Page 90 of Wild

"I've decided to accept your offer, if it still stands." Erin said it just like that, right after their first course arrived.

Mia raised her eyebrows, pushed a couple of stray strands off her face, and set her fork aside, keeping the knife in her hand.

"To keep working as my doctor?"

"Your doctor and everyone else's," Erin clarified.

Mia was elated inside, but she held it together because they were in public and she didn't want anyone photographing her jumping on the doctor.

"I figured it would take you longer to decide." Her gaze narrowed. "Are you sure, Erin? I don't want you to regret it later, or do it for us."

"I'm not doing it for us, Mia. I'm doing it for me." Erin didn't stop eating, calm in a way that had the singer genuinely surprised.

When she got back from the gym she'd seemed unsettled. She took a shower, and when she came out she had the same distant look on her face, and Mia had spent the whole time anxious, convinced she'd made a decision that was going to push them apart, or that she'd felt pressured into something.

"What's going on?" the singer asked when Erin sat down on the bed.

The doctor looked at her with those concrete-gray eyes and, without a word, picked up her phone, unlocked the screen, and held it out so Mia could read the message from her sister.

"Damn," Mia muttered, disbelieving and furious.

She locked the screen and tossed the phone aside, taking Erin's hand.

"I'm not going to tell you to ignore what she said or to forget it, because that's pointless—so I'll just say your sister is a complete bitch," she added, not holding back.

Erin glanced at her sideways, bit her lip, and then burst out laughing.

"Yeah, you might be right."

She let herself fall back and lay down beside her, and they didn't talk about it again, because there wasn't much to say about the reaction of someone that immature.

"Explain," Mia said, picking up her fork again.

"I need this change. My whole life has always been so structured that the idea of going back to the same thing suffocates me. I think deep down I already knew it when Violette offered me the chance to come with you on tour—that's why I said yes. I was burning out, Mia. I was in survival mode with nothing to look forward to." Erin paused to take a sip of water. "I can't go back to that, and I don't want to. I love my work and I don't want to change it, but I don't need to be in a hospital to feel good about doing it."

Mia listened carefully, because this was the second time Erin had opened up to her like this, and she felt like they were moving in the right direction.

"As for us—the fact that I'm your doctor can't mix with what we have or what we're trying to have. We'll keep separate rooms at hotels…"

"That's a waste of money, but fine," Mia said.

"I agree." Erin's soft smile undid the singer. "But that's how it has to be. As for us"—the doctor gestured between them—"I don't want things getting blurred. If I tell you something for your health, you do it, end of story. You don't push back just because there's something between us and you feel like you can."

Mia's smile curved and Erin's stomach dropped.

"Okay, what else?"

"I'll need days off. At least two a week when you're not on tour, and a couple weeks of vacation we can work around your schedule. On tour, it'll be like it is now—I stay with you the whole time."

"Damn, Dooley, you're a hell of a negotiator," the singer teased.

"I'm not done. I want full decision-making authority. I shouldn't have to negotiate with Jude every time I decide something needs to be canceled because you need rest."

"That's going to be trickier." Mia bit her lip. "If I tell him you have authority over him, he's going to push back and he won't accept that condition. It won't affect the job offer—if I say I want you, that's final—but Jude loves having everyone do what he says, not the other way around. I'm only telling you because it'll probably be a tense negotiation."

"I'm not worried about whatever conditions Jude wants to impose on me or anything he objects to. What actually worries me is the way he handles everything connected to your fainting. He doesn't prioritize your health, Mia, and that has to come before any paycheck."

Erin hadn't planned on bringing it up right then, but she didn't want to let the opening pass either.