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That knee-melting smile had almost made me surrender the strawberry lavender donut—but the dude had had everything he’d ever wanted in life. He could share for a change, I’d decided. (I still didn’t regret it after experiencing the sweet, fruity floral flavor and the transcendent, light texture of the donut.)
“So, wait,” Natalie said, pulling me back to my bedroom, my sister, my houseplant. “He works for a living?”
“Apparently.” I’d nearly asked him the same thing. He might have had a paying job, but he could’ve donated every cent back to the community and never noticed the loss.
Natalie looked up from her phone. “Are you sure it’s all terrible working with him? You said he looks just like Everett.”
“Trust me, his personality will douse that heat level.” Was it Natalie or Samantha who’d had the Everett Hardcastle poster in high school? I couldn’t remember.
“Hot? Rich? And he brought you donuts? Remind me what the downside is?”
“He was trying to butter me up.” But as he’d offered them, his smile had seemed tentative, and his offer had felt... sincere. Like he really did want a personal connection.
He wanted my approval so much that his gaze held something almost puppylike. As much as I hated to give the man who had everything something that he definitely didn’t need anyway, that need struck a chord in me. Maybe I was a sucker, but I couldn’t resist that look.
Guilt curdled in my stomach. Or the four donuts. He had just moved across the country, and he might not have any friends or family in the area. Money couldn’t buy those.
“What else did you talk about?” Natalie asked.
I threw myself back on my bed and groaned, as much from the discomfort of consuming that much sugar as trying to make sense of any part of the evening. “I asked him why he went into public health. He got a bad case of the measles as a kid. In boarding school.”
Even a severe, survivable case of the measles didn’t seem to require his level of solemnity. He was so sad, so withdrawn, I couldn’t help but try to comfort him.
Dumb.
“Boarding school?”
“I know. He didn’t have a clue that was completely outside of the realm of possibility for 99.9% of people on Earth.”
“Wow.” Natalie took Phil and set him back on his water tray, pulling my computer chair over instead.
Clearly there was something more going on for Davis with the measles thing. But I didn’t have the right inroad to ask—I didn’t know what avenue to pursue, except that there had to be something deeper.
For a moment, I’d seen a real person in those sapphire blue eyes.
And then the façade went up again.
I’d searched for a way to signal that he could tell me more, if he wanted. The only thing I came up with was a lyric from “Just Waiting,” a song I’d heard on nonstop on Natalie’s house cleaning playlist. I didn’t know who’d sung it.
And that was when everything started moving too fast. He was mad at me, slipping so easily into the superior silk-stocking role. Whatever rapport we’d built had dissipated faster than the buying power of my salary. Even his voice made it clear I was less than dirt to him. I was a sucker for someone who needed me, but clearly I was just as much of a stool pigeon to echo a virtual stranger’s anger that I certainly didn’t deserve.
Then I’d followed him and poked him in the chest—the muscle there didn’t give even a little bit—and he’d clasped my hand.
And then we weren’t fighting at all.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I moaned.
“Change into a nightgown.” Natalie immediately took over in mothering me. I usually didn’t appreciate it—our mom did her job just fine. But tonight she was five hundred miles away, so I wasn’t about to complain. “I’ll get you a bucket and a cool wet rag.”
I murmured my thanks. Scrubs weren’t exactly restrictive, but my stomach did feel better without the drawstring. Natalie brought me our mom’s equivalent of a trauma kit: a trash can lined with a plastic bag, a cool wet rag, Saltine crackers and clear soda.
I’d had more than enough carbonation already. I thanked her again and climbed in bed to wait out my sugar rush.
If that was what was making me nauseated.
I wouldn’t have checked my phone, but when it buzzed with a text, I had to make sure Davis Freaking Hardcastle hadn’t, like, charmed a nurse into giving him my number.
It was from Dr. Donaldson.The task force would look great on your research résumé, Cassidy, he said.It could help you get better projects at NIH. Please consider it. For me?
