Page 85 of Perfect Distraction
Andrew smiled at her. “You’ve helped me more than you’ll ever know, my beautiful girl.”
His words and the soft expression in his eyes made Lauren’s knees go weak. But he didn’t stop there, and the next sentence out of his mouth made her heart seize up, but not in a good way.
“You’ve been the perfect distraction during this miserable process and taken my mind off the worst thing I’ve ever been through.”
Lauren felt like she’d been punched in the stomach, and all the air left her lungs. She blinked. “Is that all I’ve been? A distraction?”
Andrew’s expression turned horrified. “That’s not what I—”
“Stop.” Lauren put her hand on the door handle. “I need to get out of here and talk to Kiara. There’s no telling what she thinks we’re doing in here.”
Andrew stood up. “Wait—”
“No. Not right now, we’ll talk later.” Lauren slipped through the door and shut it behind her. Her hands trembled, and her eyes filled with hot tears.
Not now. Keep it together. Focus on what happened before he called you a distraction… You can deal with that later.
Lauren dreaded facing Kiara and felt like she was walking straight toward a firing squad. As she feared, when she entered the workroom, Kiara and Emma were waiting, the room otherwise empty. Both were unsmiling with arms crossed in front of their chests, eyebrows raised.
Lauren opened her mouth to speak, but Emma cut her off. “Are you insane?” She turned to Kiara. “Also, I told you so.”
Lauren’s eyes widened at that last comment. “What do you mean, ‘you told her so?’ How long have you known?”
Kiara’s head whipped toward Lauren. “How long has there been something for her to know about?”
Lauren lifted a hand and rubbed her forehead, trying to ignore the sensation of a knife in her heart. She needed to deal with what Kiara saw before processing what Andrew had just said.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen.” She spoke quietly, aware that someone could enter the room at any minute. “I told him multiple times that I couldn’t get involved with him. And for the longest time nothing…inappropriate happened. We did start talking, and became friends, and I saw him a few times outside of work at Children’s Hospital—”
“And you spent Thanksgiving with his family,” Emma cut in.
“How did you know about that?” Lauren squeaked.
“Why do I not know any of this?” Kiara whined.
Emma uncrossed her arms and propped her hands on her hips.
“His sister, Jeni, invited me over for Thanksgiving. I said no, but then I just sort of found myself there…” Lauren lowered herself into her usual chair and slumped her shoulders. She looked between her two friends, knowing they were responding this way out of concern. “You guys, I’ve tried so hard to be professional, and ignore the way I feel about him. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I love it here, and I want to stay so badly, and I’m so terrified of what could happen if someone finds ou—” She stopped short when Dr. Patel came in.
“Kiara, can you make a renal ultrasound appointment for Mrs. Garcia? I’m not sure why her creatinine keeps rising…um, why is everyone staring at me?”
The three women were grouped in the middle of the floor and had all gone silent and focused on Dr. Patel when she entered.
Mothersmucker. Lauren froze. She was never cool in situations like this.
Kiara’s eyes widened.
Emma spoke quietly and smoothly. “Don’t mind us, Lauren was just telling us about a date she had this weekend. One that went horribly wrong.” She gave Lauren a hard look. “We’ll pick it back up, later.”
Dr. Patel accepted this, and Kiara returned to her computer. Lauren breathed a sigh of relief, though it was short-lived.
This conversation was far from over.
