician’s assistant programs over the years.”

“Wait. What?” No. This couldn’t be happening. “I thoughtshe was a receptionist.”

“For now, she is. She’s waiting for one of the nursing positions to open up. Ray Ann chose this hospital so she could be mentored by one of the amazing doctors here. You know the hospital has an excellent reputation for working with the university students…”

The rest of what Cleo said turned to white noise as I realized two things. The stunning hostess who’d been haunting my dreams and sexual fantasies for months now was actuallynotsome brainless beauty who couldn’t do more than sling drinks. Yes, I’d known she was in college, but I figured it was some basic, easy degree. It wasn’t.

She was a nurse. She had to be smart as hell to be in the physician’s assistant program at West Bay University. And the other thing? I’d be spending a lot of time with her at work during the day. And still watching her like a hawk at night, wishing I could make some arrangement with her so I could fuck her out of my system, out of my thoughts, so I could move on and forget about her. I scrubbed a hand over my face.

“Great. That’s just… great.”

Cleo clapped her hands with happiness. “Oh, I hoped you two would hit it off. Now how do you know each other?”