Page 34 of Silver Fox's Twin Surprise

I took small bites, chewed carefully, and tried not to stress. My blood pressure had already been too high this pregnancy. My doctor was concerned I was stressing too much. I'd done some tests already to determine what was wrong, but nothing was conclusive. The only thing I could tell her was that I was worried about my future. In reality, I was worried about my future, and my job, and my relationship with Cole, and Cole himself.

It felt like everything was out of control and there was no one to reach to for help. I could only imagine how Cole felt about the whole thing. He was tormenting himself with fear of losing this suit and potentially his career too. That in turn trickled over to me in so many ways, but mostly because I was on a timetable. In just a few weeks, my belly would be large enough that I wouldn't be able to hide it from anyone, not even drunken Cole Hastings. Who even knew how long the lawsuit would drag out?

"I'm not feeling so well," I told him after taking a few bites. I really just wanted to go home and rest, but I felt bad leaving him like this. I felt like he was my responsibility and that if he was alone and hurting, it was my fault. I should be here for him. If there was a "him" to be here for.

He looked up at me blankly and nodded, and I saw the glassy-eyed expression he gave me. He was hurting so much, and therewas nothing I could do to help him. "You can go home, babe. I'm sorry for being so down."

I felt horrible for wanting to go home, so I sighed and sucked it up. "I don't want to go home, but maybe I could just rest in your bed a while?" I glanced around at the kitchen. It was a disaster when I showed up, so I cleaned it up so I could cook. I knew he wouldn't clean this up either, and it would be waiting on me the next time I forced him to eat a proper meal.

"Yeah, that's okay. I'll finish eating and come check on you." The fake smile on his lips hurt me more than the fact that he had mentally checked out. He wasn't being real with me when he did that, and I didn’t even think he realized he was doing it.

I blinked back a few tears and stood up and nodded. I didn't say anything else as I kicked off my shoes and climbed into his bed. I sent Alana a text letting her know I was sleeping over, and she asked how he was doing. I didn't respond. I just curled up in his bed and went to sleep.

Hours later, I was awakened by the bed shaking as Cole climbed in with me. He smelled like booze as he curled around me, and I felt utter defeat wash over me. If something with the lawsuit didn't break quickly, I was going to have to give up. It really wasn’t good for me or the babies to keep carrying this much stress. I knew he was going through something, but there wasn't much more I could do, and I needed a break too.

This entire situation sucked. I wanted my mom, and that wasn't a feeling any grown woman ever liked having.

27

COLE

Isat behind my desk with a stupid grin on my face. Either Rose was my good luck charm or life was finally starting to cut me some slack. I set my phone on the desk in front of me, cautious of the time, and breathed a deep sigh of relief. Victor had just called to let me know the coast was clear. The patient who had been hounding me for months with the threat of a career-ending malpractice lawsuit had just dropped the entire suit.

I didn't know what influenced his decision or why he'd decided not to pursue a lawsuit anymore, but it was the best news I'd gotten in weeks. I had to take a moment to breathe it all in and let the feeling soak into every cell of my being. I wasn't going to be sued now, and it was such a weight off my shoulders.

After months of worry and toil, I felt home free, though I did still have to figure out how to handle the tremors I was having in my hands, but that seemed like such a small thing now that the pressure of a lawsuit was off. I wanted to celebrate. I wanted to take the rest of the day off and plan something special forme and Rose to do together that would help me put the last few months' struggle behind me.

I thought for a moment about what might be special. She'd been coming a few times a week to cook for me, but I spent most of my nights feeling worried and stressed out so I hadn't given her the attention she deserved. For a while, she tried to initiate intimacy with me, but I just wasn't in the mind frame to enjoy it. I felt like I'd done her a disservice with the way she was so attentive and caring, and I had just been a lump.

I sent her a message asking her to join me for dinner, and she responded immediately with an affirmative. I told her I had good news, and she said she had something she wanted to tell me too. I wasn't sure what that was about, but I had spent the last few months obsessing about a lawsuit. I wasn't going to spend a single second worrying about what she had to say. Whatever it was, we would work it out and be fine.

Once I knew she was coming, I ordered from a special Italian restaurant and told them to deliver it by five. Then I called and asked my neighbor to use my hide-a-key to come in around a little before four and set up candles and soft music. With everything set up, I sent Rose one more message letting her know if I wasn't there right at five, to let herself in and I'd be there soon. Then I made my way toward the elevators.

Before I even got in the carriage, I was stopped by a phone call. It was my emergency line and the call was from the hospital number, so I couldn't ignore it. I swiped to answer and held the phone to my ear as I pressed the elevator call button.

"Hastings… What is it?" The elevator took a second, and I listened to the nurse as I waited.

"Dr. Hastings, this is Ellen from Emergency. You’re the doctor on call this evening. We have a myocardial infarction and we need you in OR One, STAT." As she said the words, my chest tightened and I knew there was no getting out of this. I had passed on so many surgeries, but on my on-call night, there was nothing I could do.

"Yeah, give me vitals…" I stepped onto the elevator the moment the doors opened, and Ellen started rattling off the patient's vitals. It sounded to me like we were dealing with a complete blockage which meant if I didn't do emergency surgery immediately, the patient wouldn't make it.

I took in all the information on my march toward the operating theaters. It meant I definitely wouldn't make it home by five, but if I did well, I could be there by six at the latest. When I approached the scrub room, I shot Rose another text asking her to be patient with me and told her about the surgery, then I ducked into the scrub room and turned my phone off.

The procedure was simple. I'd done angioplasty before, and hopefully, that was it. My scrub nurse helped me get scrubbed in, and I walked into the theater prepped and ready to go. The room was chilled and I wasn't quite prepared for it. Typically, angioplasty didn't require cooling the patient significantly, and I looked up at the monitor to check his vitals. It was only then that I realized I wasn't doing an angioplasty. This patient needed a full bypass.

I knew right then and there that I wouldn't be at the house even by six. It made me frustrated, but I couldn't take time to feel my own feelings. I moved to the side of the table and extended my hand. "Scalpel, please." The nurse passed me the scalpel, and we were in business.

The first part of the procedure went well. I made the initial incision and used the bone saw to cut through his sternum. As I did, another surgeon worked on selecting a vein from the man's leg muscle to use as the bypass. We worked in tandem the way any good team would, and in under three hours we had the bypass in place and I was ready to close the man up. I knew Rose was waiting, but I wasn't trying to rush anything.

As I began suctioning the blood out of the chest cavity, I noticed something horrifying. My hand twitched, and it wasn’t the first time during that surgery it had happened. The amount of blood I was suctioning off showed me something had gone wrong and I hadn't even noticed it. No one had noticed it, not even my perioperative nurse.

"Dr. Hastings?" she asked, leaning over the man's open chest cavity. "We have a bleeder…" She turned up the suction slightly and took the hose from me while repositioning the light so I could see more carefully.

I didn't know how this had even happened. I had to have nicked one of the arteries when doing the bypass, and I felt frantic and tense as I packed the chest cavity with gauze and she suctioned off more blood. He wasn't bleeding profusely, but it wasn't something I could leave open. I was so angry with myself.

All the surgeries I had performed like this in emergency situations and never once had I done something so stupid. I silently cursed myself as I located the wound. By the time we found it, one of the other nurses had another needle ready for me. I stitched it shut and breathed a sigh of relief, but the clock read eight p.m. and I knew Rose was probably frustrated with me.

Dr. Grant and I finished the surgery and closed him up, then we waited for another thirty minutes to ensure our patient was stable and ready to be moved to recovery. No one said a thing to me. They probably didn't know what to say. I'd just jumped out of the frying pan, figuratively speaking, and my team knew if what happened got reported to the higher-ups, I'd be right into the fryer. That wasn't something I wanted to even think about happening.

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