Page 7 of Lovesick
What the hell was he about with this sudden need for a woman? He’d been fine up until that morning doing without. Until he’d met Louise. The idea of his instant attraction was ridiculous. If he hadn’t been in the room, the man being steamrolled by lust and temptation in the form of Louise Regal, he would be scoffing now.
Even if his outrageous attraction was real, he couldn’t possibly bring the complication of Louise into his life. Things were going so smoothly now for him and Tim.
You’re a healthy man, Max. Why shouldn’t you want a fling with a sexy woman like Louise?
He did scoff aloud now and stood. Grabbing his jacket and medical bag with the vial of Louise’s blood sample, he shook his head. That was just it. He was not, never had been and likely never would be, a fling kind of a guy. He was a warm-steady-relationship-with-a-committed-woman kind of guy.
He had no idea if Louise fit that bill but, if he had to guess, based on the fact that she was single and sexy, he’d say absolutely not. That didn’t even account for the fact that she was from another world. A Regal. The kind of woman he’d always avoided. Wealthy, spoiled, and demanding.
Okay, well that last part didn’t seem to fit her, but he had such a small sample size of who she was. For all he knew she might hate children. Frowning, he checked his watch then slipped out his phone on his way out of the office. The part-time nurse had already left for the day and there was no one in the waiting room. He flipped the sign on the outer door to Closed and locked up.
“Nick, I’m on my way over with a blood sample. Can you stay open for me?”
“Sure. What’s the rush? A store employee can’t miss a sale?”
Max laughed. His friend had been a champion of his new job, of him settling down after traveling for months every year to parts unknown with Doctors Without Borders. He’d paid a high price to do the good work in far-flung places for the poorest of the poor people on the planet.
The constant intermittent travel had cost him his marriage and his job at the free clinic in Brooklyn. The job as company doctor for Regal’s Department Store had been a godsend, the first step in putting his life back together. The iconic store held so many fond memories for him, it had almost been like a dream come true. He’d visited Santa at Santa’s Village there every year until he was Tim’s age, and he’d gone every fall on a back-to-school shopping spree with his mother and siblings. He played with toys in their toy department, watched fashion shows with his mother when he was older, and afterward they would have lunch at the fancy restaurant. It was a miracle that the store had remained, still as iconic as it had always been, in this day and age of rapid change. But it had.
They’d hired him to replace Dr. Howard. He’d worked side-by-side with the older man for months so he could get broken in. Doc Howard had regaled him about the entire history of the store, their traditions, and the family. Most of all, it was about the family. Funny, but when the doc had mentioned Louise Regal he’d made her seem like an errant teen. That’s how the doc had remembered her. Max had seen for himself that Louise still had that mischievous streak.
That kiss, the way she’d wrapped her arms around a perfect stranger and given herself over to a passionate kiss . . .
He exited the employee entrance and walked to the end of the block to hail a cab. Best not to dwell on that kiss. In fact, he was now convinced by his conscience, his better sense, that he needed to find a way to extract himself from the promised dinner date.
How the hell was he going to preserve his professional relationship while telling her he didn’t want to date her after all? Shit. Then again, how the hell could he preserve a professional relationship with her if he gave in to his base desires and had the kind of hot affair with her that he’d envisioned every time he looked at her or thought of her since they’d met a whole two hours ago? Double shit.
