that interested her, that captured her imagination and fed her passion.
She applied to twelve medical schools, was interviewed by nine and was eventually accepted by six. She chose Johns Hopkins and threw herself into her studies. Being away from home the first time around, the taste of freedom in abundance had made her almost giddy. But the second time she was away, it was with a clear purpose. Bailey settled down and settled in, focusing on her goals and the career that she wanted with all her heart.
She had something to prove to everyone, most importantly, to herself.
The course work was hard, she was harder, determined to make up for what she considered lost time. With single-minded purpose, even though she worked to put herself through school, Bailey managed to graduate in less time than the average medical student. She fed on her own energy and enthusiasm, sometimes going for thirty-six hours at a time. Her letters of recommendation were glowing and well deserved.
She came to believe there was nothing she couldn’t do.
“I have the strength of ten because my heart is pure,” she murmured to the image in the mirror as she inspected herself one last time, reciting something her father had once read to her. Right now, she’d settled for the strength of two and a half.
Her pulse was beating fast. She closed her eyes and told herself to calm down.
Breathe, Bailey, breathe. He’s just a man, like everyone else. He has to put his pants on one leg at a time, same as you.
God, but she wished they were here right now, just for a few minutes. Her father and her mother. Or Simon. Or her uncle and aunt with whom she’d lived as an undergraduate. Someone she could turn to for an encouraging word. She liked her housemates, but right now, they were just contributing to the problem, telling her every single frightening encounter anyone had ever had with the great and terrible Ivan Munro.
Bailey pressed her hand against her abdomen. There was one hell of a huge butterfly inside, insisting on spreading his wings and flapping so that she felt utterly nauseous.
She hadn’t felt this nervous since that time she’d looked into Jeff’s eyes and knew that he was going to make love to her. Knew and worried that he would be disappointed because she was a virgin. So she did what she always did when she felt the slightest bit uncertain. She forged straight ahead. That time, she’d pulled out all the stops and made love to Jeff first, completely overwhelming him. She’d been so eager, so gungho, he hadn’t even noticed the momentary resistance he encountered when he’d entered her. He’d been too busy just trying to keep up.
Jeff never even suspected that she hadn’t been acting on instincts but on something she had witnessed as a young girl. Unknown to her parents, she’d snuck out to watch an elaborate mating ritual between two young people in one of the tiny African countries whose names kept changing nearly as often as the seasons.
Emulating it, she’d knocked Jeff’s socks off and kept him enamored of her for months.
Before the bloom finally came off the rose and the sexiest guy on the planet became someone she found she really didn’t like. Definitely not someone she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Not unless she was firmly committed to doing what the Catholics had once referred to as penance. Because being with Jeff had turned into penance.
She laughed softly to herself, shaking her head. One of the pins in her hair began to slip. Bailey shoved it back, tucking her hair back around the pin.
All that seemed like more than a lifetime ago. And very small potatoes now that she looked back at it. It was not nearly in the same league as what she’d accomplished in the last few years.
And definitely not in the same league as what she was about to undertake today. She squared her shoulders and turned away from the reflection. Today, she was about to face the biggest challenge she’d ever gone up against.
Surviving Ivan the Terrible.
CHAPTER 5
He didn’t look like an unholy terror.
Those had been Adam’s parting words to her, to take care because Ivan the Terrible lived up to his name and ate residents for breakfast. Adam had issued the warning a minute before she, Jennifer and he had gone their separate ways just inside the entrance of the hospital. Adam was heading for the pediatric ward while Jennifer’s residency was in cardiology.
Apparently, it didn’t matter that Adam and Jennifer were assigned to different disciplines that had, in essence, nothing to do with neurosurgery. All paths at the hospital seemed to cross Dr. Ivan Munro’s in some manner, shape or form. Everyone who worked at Blair Memorial knew about the man. His reputation preceded him, both as a surgeon and as a devourer of residents. Which was why, legend had it, he hadn’t been given any residents to mentor in the last few years.
But maybe that reputation was exaggerated, Bailey thought now as she turned in her chair to look toward the doorway.
The man didn’t seem scary at all.
As instructed, she had entered Dr. Bennett’s office at exactly eight o’clock sharp. She’d arrived nearly half an hour earlier and had spent the time circling the floor. Punctuality counted, but sometimes, she’d learned, showing up early acted against you if people weren’t prepared for you. So she had moved around on the first floor, never far from where she was ultimately supposed to be, all the while practicing every known remedy for stress she could think of. The last thing she wanted was to appear like some wild-eyed, overeager idiot who didn’t know her left hand from her right, much less a suture from a scalpel.
Trying not to look as if she were drawing in a sustaining lungful of air, Bailey took measure of the man who walked in, or rather, sauntered in as if he owned the office and the hospital that went with it.
Bailey desperately tried to be impartial. Nerves would bring cold hands, a dead giveaway. She didn’t want to seem too inferior on their first meeting.
Ivan the Terrible was tall, with an athletic build and wide shoulders. The cheekbones beneath what she estimated to be a day-old stubble were prominent. His hair was light brown and just this side of unruly. Munro’s hair looked as if he used his fingers for a comb and didn’t care who knew it.
The eyes were brown, almost black as they aimed at her. There was no other word for it. Aimed. As if he was debating whether or not to fire at point-blank range.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, a line from a grade-B movie, “Be afraid. Be very afraid,” whispered along the perimeter of her brain. Warning her. Almost against her will, it caused her to brace her shoulders. Bailey had to remind herself to breathe in and out like a normal person.
Dr. Bennett had tried his level best to put her at ease and had almost succeeded. But an air of tension had entered with Munro. She wondered if the chief of staff was bracing himself, as well, bracing for some kind of disaster or explosion. Forewarned by everyone she encountered, she still didn’t really know what to expect.
“Ah, here he is now,” Harold Bennett announced needlessly. The smile on his lips was slightly forced, the look in his gray, kindly eyes held a warning as he looked at his chief neurosurgeon. “We were just talking about you, Dr. Munro.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Ivan replied dryly.
Harold cleared his throat, as if that would cover the less than friendly tone of voice Ivan had just
