Page 9 of Lovesick

“Yes. Do you have patients?” She should have asked that first.

“I’m finishing up with a laceration. Can I call you back?”

“Sure. Don’t you have a receptionist or nurse?”

“She’s out today. She’s only part-time.”

Note to self: get the doc a full-time nurse. “Why don’t you just come to my office at noon—unless you have a medical emergency, of course.”

There was a pause. Had she been heavy-handed? She was used to running the show. Was she treating him like an employee? Damn.

“Okay. I need to talk to you anyway. Noon.” He hung up and her gut felt like he’d just punched it with a pitchfork. Damn. Damn. Damn. He needed to talk to her? Based on his less than enthusiastic tone of voice, it didn’t sound like anything she wanted to hear. It didn’t sound like he wanted to come to her office early to ravage her. How could she have been so wrong about their connection?

Time to act like a professional adult, Louise. She had responsibilities. A lot of people depended on her, their jobs depended on her convincing the board to remain a family-owned company. She needed to get Dr. Max out of her head so she could save his damn job.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled her chair up to her desk, turned on her monitor, and tapped on her keyboard to bring her computer to life. She loaded up the event schedule and operations plan and put on her thinking cap. They’d need to come up with something special, something that the corporate types would never do because it was outside the box, something that would bring people into the store to buy things small and large.

Something that Dr. Max could get involved in.

* * *

Max puthis chin in his hand and stared at his phone for a long time. How could that have felt so bad? That was wrong. He had no idea what he was doing. Forgetting about the laceration he’d just finished stitching, when he heard movement in the next room, he jumped from behind his desk, he went back into the examining room to dismiss his patient.

Once he closed the door behind his patient, Max checked his watch. It was twenty minutes before noon. Hell, he had to see her, to make things right, to make up for being so cold. Taking off his white jacket and moving the stethoscope from his neck, he flipped the sign on his door to Closed, locked up and left.

Determined to be gracious, but to not give in to his lust-wish, he marched relentlessly to her office, gathering his defenses against her charm as he went. But at the same time, the seeds of anticipation grew into sparks, then flames of excitement until he forgot why he needed to say no to dinner. Could one dinner with a lovely, exciting, woman hurt?

Nope, his libido told him. It definitely couldn’t hurt. The rest of him, the parts that had the power to reason, had been shut down, overpowered and overwhelmed by his need, the drive to feel those lips again on his. Man, was he pathetic.

This kind of self-denial wasn’t healthy. He should get this out of his system. One dinner. Maybe another kiss. A cold shower. No more Louise. Then he promised himself he’d tell Nick to fix him up with that cousin of his he’d been bugging him about. Because he was apparently past his limit of ability to live like a monk.

Anything was better than pretending he wasn’t a man with needs, but Louise was not the answer. There were other, less complicated women. He could be discreet. Tim never had to know a thing about his dad’s love life. Or rather sex life—because that’s what this was really all about. He’d deprived himself too long and now he was overreacting to the first sexy woman who kissed him. That had to be what was going on.

He reached the corporate outer office area where a woman on the phone nodded at him and waved to the door of Louise’s office. It was open. He peeked inside, unsure of whether he’d be intruding.

She sat back in her chair, phone to her ear, all business in her voice but with a smile on her face. He knocked on the doorjamb and stepped forward when she hung up.

* * *

Maybe she oughtto be alarmed at the sudden pounding of her heart. Nothing she could remember made her more excited than the sight of Max at her door. Could she be that desperate for sex? For male attention from someone who wasn’t related to her? Or maybe she really was sick. Holding her hand on her chest as if she could still her heart, she stood.

“Come in.” Stupid thing to say considering he was already in. What the hell was she supposed to see him about? Then she remembered he was her doctor. Of sorts.

“How did my blood test turn out?” Sounding breathless, she knew she needed to make an effort to be more professional, less the helplessly smitten ingénue.

“You’re not pregnant.”

She laughed. It felt good. She waved a hand for him to take a seat and sat back down behind her desk even though she felt like leaping over it and dragging him to the couch.

“You look a hundred times better. How do you feel?”

He said it like he cared and that made her heart flip around like a trained seal. How could he own her so effortlessly, so easily? She’d never allowed a man to get the upper hand like this on her before.

But then she’d never met the likes of Max Pendleton before. Easygoing and handsome as hell and—

“I wanted to talk to you before the meeting you invited me to.”

“Oh? Talk away.”