Page 54 of Angels Are Falling

I rose from my seat, waiting for her to follow. For a moment, she did nothing, and my chest tightened at the thought that she wouldn’t come with me. The nurse who was waiting for Amelie to leave looked at her with both impatience and despair. It was up to my wife whether her coworker made a thousand dollars an hour.

Amelie eventually stood, her legs steady despite the weight of everyone’s stares. She snatched our uneaten sandwiches and stuffed them inside the bag, fingers curling tightly around it.

“Let’s go.” With a hand on her back, I guided her away from the table. I could feel her warmth through the thin scrubs, the faint tension of a body trying to decide whether to tolerate me for the sake of appearances or resist me at the risk of looking like a fool in front of her coworkers. She chose to tolerate. She walked faster, trying to reduce the pressure of my palm, but I kept pace without effort.

“Have fun, you two.” Kwon was smug with satisfaction, as if he’d just handed Amelie a gift. In his mind, perhaps he had.

But Amelie only watched me with contempt as we left the cafeteria.

Chapter

Seventeen

AMELIE

Kai walked alongside me, his frame dwarfing mine. I wore sneakers to work, which made our height difference seem significant. I was acutely conscious of the space he took up beside me, the width of his shoulders at the edge of my vision, the way people in the hallway instinctively moved aside. I wish he weren’t so much bigger. Every time I glanced up at him, my heart involuntarily lurched. I sped up slightly.

This morning, he was furious with me. He barely spoke to me when we dropped the kids off at school. So why come to my place of work under the false pretense of having lunch? Why twist my arm into leaving with him?

My chest constricted as a thought crossed my mind. Stefan and I wanted to be around each other, even when we were fighting. We couldn’t bear to be apart because we were so in love. But things had changed. The distance between us was growing, and there was only one person to blame.

I craned my neck to glare at Kai’s profile. The hospital light cut across the hard lines of his face. The sharp jaw, the straight line of his nose, the shadows beneath his cheekbones. The geometric features, precise and deliberate, made it seem like someone had drawn him with a ruler.

“Like what you see?”

His words were so unexpected that I jerked, quickly looking away. “Don’t we think highly of ourselves?” I muttered.

“It’s other people who think highly of me. Why else would the Chief of Medicine strong-arm you into having lunch with me?”

I glowered at Kai. “If you’re such a hotshot, why’re you paying nine thousand dollars just to go on a date with me?”

“I never called it a date,” he replied coolly. “Now who thinks too highly of themselves?”

I trudged along, seething with unspoken anger. I couldn’t blame Andrea, the nurse who had eagerly snatched my shift. Her monthly student loan payments made it hard to live on a nurse’s salary. Despite our previous financial burden, I counted my blessings that I didn’t have student loans. An anonymous Samaritan sponsored disadvantaged students at my university, and I secured a scholarship after my family went bankrupt.

While I wasn’t angry at Andrea, I hated how Kai used money to dangle hope in front of desperate people. I was perfectly content to ignore him while I marched to the staff locker room.

He followed me languidly, and I noticed he was attracting quite a bit of attention from the female demographic. It was the same when he arrived at the hospital. I found myself examining what prompted women to react so strongly to Kai. I cataloged him how everyone else must have.

He wore black trousers with loafers. His white shirt was left open at the throat, and he’d rolled the sleeves to reveal his forearms. There was something almost unfair about forearms like that on a man. Jo had practically drooled at the sight during their short exchange. The rest of the staff did a double take as we passed. I understood it in the abstract, clinical way one understood anything that was objectively appealing. He was tall, well-dressed, and had the kind of face that didn’t require effort. This was a fact, not an opinion. Every woman in our vicinity was enthralled by Kai.

I could sic one of them on him. My prenuptial agreement stated that I could dissolve this marriage without penalty if Kai cheated on me. So far, he hadn’t expressed interest in anyone else, including Ruby fucking Sarafina. He’ll eventually get bored with me, I knew that. But I wanted to move the process along so I could return to my ordinary, loud life sooner rather than later.

When a doctor old enough to be my grandmother shamelessly eye fucked Kai, I found myself at a loss for words. This man could literally have any woman in the world. If his money didn’t guarantee a well-bred wife, his looks and body sealed the deal. Why had he gone through so much hassle for a woman who was already married?

I didn’t care to ask the same question for the hundredth time. Tired of our roundabout arguments, I left Kai outside the locker room and strode inside to grab my stuff.

I came face-to-face with Ricky just as I gathered my things. “Amelie! I was looking for you. Do you want to get some disgusting hospital coffee together?”

Ricky was a fellow male nurse who made a habit of flirting with me. I would have taken offense if it were anyone else, but he was an innocent nineteen-year-old. Totally harmless. Like many of the nurses at this hospital, he had it rough growing up. His cheesy lines brought a smile to both our faces.

“Ricky! How many times do I have to remind you that I’m a married woman?”

He dramatically put his hands over his heart. “I’m heartbroken.”

“There are plenty of single women in Darster.”

“None as pretty as you. You sure I can’t convince you to get a cup of terrible coffee with me? I’ve got hospital dollars.”