misunderstanding, that Chloe took off after an argument, but he’s not fooling anyone. If he weren’t my sister’s husband...”
Brad’s thoughts exactly. “Is he still in New York?”
“No, he’s home. Said he was surprised not to find Chloe here. Claims to be worried as hell.”
There was no way Brad would have ever left New York without searching every inch of it first. For the man just to drive home without even trying to locate her was unthinkable. What if she’d been mugged...or worse?
“Did you tell him she was at my place?”
“I’m not telling him anything.” There was a pause over the line. “Is she okay? Physically, I mean?”
“She seemed to be. She was still asleep when I left this morning.” Should he tell Jason about the split lip or what she’d been wearing when she’d shown up at the apartment? He’d laid a pair of exercise sweats and a black T-shirt across the end of his bed. He figured she could pull the laces around the waist tight enough to keep the pants from sliding below the swell of her hips. Which brought his mind right back to those soft curves that were everything a man could want.
Except she was Chloe.
And it was best to keep her racy attire between the two of them—no need for Jason to know. He didn’t want to embarrass her any more than necessary.
An idea formed. “Is she still working at the community hospital there in Hartford?” Chloe had graduated from nursing school about the same time he had graduated from med school. She’d even specialized in pediatrics, if he remembered right.
“Yes, why?”
“Can you call them and explain the situation? Ask them to give her some time off?”
“I think she’s got some vacation time coming, but I’ll check to make sure. Dad invested quite a bit of money in one of their service projects a year or two ago.” A chuckle came over the phone. “Chloe just about blew a gasket when she heard, asked him if he was trying to buy a permanent position for her.”
Brad could imagine that quite well. He’d been on the receiving end of that outrage a time or two—like when he’d caught her holding hands with a boy on the swing at her parents’ house. The glare he’d given the kid had sent him scrambling for the sidewalk. But when he’d tried to give Chloe a stern warning, she’d sniffed and claimed there was nothing to worry about. She’d decided to wait until she got married to “do it.”
Did people even do that nowadays?
Evidently they did, because when he’d laughed in her face, she’d flushed scarlet and then balled her fingers into a tight fist before punching him in the chest. Right on top of the fading bruise from his motorcycle accident. It had stung, but it had also gotten her point across: her virginity was no joking matter.
Something his mind had also toyed with the night of her wedding. Had she really saved herself? Only to wind up with a jerk like Travis?
His hand went to the spot and rubbed it as if he could still feel where she’d walloped him. And, really, he could. A circular Celtic symbol—the tree of life at its center—was inked on the very spot his road rash had once covered, starting at his chest and wrapping around the top of his left shoulder. A reminder to always choose life.
Thankfully his polo shirts now covered up that little bit of history. Some of his patients might not understand what the tattoo had come to symbolize.
He shook himself back to the present and Jason’s phone call. “I’ve just had a nurse quit on me. I don’t know if Chloe will go for it, but maybe she’d be interested in filling the spot for a while. At least until she can sort through whatever happened with Travis. Or until I can talk the nurse into coming back.”
Why was the thought of calling Katrina suddenly distasteful?
“That’s a great idea. Maybe she’s finally ready to unload the bastard.”
“Maybe.” Brad scrubbed a hand across his jaw, his eyes going back to the notes on his desk. “I’ll let you know what she says. She can stay at the apartment until she decides what she wants to do. It’s not easy to get a short-term lease nowadays.”
And just why had he offered that? He wasn’t exactly celibate, neither did he have any plans to become so. He gave an internal shrug. She was an adult. Surely they could work out some kind of arrangement. After all, it wasn’t a permanent thing. Probably a week or two at the most. She might not even go for it—he was beginning to hope she wouldn’t, in fact.
But deep down inside something whispered that he was telling the biggest lie of his life. Because he did want her to stay. Wanted to somehow keep her safe from whoever had hurt her.
And if she turned him down and walked away?
He might just have to coax her to change her mind.
* * *
“You want me to what?”
Chloe stared across the table at Brad. He was offering her a job? She toyed with the tie on the sweats he’d loaned her and tried to keep her face from flaming in renewed embarrassment. When she’d awoken coatless on a huge king-sized bed with no memory of how she’d gotten there, she’d thought for a panicked second she might have slept with him. His warm masculine scent permeated the space, from the pillow where she’d laid her head to the clothes currently enveloping her body.
But there’d been no sign that he’d slept in the bed, neither was there that familiar morning-after ache—an unpleasant side effect of sex with her husband.
But still. His offer had come out of nowhere.
Brad glanced up from the plate of takeout Yakisoba, brows raised. “One of the nurses in the prenatal unit quit unexpectedly. I wondered if you might want to fill in until we can find a permanent replacement.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” He studied her from across the table. “Unless you’re anxious to get home.”
Dammit. The fire licked along her cheeks again. She had no intention of going home—not that the monstrosity she and Travis had lived in had ever really been home. She’d already contacted a lawyer in Connecticut and started the ball rolling on her divorce. No, you weren’t supposed to make any major changes during a crisis, but she’d already decided to leave if her swan dive into the deep end of the seduction pool didn’t work.
Swan dive. Right.
Instead of a smooth, clean entry into the water, she’d landed with a belly flop that had been deafening, knocking the wind from her lungs and leaving her clawing her way to the surface.
Well, she was there now, taking her first breath of freedom after six long, suffocating years. She was never submerging herself like that ever again.
Not for anyone.
“I was actually thinking of relocating,” she said slowly, the idea taking root and sprouting its first leaf. She could do this.
Unless her father was behind Brad’s offer, just like she suspected him of being behind her promotion at the
