Page 38 of Love Sick

Halfway to the door, I turn to find Daniel approaching.

“I wanted to ask you something,” he says.

“Oh. Um. Yeah?”

My palms grow inexplicably sweaty. This man made my life a nightmare for a month. He treated me like a dumb Barbie. One day, his memory will be a trigger for PTSD.

Behind him, Julian sits at the table, scrolling through his phone.

Daniel must have forgotten he’s there because he says, “I have a table reserved at that steakhouse, Primus, on Friday.”

“Okay…”

“You want to come with me?”

My mouth falls open, and I try to ignore Julian in my peripheral vision as his gaze burns into me. It’s almost painful, his stare. Like lasers drawing heat to the surface of my skin.

“I—um—like, a date?”

Daniel’sare-you-stupidexpression is familiar. “Yeah, Grace. Like a date.”

My eyes disobey every strand of logic in my head, and I glance at Julian. He isglowing, the deadly smirk on his face so full of humor that every muscle in my body contracts, ready to flee. Is this karma for the Rebecca thing? I take it back, universe! I never meant any harm. Please don’t punish me.

Pressing a hand to my cheek only hides half the blush. I take a staggered breath. “I’m not sure if—”

“Oh come on,” Daniel says, smiling.Smiling! Like we’re friends. “I’ve heard about it all. You don’t have to be coy. At least I’m offering to buy you dinner first.”

Ice floods my veins. “What?”

His gray eyes narrow and he shoots me a skeptical expression. “Seriously?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Daniel.”

With a condescending twist of his lips, he says, “Wow. You’ve got the pseudo-innocent thing down, don’t you, Grace?”

I stiffen. “I don’t think dinner would be a good idea. I’m sorry.”

Turning on my heel to flee, I shut my eyes against his muttered “Bitch” as I pass.

One last look at Julian goes unnoticed by him. Smirk gone, that dark predatory gaze is fixed on Daniel. I don’t have the headspace to process that, so I ignore it completely.

Back in the dictation room, Asher is furious when I tell him why I’m teary-eyed.

I wipe away the moisture with the tissue he gives me. “Why do people think this about me, Asher?”

A contrite crease appears between his eyebrows. “I don’t know. I don’t know how it all got started, Grace.”

“So people just assume I’ll sleep with anyone?”

He winces. “There’s been talk you’ve been around. I’m so sorry I ever believed it. Sorry I said that shit back in June.”

“I don’t…do that.” I sniffle. “I never—”

“I know. I do set people straight when they say it in front of me.” He lowers his voice to a mumble. “Not that it shuts anyone up.”

“How do these rumors keep getting started?”

Shrugging, he clicks his mouse a few times. “It’s just conjecture. When I was an intern, I spilled some of that acid we use to treat genital warts on a woman’s butt cheek, and for almost a year, any time someone mentioned a resident fucking up, it was always, ‘Was it Foley?’”

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