Monica stepped closer to him. “You will take her on. You will teach her what you can. And don’t make me have this conversation with you again. Do you understand?”
He spread his hands. “I guess there’s nothing I can do about this then.”
“I guess not.” She turned then and looked at me. “Sorry you had to see that. Dr. Hood will be a very good teacher once he gets his head out of his ass.” She strode past me, out into the hall, and disappeared, leaving me alone with the dickhead once again.
He looked at me and stroked his chin, looking almost thoughtful. “So your dad is Rees Court then, right? The rich board guy?”
“Cousin,” I said. “He’s my cousin.”
“Figured.” He shook his head. “That’s how you ended up with me. But joke’s on him. I’m a shit teacher.”
“I can see that.”
He laughed, but it didn’t remotely happy or amused. “Let’s not kid each other, all right? You don’t want me as your attending, and I sure as hell don’t want some inexperienced leech looking over my shoulder while I work. So how about you go request a transfer and we can be done with this game?”
I didn’t know what it was about him. Maybe it was the smug look on his face, or maybe it was what Monica had said to me in the hallway: do you have any clue how many people want to work with Piers Hood? I could guess all those people didn’t realize he was a total bastard—but even still, there must’ve been a reason he got away with not having any residents, and if people knew who he was, then he must’ve been very, very good at what he did.
Which meant he had the most to teach me here.
I wanted to be a surgeon, and not just any chop jockey. I wanted to be the best at what I did. I had good hands and I graduated top of my class from a great medical school. Even if I felt nervous and insecure, I knew I had the ability to do good things.
And my cousin had placed me with this jerk for a reason.
I wasn’t backing off. If he was as good as he seemed to think he was, then I wanted to learn everything he could do and more. I wanted to be the best, because that was the only way I could get ahead. Surgery was dominated by men, and I was always working from a position of weakness in the field simply because I was a woman. It pissed me off, and the more I stood there looking at his smug face, the angrier I got.
And honestly, I don’t make great choices when I get mad.
It might as well be a day of bad choices.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t think so.”
His eyebrows went up. “Excuse me?”
“You’re my attending. I get it, you hate me and aren’t interested in having me around, but I don’t care. Rees put me here, and your boss clearly thinks you have to teach me, so I’m sticking around.”
He leaned forward. “You realize I’m going to make your life a living hell?”
“Good. I hope so. And maybe you’ll teach me something while you’re being an asshole.”
He glared at me for a few seconds before he laughed again, leaning back, arms over his chest like he didn’t have a care in the world. But I saw the anger behind the false laughter, and I knew he was annoyed—hell, he was as pissed off as I felt.
“Here’s your first lesson then: you exist at my pleasure. Do you understand? You want to be my resident? Then you’ll follow my orders without complaint.”
“Fine,” I snapped.
“I don’t care if you think my instructions are below you. I don’t care if you think I’m just some cynical douchebag. You’ll listen, you’ll obey, and maybe you’ll make it through this alive. Understood?”
“Understood, Dr. Hood.”
“Good.” He turned back toward his desk. “You can call me Piers. Now get out of my office.”
I hesitated. “Where should I go?”
“Home? Somewhere else? I couldn’t care less. Be back here tomorrow morning at five sharp.”
I wanted to argue. I was supposed to spend the day with him getting acclimated, but I knew this was the best I’d get. I left, shutting his office door behind me, and stood in the hallway trying not to hyperventilate. I walked away, keeping myself steady, until I finally reached the elevators and collapsed onto a door windowsill overlooking downtown Philadelphia.
I never should’ve done that back there. It was a huge mistake, and I knew he was going to eat me alive. I should back out now, find his boss, Gina, beg her to assign me someone else, anyone else.
But no, damn it, no way. I’m not backing down now. That surly asshole back there thinks he’s god’s gift to the world and he’s too good to reach a resident. I was going to show him that I was more than worth his time.
I was going to show him that I could be better than him.
I pulled myself together, stood up, and stared at my reflection in the window. I could do this. I definitely could do it.
Probably.
I rode the elevator back down and went in search of the other residents, hoping I could tag along with their tour.
2
Piers
The bar was crowded as I hunched over my drink, wondering what the hell I did to deserve this fate.
Franco smirked at me over his whiskey. “I hear you got assigned a resident. How the hell did that happen?”
“You tell me.” I leaned back in the booth and swirled my beer. Franco was an old friend from back in my medical school days, and we didn’t see each other all that often anymore. He worked at another hospital across town. We met up at some rundown shithole spot around the corner from Westview. The floor was sticky, the tables looked like they
