Page 66 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

I started walking. Toward the elevator, toward my office, toward the part of the morning that made sense.

I don't lose my temper. I don't get angry.

I'm not here to entertain you.

The elevator doors opened. I stepped in, pressed the button for my floor, and watched the numbers change.

And the presentation had been better for it. I didn't want that to be true. It was true.

The elevator stopped. The doors opened.

I stepped out into the familiar controlled chaos of the pediatric floor, the monitors and the ward full of children who were sick and depended on me.

Then a memory surfaced through the churn of the last hour, and I stopped walking in the middle of the corridor.

Wait.

I replayed it. His voice, the tilted head, the half-smile, that single quiet nod.

Go ahead, Lacey. You have my attention.

Five years of Bonds, clipped and even, the surname he handed out like a rank. And then, in front of the whole board, with no weight on it at all, my name.

Lacey.

28 - THE SHORE, SIGHTED

Derek

I watched her walk out.

She looked good. The outfit, the posture, how she walked like she was escaping.

I'd had Lacey Bonds figured for five years. Controlled, contained, extremely competent as a physician, but repressed, even mousy. Today she was different. She snapped at me in front of the board. The memory made me almost grin.

I was still turning it over when Thomas Aldridge leaned in from two seats down.

"I'm so sorry about that, Derek. That was completely uncalled for, and I want you to know—"

I cut him off. "What are you apologizing for?" Fucking ass kisser.

He stopped.

I looked at him, then around the table at the other faces, several of them wearing the same careful placating look that I hated.

"Allison." I looked at her. "You put Bonds in front of this board because she knows what the hospital needs and she'll stand behind it. Right?"

"That's correct," Allison said, brightly.

"Then I don't know what the apology's for."

She smiled. "I'm not apologizing, Mr. Harrington."

"She knows her data," I said. "She knows her cases. She answered every question I put to her without hedging once." I looked back at Aldridge. "That's what we want standing up there representing our hospital. Someone who won't fold the second the room gets uncomfortable. Someone with a damned backbone. She did good."

Looked good doing it too. I caught that on the way up and put it back down. Get a grip, Major.

I looked at the numbers I'd written during the presentation. There were a lot of them.