“Perhaps she was just going through an experimental phase,” Gage offered.
He was only trying to help. She appreciated that, but why did she feel as if he was overstepping his boundaries, taking liberties and assuming things he had no right to assume?
Decide, Janet. You can’t have it both ways. Either you want his help or you don’t.
“Experimental?” her father replied, the displeasure in his tone unmistakable. “Rebellious is more like it. She was simply trying to make me angry.”
It was true. In college she’d purposely dated ne’er-do-wells merely to irritate her father. At that stage in their relationship, she had abandoned seeking his approval and gone straight to driving him crazy. Negative attention was better than no attention. Right?
“Um...” Gracie spoke up for the first time since Janet’s father had entered the house. “Dinner’s ready; why don’t we all go into the dining room?”
“So, tell me about how you developed the Gregory method,” her father encouraged Gage as they entered the dining room. “I’ve heard all about you. Your story is amazing and an inspiration to young surgeons around the country. Plus, I also heard you were once a child actor. You know, I appeared in a few plays myself back in college. Seems we have a lot in common. And to think you’re dating my daughter.” He glanced at Janet as if he couldn’t possibly imagine what a man like Gage could see in her.
She should be accustomed to her father’s cavalier treatment by now. A leopard couldn’t change his spots. But still it hurt. On some foolish level, she kept secretly hoping that one day he would accept her for who she was and be proud of her.
Good thing you’re not holding your breath on that one. You’d have had a cerebral hemorrhage decades ago.
Janet helped Gracie set food on the table, then slipped into her chair next to Gage. He and her father were discussing the finer points of plastic surgery. It had been a long time, if ever, since she had seen her father so animated.
Why couldn’t she put that excited expression on his face? Why couldn’t he be as proud of her as he was of a man he didn’t even know?
And she felt something else. An ugly green-eyed emotion that made her ashamed of herself. Envy. Yes. She was jealous over a man who’d done in five minutes what she hadn’t been able to do in thirty years.
Win her father’s respect.
“So why did you leave plastics, Dr. Gregory, if you don’t mind my asking? Why the switch to pediatrics?”
Gage probably hadn’t picked up on it, but Janet clearly heard the disdain in her father’s voice when he said the word “pediatrics.” She knew he was uncomfortable around children. Throughout medical school she had tried to rally an interest in plastic surgery to please him, but she had excelled in working with children and more than one instructor had urged her to become a pediatrician.
Still, she pursued plastic surgery, until her father had refused to give her a recommendation for the internship program.
“Stop being so needy,” he’d snapped. “Stand on your own two feet. Be independent.”
After that, she’d joyfully embraced pediatrics, even though he turned his nose up at her chosen specialty.
Gage hesitated for a moment, weighing his words carefully. He was aware he was treading on eggshells. “After I invented the Gregory method, I felt as if I’d accomplished as much as I could in cosmetic surgery.”
Janet’s father shook his head. “It’s such a shame. A man of your talents wasting it on chicken pox and croup and bedwetters.”
Gage had to clench his fists to stay his anger. The man had insulted him. He thought of a smart retort but bit it back. What good would it do to make an enemy of Niles Hunter? Even though he considered the man a pompous windbag who did not deserve a daughter as fine as Janet or an ex-wife as sweet as Gracie.
“The Stroganoff is excellent,” Gage told Gracie to change the subject. “The best I’ve ever eaten.”
“Then you’ve never been to Moscow,” Janet’s father said. “Now that’s true beef stroganoff.”
What a snob. Gage wondered what was wrong with the man that he couldn’t pay his ex-wife a simple compliment. He was also beginning to understand what made Janet such a perfectionist and why she sometimes acted defensively with little provocation. Trying to please this uncompromising man couldn’t have been easy.
A new tenderness for her swept through him. After putting up with Niles Hunter for her entire life, she deserved a little extra TLC whether she recognized it or not. And Gage would love to be the man to give her that tender loving care if he could.
If she were his woman, he would indulge her with warm bubble baths, and he’d gently scrub her lush body with sweet-smelling soaps. Afterward he would wrap her in a towel warmed in the clothes dryer, then massage scented lotion into her silky skin.
He would surprise her with thoughtful tokens of his affection, from a fragrant bouquet of wildflowers to sexy notes tucked into her briefcase to a box of sinful chocolates left on her bed.
If she had a cold, he would plump up her pillows and serve her chicken soup in bed. He’d feed her ice chips from a spoon for her fever, buy her the softest tissues he could find, and put a humidifier in her room.
He would wash her car and keep the gas tank filled. He would grind her favorite coffee beans and program the coffeemaker to start just before she woke up every morning. He would rub her feet when she’d had a hard day at work. He would either help cook supper or order takeout.
If she were his, he would give her those things and so much more.
But she wasn’t his.
And probably never would be. They were too different, and they were both consumed with establishing their careers. Besides, he’d sworn never to get married again unless he knew
