with the good doctor. But maybe, Lily had suggested further, Zoey’s appearance would help mend the rift that seemed to be growing wider everyday between the two.
Zoey knew the only thing that would mend the rift between herself and Dr. Tate would be to erect a wall three feet thick between the two of them. But, nonetheless, she had promised Lily she would come. What would a few minutes hurt? she had reasoned. She could hang back in the corner and sneak out when no one was looking. Besides, Lily had said there would be cake. Chocolate cake with white icing, without question the most favorite culinary treat Zoey could name. She’d grab a piece and take it home, and have it with her coffee after dinner.
A few minutes, she repeated to herself now. That was how long Lily had said Zoey would have to stay. Well, a few minutes were up, and she wanted to go home. Still, Jonas Tate’s eyes glittered with the light of combat as he awaited her reply, and she had never been one to back down from a challenge. Especially when she’d been challenged by an overblown, egocentric, self-important, male chauvinistic—
“Zoey?” he asked again, his deep, rusty-sounding baritone grating on her nerves. “Better hurry. This cake’s going to set off the sprinkler system if we don’t put it out soon.”
She wasn’t sure when or why she decided to play along, but Zoey suddenly found herself moving slowly toward the good doctor. He looked like hell, she noted absently. His hair, normally a little longish, but nonetheless neat, was becoming pretty shaggy, and he clearly hadn’t shaved that morning.
She wondered idly if he had overslept at the house of a female companion after spending the night practicing all kinds of sexual gymnastics, and simply hadn’t had the time—or the energy—to make himself presentable for work. Come to think of it, he did look pretty exhausted, she thought as she drew nearer. Just what kind of women did he date, anyway?
He smiled at her when she halted beside him, and she wondered why she even cared about the type of woman who would interest Jonas Tate. She already knew the answer to that—someone coy, petite, demure and submissive. Which, of course, left her completely out of the running. At five foot ten, she stood nearly eye-to-eye with him, fewer than two inches shorter than he was. She was big boned, too, her hands strong and capable and not much smaller than his. And as for the coy, demure and submissive part, well... Zoey Holland had never been accused of being any of those things. She spoke her mind when it suited her—and often when it did not—and no one, no one, ever told her what to do.
Except for Jonas Tate, a little voice in the back of her head taunted. He can get a rise out of you faster than a thoroughbred through the gate.
Zoey doubled her fists at her sides when she realized how easily she had fallen into the trap. Just by succumbing to his dare that she do something he knew she otherwise wouldn’t, she’d played right into Jonas Tate’s hands. Once again, he’d told her what to do.
“On the count of three,” he instructed her softly, his voice coming from dangerously near her ear.
She turned to find his face scant inches away from her own and started to back away. But his fingers circled her wrist and held her close, a cryptic smile that curled his lips her only indication that he’d known how she was going to react before she’d even formed the thought in her head. Reluctantly, she stayed put in her position beside him, but she couldn’t quite shake the shivery sensations that spiraled up her arm and through her heart to pool in a tightly wound coil in her stomach.
She scarcely heard him count the numbers, but reacted accordingly when he reached three. Zoey and Jonas both inhaled deeply, bent forward at the waist and expelled their breaths in a long gust of wind. The candles sputtered and went out, every last one. The group surrounding them laughed and applauded, and even Zoey felt oddly pleased by their accomplishment.
“Guess this means my birthday wish will come true,” Jonas said, his voice low and suggestive and once again closer to Zoey’s ear than she found comfortable.
When she turned to face him this time, his eyes were lit with a bold fire, and she got the unnerving feeling that he was trying to tell her something.
“Yeah, well, that’s what they say, isn’t it?” she replied, her own voice sounding breathless and weak.
His fingers on her wrist tightened, not painfully, but insistently. “Don’t you want to know what I wished for, Zoey?”
The light in his eyes took on a new dimension, now becoming undeniably libidinous. She felt his thumb stroking over the pulse in her wrist, felt her own heart racing. Was this some kind of joke? she wondered. What was he trying to do to her?
She shook her head feebly as she replied, “No. I don’t think I do.”
One corner of his mouth lifted in a wry grin. “Well, since my wish is destined to come true, you’ll find out about it soon enough, seeing as how it includes you, too.”
She tried to laugh off the odd sexual tension that had suddenly leapt up between them, but her laughter came out sounding hollow and false. Finally, she tugged her wrist out of his grasp, circling it with her free hand as if she’d been burned.
“Oh, I get it,” she said with a flip shake of her head, regaining enough of her senses to issue a chuckle that was almost convincing. “I know what you wished for.”
The gleam in his pale brown eyes brightened, and he took a step closer to her. “Do you?” he asked.
Zoey nodded and took a step in retreat. “You want me gone. You’re either going to demand my resignation, or you’re expecting me to foul something up so badly you’ll have the perfect excuse to fire me.”
This time Jonas Tate was the one to chuckle, a single, solitary sound that lacked all humor. “Is that what you really think?” he asked her.
Zoey nodded harder. “It’s what I know.”
She took another—giant—step away from him, and the distance seemed to give her more strength, more energy, more conviction that he would not throw her off balance. She glanced quickly around to make sure the others in attendance were occupied elsewhere before she continued, somehow managing to keep her voice low.
“Well, don’t hold your breath, Dr. Tate,” she continued. “Because I’ve been at Seton General for too long and like it too well to give up my position just because some doctor finds me an annoyance. And all modesty aside, I’m too good at what I do to ever make a mistake that would end my career here.”
She waited to see how he would respond, and wondered if maybe in speaking to him so boldly she had just made precisely the kind of mistake she’d sworn not to. But instead of retorting angrily or threatening to fire her, Jonas Tate just smiled.
“Touché, Zoey,” he finally said quietly. “Touché.”
And with that he turned to the cake that Lily had finished slicing and was now passing out to everyone present. He didn’t look back at Zoey once, didn’t even seem to notice she was there. For just the briefest of moments, she felt jealous indignation that the man had the nerve to slight her in such a way. Then she realized how ridiculous a reaction that was. She wanted Jonas Tate to ignore her, she reminded herself. And if that meant she had to be dismissed by him, so be it. It was better than being singled out for his full attention.
Wondering why she should suddenly feel cheated that she wasn’t the center of his universe when she had been trying for months to steer clear of him, Zoey backed away. Someone pressed
