Undeniably Enemies: Chapter 10

The worst thing about the emergency department is that it’s not very big. It’s one floor sectioned off into different patient areas with the waiting room on the other side of two giant metal, you shall not pass until we allow you to, doors. There’s a reason they call it a room, and it’s been feeling smaller and smaller every day.

“You never answered my text,” I say to Sorel, who’s floating down here from the family medicine department. She does that a couple of days a week, and it’s a bright spot for me. Sorel is awesome and has become one of my closest friends. And just as I said to Wren over text, I’ve never once pictured her naked or imagined fucking her. But even better than that, she’s a female, and with that, I get a different set of thoughts and opinions on things than I do with Owen, Bennett, or any of my other male friends.

“Text?” she questions and pulls out her phone only to remember before she searches it. “Right. Yes, I can do that. But you realize Serena has picked out every piece of furniture I’ve ever bought, and that isn’t a lot. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.”

Serena is Sorel’s identical twin sister. She works for Monroe Fashions and lives in Paris, so that doesn’t surprise me.

“I do realize that, but you’re my only female person who isn’t my family, and my mother has a lot of opinions, especially when it comes to design and color. It’s a couch. It shouldn’t be an exploration of every furniture store in the city. I need a moderator for her, and she likes you.”

“I like her too, but yeah, I can see how she’d be a lot when it comes to interior design. I’m there with you. I’m very good at sitting and feeling if it’s too firm.” She cackles and smacks my shoulder. “That’s totally what she said.”

I smile and laugh lightly. “It is. But in my world, is there ever a thing as too firm?”

Her nose scrunches, and she tucks her blonde hair behind her ears. “With couches? Yes. Anything else I’m unwilling to discuss with you.”

“Same.”

“Dr. Fritz-Reyes, I have the lab results for your patient in curtain three,” one of the nurses says.

Sorel rolls her eyes at me because the nurses still call her Fritz-Reyes even though she’s asked them not to since her marriage to Mason is fake, though obviously the nurses don’t know that part. She turns to the nurse. “Excellent. Please tell me they’re good, and I don’t have to admit this patient up to med-surg for observation. His wife will lose her fluffing mind, and we’ll have to admit her for anxiety management.”

“They’re good,” she assures her, and Sorel wipes at the imaginary sweat on her brow.

“Fabulous.” She turns back to me. “I’ll find you later for couch shopping.”

Sorel goes straight for her nurse and leaves me here with… no patients that need my immediate attention. It’s unheard of. It’s catastrophic. Because that means I now have to do my other job. Teaching.

I’ve successfully avoided Wren since the kitchen on Tuesday. Any interactions have been minimal and completely professional. No antagonistic comments. No sneering in my direction. Definitely no tasting my coffee or her lip gloss.

But two things have troubled me.

One, my dick twitches every freaking time I see her.

And two, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her.

With her here, I’m constantly on alert. Where is she and what’s she doing, and if I turn this corner, am I going to be forced to see her? My dick jumps like an excited puppy, desperate for her to pet it every time that happens. It’s ridiculous. It’s as though I’ve got no control, and control is the name of my goddamn game. At night when I leave here, I wonder if I’m going to randomly run into her or if she’s going to text me again. And when she does, despite saying I won’t engage, I always do.

One more hit. One more text. It’s as addicting as she is.

She’d called me scary hot, and when we’re alone together, I can feel an undercurrent buzzing between us. It was easier when I thought her hatred for me made her physically indifferent. But knowing she’s attracted to me…

Clearing that away, I go in search of my residents to see how they’re doing and make sure they haven’t killed any of my patients.

At least that’s the excuse I’m giving myself as I walk through the emergency department headed toward one intern in particular to whom I assigned a particular medical student. The intern who is soft and sweet and kind and not the least bit harsh. One who will teach and be enthusiastic and not treat her med student like a bottom feeder the way the rest do.

I’m just checking on them.

Because it’s my job to do so as her boss and her brother’s best friend while ensuring that her Thursday starts better than her Monday did. And to prove to myself that this woman does not control my mind or my dick.

I’ve hardly noticed that the pink shirt under her scrubs matches the natural color in her cheeks and lips or how her hair is in a ponytail today instead of a bun—thank God—and I certainly don’t give a shit if it still showcases the delicate features of her neck and face.

Turning the corner, I come to an abrupt halt. Wren is talking to Daffodil with a beaming smile on her face. Beaming smiles have no place in the ER, but she’s wearing one all the same. Maybe I should have given her a different resident. I told Owen I wasn’t playing favorites or doing special favors. Next week I should mix this up. It’s only fair that way.

When a laugh flees her lips and I decide I can’t stand it a second longer, I head down the hall. Hearing me approach, her gaze slides right. And that smile instantly falls.

That beautiful bubble she was just encased in pops before my eyes. I’m her villain, and I should revel in how she hates me so much. It keeps me safe even when my thoughts about her aren’t always so. Yet today, for some inexplicable reason, it draws a frown to my lips. A frown she misreads as her expression turns hard, and she readies herself for battle.

Good. Fighting I can handle. It’s welcome, almost.

Anything else with her is not.

“I came to check on your patients,” I say to Daffodil while ignoring Wren because she’s a medical student, and I don’t like the way my skin prickles at the back of my neck whenever our eyes meet. “I saw you had a rule-out MI and a sutures case. Do you need to present anything?”

Daffodil gives me a slightly befuddled look, and I can’t blame her for it. I’m her attending, and typically, as an intern, she presents to a senior resident, and they’ll present to me. I rarely go directly to interns unless I need them to run basics like labs, discharges, H&Ps, and sutures.

A blush creeps up her neck and stains her cheeks. “Uh, sure. Yes. Um.” She shifts and tucks her hair behind her ear. Her phone chirps an annoying tune on her hip, and she glances down at the message. “Oh, Dr. Marshall is stat paging us over to triage.” She turns to Wren, but I quickly shake my head.

No fucking way am I letting Miss Fritz run to answer his page.

“Miss Fritz can stay here and present to me. I’m positive you can handle whatever Dr. Marshall needs on your own, Daffodil.”

“Of course, Dr. Kincaid.” Daffodil scurries off, and Wren turns to me, looking like she just swallowed a bug.

“You know you’re not being fair to her.”

That takes me by surprise. I may be a bit of an asshole and definitely stern, but I’m always impartial and willing with my staff. Daffodil prefers fast-tracks, and she’s good at them, but I’m not doing her any favors or helping her grow as a doctor if I only place her there.

“How’s that?” I question, checking my phone so I appear bored and indifferent, and it forces my gaze away from her.

“You saunter over here looking like that…” She waves a hand up and down me, and I jump all over that.

“Looking like what?”

She rolls her eyes and continues without missing a beat. “With your blue eyes that match your scrubs, tall frame, and deep voice, and ask her to present her patients to you just like that.” She snaps her fingers.

“That is her job,” I deadpan, feeling like I’m missing something, though I make a mental note to wear more blue scrubs.

“That call was legit to swap with another intern to do fast-tracks. There was nothing stat about it.”

That’s because Dr. Fucking Marshall wants Wren to work with him. Dick. I never thought he’d be stupid enough to try his bullshit with a Fritz, especially since her goddamn parents work upstairs and half of her cousins work down here, but clearly, the man has no limits. I seriously hope he doesn’t make chief. I shudder to think about him in a bigger position of power.

I shake my head, at a total loss. “I’m sorry. I’m not understanding what you’re saying.”

“She’s in love with you. You flustered the poor girl so badly that she fled. You can’t sneak up on her like that.”

This is ridiculous. “You mean I can’t ask her to do her job? This is the ER. She’s an intern. I’m an attending. I ask questions, she answers. That’s how this works.”

“Just have a little tact next time.”

“Tact?” My eyebrows hit my hairline, though the way her lips twitch, I think she’s fucking with me again. Why do I keep falling for it? “What makes you think she’s in love with me?”

Wren snorts sardonically. “Seriously? Are you intentionally being obtuse, or are you that clueless?”

I think about this while I continue to check my phone. My patients are all settled and waiting on labs or films. Fuck it, I’ve got a minute. I slide my phone back onto my hip. “The blushing thing?”

She smiles at me as if she’s impressed I can put two and two together. To make four, so there you go. “Yep. The blushing thing. The stuttering thing. All of it.”

I tilt my head in contemplation. “Huh. I always thought it was a nervous intern thing.”

“Now you know better.”

My lips quirk. “Should I give her a shot?”

I’m not serious. I couldn’t tell you anything about Daffodil other than she has an odd name, blushes whenever I speak to her, and is far too sweet for the ER. But Wren’s reaction is what I’m after, and she doesn’t disappoint. Her face twists in annoyance as she looks away, out toward the semi-quiet ER. Two can play at this game.

“She is very pretty, but I don’t think she’s your type.”

I can’t resist. I lean a little into her as if I’m seeking a secret. “No? How’s that?”

Her vibrant blue eyes slingshot back to mine, narrowed ever so slightly. “She’s too nice for you.”

I feign indignation, an affronted hand going to my chest. “I love nice. I am nice. I can do nice all day long.”

She shrugs indifferently. “If you say so. I mean, I haven’t witnessed that, but who knows?”

“Are you saying I deserve bitchy instead?”

“Perhaps someone who won’t let you walk all over them. But if you say Daffy’s your type, you should ask her out then, Romeo.”

I attempt to hold in my smirk at her subtle ire. “You sure? It doesn’t sound as though you like that idea.”

She scoffs derisively and shifts ever so slightly, her hand going to her hip. “I couldn’t care less.”

I give her a long once-over and make a show of studying her a little harder. “I don’t know. You seem a bit jealous.”

“You wish. You’re so not my type.”

“I’m everyone’s type. Besides, I thought I was your adolescent crush,” I throw back at her.

“Lucky for me, I’m no longer that girl and came to my senses a long time ago.”

“Oh, Cinderella, I beg to differ there.”

The fact that I brought that up causes her face to flush a pretty pink and venom to swirl across her features. “You really are an asshole.”

“Only with you. With Daffy I’ll be nice since that’s what she likes.”

She flicks my shoulder, and I love that I just annoyed her enough to touch me. “Just be careful with her. She’s fragile and doesn’t understand that poison can taste sweet when served just right.”

“Is that what I was with you?”

Her eyes flare. “You never gave me anything just right.”

A cocky grin slithers up my lips, and I’m tempted to lean in on her, to press against her, to push my weight and call her out on her bullshit. I refrain but just barely. “I beg to differ on that. Still, if that’s your story, I’m shocked you haven’t poisoned her against me. Since you know how best to serve it.”

She smirks as she takes down her ponytail and runs her fingers through her long, silky hair. Her fingers massage her scalp before she deftly redoes it. It’s annoyingly distracting. As is the brush of her fragrance that tickles my nose.

“Oh, believe me,” she smarts, “I’ve tried. She’s absurdly loyal.”

I laugh despite myself, tucking my hands into my scrubs’ pockets. “Unlike you.”

“Definitely unlike me,” she parries. “I’m planning a coup. The other med students and I ride at dawn.”

“Only against me or all the hierarchy?”

“I’m undecided. It depends on how big of an asshole you are today. But the others will fall in line with my call.”

I snort a laugh, unable to hide my amusement. “I should punish you for that. Any other student who dared to call me an asshole would be on scut for the rest of their medical school career. In fact, didn’t I say something similar to you the other morning?”

“That was if I told you to fuck off again. Which I’m not at present since we’re in the hospital.”

“I think asshole was on the list too, but nice try. Now I’ll have to come up with a punishment for you.” The thought nearly makes me groan. How much would I love to punish the brat in her?

Her gaze runs up and down my body, and I hate how much I notice it. How easily I react to it. My pulse quickens, and my cock, ever the puppy for her, gives an excited little jerk in my pants. My odd and unexplainable desire to be near her, to engage with her despite my better judgment, is completely unrelated to the fact that she drives me crazy. It’s a paradox. One I don’t think I’ll ever understand.

She steps into me and comes up on her tiptoes toward the side of my face as if she’s about to whisper a secret in my ear. I hold my breath, unwilling to inhale her scent again.

“But we both know you won’t.”

I capture her waist to hold her up to me. “How’s that, Miss Fritz?”

I can feel her lips curl up with how close she is to my cheek, and how did we get like this? If I move just an inch to the right, she’ll feel how hard I am.

“Because I think we can both agree that the less we deal with each other, the better off we are. And I already know you don’t want me as your scut puppy.”

I return the favor and bring my mouth down to her. If anyone walked by right now, this would not look good. And it would draw gossip if caught, and my chances at chief would be over. I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m risking that. I simply came here to check on her, and now I’m touching her and smelling her and feeling the heat and press of her body.

It angers me, and I let her see it. “I don’t want you as my anything, Cinderella.”

She pats my shoulder. “Keep telling yourself that, villain.” She drops down and turns to walk away. “My patients have already been discharged. Unless you want to teach me how to suture, I’m going to find someone to learn from since you’re useless with that.”

Brat. She’s such a fucking brat.

God, what I would give to spank her. To see my handprint on her porcelain skin and listen as she begs.

That thought twists my stomach and calls me back. “Actually, Miss Fritz, why don’t you gather your other flunky friends and meet me back in sutures? I’ll be more than happy to teach you how it’s done.”

Her steps falter, and I grin to myself. Score one for me. Finally.