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Cassidy Croft and Adam Donaldson. Here. Together.
And it only got worse once I saw what they were looking at.
Conversation with Dr. Donaldson outside of work topics wasn’t as hard as I’d feared—at least for the first half hour or so. Once we’d arrived at the convention center, he’d turned the topic to classic literature. The others at our table, residents who were part of the musical entertainment, didn’t have time for reading. I’d mostly done my reading as audiobooks on my commute for the last few years, but I’d still eked out a couple dozen books a year, several of them standbys, so we compared notes easily.
When I stopped pushing the conversation forward, Dr. Donaldson pulled out his phone. I resorted to people watching—a pair of residents at our table were either breaking up or getting together, and there was a strange energy about the way their body language seemed like both—until I glanced over and saw Davis Hardcastle’s face on Dr. Donaldson’s phone. It was a photo snapped on a sidewalk, but Philly didn’t have palm trees lining its streets. And who was that with him?
Dr. Donaldson scrolled down in the article to another picture: Davis and the woman in dark sunglasses at an outdoor café. In the next photo, Davis was tucking her hair behind her ear, leaning close to whisper to her.
The idea tugged at my gut.
That was ridiculous. I had no claim on Davis. I didn’t want one. Just because he’d written me funny and courteous emails for weeks didn’t mean I wanted that knee-weakening smile aimed at me every day.
The article ended with a pair of photos side by side. Davis and the woman laughing, and the two of them kissing. She’d taken the sunglasses off, and now I recognized her, too—from a movie Natalie and I had watched last month.
“Is that Davis?” The words were out before I could stop myself.
“No, I—no.” Dr. Donaldson startled and closed the browser tab, revealing the next tab: Davis’s profile on the Beaufort website. Dr. Donaldson turned off his phone screen.
I knew Davis well enough to recognize a photo—but Dr. Donaldson’s intense stare made it clear the first issue I needed to handle was getting caught reading over his shoulder. “Were you checking up on the new kid?” I tried to lighten the mood.
Dr. Donaldson laughed. Or I thought that was what the sound was supposed to approximate. “No, but ever since I Googled his brother on the plane, I’ve been getting headlines about him.”
“Ah.” I hadn’t tried to talk to Davis about his brother—he probably got enough of that—but Davis had snapped at me about Harper Tyne once. I vaguely remembered something about Harper and Everett dating a while back.
The woman in the pictures had dark hair, so unless Harper Tyne had dyed her trademark red tresses or donned a wig, this was definitely not her. “Can I see?” I finally asked.
Dr. Donaldson turned on his phone and pulled up the story again, scrolling back to the top of the page. “Oh, right, Jessica Stryker. Apparently they wrapped a movie together last week and have been canoodling ever since.”
The man seriously said canoodling. “Good for Everett, I guess?” Could I be the only one who couldn’t tell him and his brother apart—admittedly at a distance? “Do you think Davis ever gets followed by paparazzi?”
“Sometimes,” another voice cut into our conversation, “they even ask me questions directly.”
I looked up to find Davis standing behind us in a tux that had to have been custom made for him—not just because he was rich, but because nothing store bought could have fit and complimented his muscles that way. I hadn’t realized that was possible in a suit, but he was one hundred percent drool-worthy.
Except maybe his expression. His gaze rested on Dr. Donaldson’s phone, the pictures in plain sight. Dr. Donaldson and I had to look as guilty as I felt. “I—I didn’t—we—”
“Good gossip?” Davis asked.
Maybe his brother’s love life didn’t affect him. “It looks like Everett is dating someone,” Dr. Donaldson informed him.
Some emotion telegraphed across Davis’s eyebrows, his expression darkening for a fraction of a second. “Good for him,” he said. Then he turned for me. “I was hoping to schedule a time to go through the guidelines together. Defeat Debbie’s document dynasty.”
I tried to shake off my embarrassment and curiosity. If Davis could be professional about Dr. Donaldson and me snooping in his brother’s private life—or as private of a life as he got—I would save my self-recriminations for later. “You couldn’t email?” I tried for a teasing tone, but the tension from my guilt definitely tinted my voice.
“I know you prefer email, butI’dprefer not to go seventeen rounds with you trying to find an opening in your schedule. Not to mention dodging dastardly designs by Debbie over there.” He softened the request with the tiniest smile. “And my thesaurus could use the rest.”
I knew he had to be using some sort of study help, but he’d never admitted it before.
“Do you know,” Davis continued, his smile growing, “on the way here, I—”
Dr. Donaldson cleared his throat, excused himself, and noisily gathered his things. I hadn’t noticed that he had things other than his phone, but now his program and even his wallet seemed to require very loud care, especially for someone just going to the bathroom. If he’d been trying tonotinterrupt our conversation, he was failing.
Davis turned to watch him go. I braced myself for whatever Davis was sure to say about Dr. Donaldson and his supposed crush on me.
“So, next week,” Davis said.
Huh. I guess we’d both get a bye in this conversation—he wouldn’t have to talk about Everett, and I wouldn’t have to talk about Dr. Donaldson.
