Page 444 of The Doctors Will See You Now

“Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy my time in LA, but New York is my home. I belong in this city.”

“You grew up here?”

I nodded. “Born and raised.”

He winked. “A New Yorker through and through, huh?”

“Yep,” I answered with a smile. “I will always—” I started to add more insight into my NYC love, but I paused midsentence when someone said my name behind me.

I turned in my seat to find Nick walking toward me. No, striding toward me, with a determined look on his face.

“Nick?” I questioned the obvious. “What are you doing here?”

“I needed to talk to you,” he answered. His mouth morphed into a firm line when glanced at Conrad, and then when his gaze made its way back to me, he added, “I needed to see you.”

“But I sent you a message and said that I could do lunch tomorrow. How in the hell did you know I was here?”

“Harper and Ivy.”

Those little bitches.

I nodded toward Conrad at the table. “But I’m kind of in the middle of something here, Nick. I don’t have time to talk to you right now.” I started to say more, but he didn’t let me go any further.

“I couldn’t wait until tomorrow. And it’s okay, Char,” he said. “I understand that we’re not together, and it’s your right to go on dates, but I’m here because I don’t want it to be like that between us anymore.”

“This isn’t a—” I tried to explain, but he was a man on a mission, his words flowing past his lips quicker than I could insert anything into the conversation.

“I don’t want you going on dates with other men. And I sure as fuck don’t want to go on dates with other women.” The more words that flew out of his mouth, the louder his voice grew, and patrons within the swanky restaurant started to look toward our table. Most were just intrigued, but others appeared downright disgusted by our presence during their expensive dinner.

“This isn’t a date,” I said loud enough to force him to slow his rambling roll. “I’m not on a date, Nick,” I repeated. “This is Conrad Michaels, the CEO of Kennedy Medical Center.”

“It’s not a date?” he questioned, and the relief in his voice was nearly palpable.

“Not a date,” Conrad chimed in. “For one, my wife wouldn’t be too pleased with that, and two, this is actually a thank-you dinner for Charlotte. My organization has a lot of gratitude for everything she helped us achieve over the past year.”

Nick glanced back and forth between us. “So, it’s not a date?”

Good Lord, for a highly intelligent brain surgeon, he was acting kind of stupid.

I still had no clue why he was here, but it felt like he’d turned into a fucking broken record, and my opportunity to get answers was quickly fading away.

Not to mention, now the entire restaurant was staring at us.

I wasn’t sure if I would rather crawl under the table and hide my face or make an even bigger scene and sprint out of the restaurant like my ass was on fire.

“Have you lost your mind?” Charlotte whispered, horrified at the scene I’d created in La Porro, a five-star modern-American restaurant, on a busy Friday night.

I knew it was intended as rhetorical, but that didn’t stop its relevance from urging me to answer. “Maybe.” I shrugged helplessly. “But I’ve been thinking with my head for a long time, for as long as I can remember it being important, actually…”

Her eyes widened at my speech. She’d expected me to lessen the attention on us, but I was desperate. I saw at least four camera phones, and a whole lot more knowing faces, as a titter started to run through the restaurant about Dr. Neurotic.

As much as Will had been unfairly named, I had to admit, begrudgingly, of course, that they’d nailed me right on.

I grabbed a spare chair from the table behind me and took a seat.

“There’s never been an inner monologue weighing the options about whether to think analytically or to feel with emotion. It’s just been about the bottom line. Even when I broke up with you, it was a carefully calculated decision based on what I thought would be the consequences.”

She looked to the other guy she was sitting with, a hospital CEO she had been working with to recruit new physicians, thank fuck, but he graciously removed himself from consideration with a smirk and a lift of both hands.