She groaned.
If Gracie’s astrologer had been in the room, Janet would have cheerfully strangled her. Why her mother believed that woman’s ridiculous predictions, she had no idea. Especially considering how Gracie’s own marriage had ended in disaster. You would think being married to Niles Hunter would have soured her mother on matrimony for good.
Alas, such was not the case.
Her mother possessed a starry-eyed belief in fairy-book-quality, happily ever after endings, and nothing could shake her faith.
Janet did not share her mother’s hopefulness. In fact, she often doubted whether she would ever marry at all. Her career meant everything to her. Physicians didn’t work a normal nine-to-five, forty-hour workweek. How could she adequately raise a child, please a husband, keep a home, and meet her job expectations?
Not that she didn’t want children of her own.
She did. Maybe. Some day. Then again, maybe helping thousands of children over the course of her career, versus creating one or two of her own, was her path.
Her mother would say it didn’t have to be an either-or proposition. That she could have kids now and throw herself fully into her practice when they went to school. But Janet wasn’t so sure about that. Look at her father. He’d been unable to stand the pressure of marriage, medical school, and a sick child, and had bailed. And he was a guy. How much harder would it be for a female doctor to juggle all those demands and still be an exemplary mother?
“Dr. Hunter...Janet?”
“Huh?” Janet blinked at Gage and realized she’d been woolgathering, the note and Saint Jude pin still clutched in her hand.
“Are you all right?” Gage asked, concern for her etched on his handsome features. “You seem upset.”
“I’m fine,” she replied brusquely.
Okay, maybe she was a little too brusque, but the last thing she needed was for him to feel sorry for her. Especially when she had this inexplicable urge to rest her head on those broad shoulders and tell him her darkest secrets, confide in him her deepest fears.
What in the heck was that about?
She shoved the pin and note back into the box, avoiding the tender expression in his eyes. She softened her tone a bit. No point taking her frustrations out on him. He wasn’t the cause. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
At some point he had come from behind his desk to stand beside hers. He reached over to pat her hand. “If you ever need to talk about anything, I’m here.”
Janet jerked her hand away, stunned by the heat she felt at his touch, shocked by her desire for more. “Thanks, that’s nice of you to offer, but I’ve got plenty of friends I can talk to.”
He shrugged. “The offer stands.”
She forced a smile, wondering why her heart thudded and her palms grew sweaty.
Don’t get involved with a man at work. You can’t get involved with a man at work. It’s out of the question. Forget it. No, no, no.
He was giving her this sultry brown-eyed stare that seared a path straight through her stomach. In that moment, she flashed back to her condo when that charcoal bag had been the only solid thing between them. Mentally, she embellished on the vision, imagined herself peeling back the charcoal bag and taking a peek at what lay beneath.
Hubba-hubba-hubba.
Yikes! Was she nuts?
Panicked at her reaction, she pushed back her chair and jumped to her feet. “Well, I better get to work. I’ve got patients to see.”
She had to squeeze past him on her way out the door. Her breasts brushed oh-so-briefly against his shoulder.
“Sorry.”
“’Scuse me.”
Flustered, she tried to move away at the same time he also sidestepped, and they ended up crushing even closer together. Was it her imagination or did he inhale sharply as if injured by contact with her?
Janet didn’t wait around to find out. Head down, she darted into the corridor.
What was happening? Her nice orderly life was falling apart. She’d finally achieved everything she had ever dreamed of and yet, she had never felt more out of control.
Between her mother’s relentless matchmaking, laying down the foundation of her budding career, and being sandwiched into that office with Gage Gregory, how in the world was she going to survive the next seven or eight months?
3
For the past two weeks the tension in the office had been pretty dicey, with Gage trying his damnedest to charm her and Janet doing her level best to resist. A certain spark existed between her and Gage, but it was only physical. And Janet never acted on her physical instincts.
By the time the Friday night charity event, that was doubling as a welcome reception for her and Gage, rolled around, Janet had come to terms with the fact that she found the man attractive.
So what? Big deal. She thought Kit Harrington was hot, and she had a minor crush on Scott Eastwood.
But you don’t share an office with Scott Eastwood or Kit Harrington, impish voice taunted. And Gage is every bit as dishy as those two guys. Come on, admit it, you’d like to take a big ole bite of him.
She’ll admit no such thing! It’s not true. Janet has never given in to your urgings. Thank heavens, rational voice replied.
Half of Saint Madeleine’s Hospital had shown up for the fancy shindig. Janet had been there only twenty minutes and she was ready to leave. Parties had never been her thing. She found them forced and artificial, unless you were tipsy, which she was not. Thankfully, CeeCee and Lacy were also attending.
“So tell us more about the naked guy you found on your terrace.” Red-haired CeeCee, a bubbly physical therapist, was getting married in December to her best friend, Dr. Jack Travis, in a dual wedding ceremony with Lacy and her fiancé, Dr. Bennett Sheridan. “How come sexy things like
