Page 57 of Careless Whisper

“I quit,” I threw at him even as he got up from his chair and started to walk toward me. “BeforeI was fired, so I don’t know how muchquittingI was doing. Probably just saving face, you know? Maybe taking care of my pride a little. Leaving before I was asked to?—”

“You’renotgetting fired.” He was in front of me, smelling like he did, looking so sincere. But I knew better.

“You know the rules here, Dr. Graham, three strikes, and I’m out!”

He froze. “No.”

“Oh yes,” I chirped sarcastically. “You filed a bogus complaint, and then your fiancée did, and now her lackey filed the last one.”

“She’snotmy fiancée.”

“Whatever.” I flung my hands up in the air.

“I was going to rescind my complaint. I was…I just…things got busy and?—”

“Who cares about the career of a two-bit nurse like me?” I finished for him.

“No, Gigi?—”

“Stop calling me that,” I shouted. “Just fucking stop it, Elias.”

His lips tightened as his gaze sharpened.

I bit my bottom lip, eyes clouded. “This is the second time you and your bitch have fucked with my life. But this is thelasttime. You know what I don’t understand is that if I’m such a horrible human being, worth being trampled over, why did you have sex with me?”

“First, you’re not a horribleanything. You are a wonderful, smart, gorgeous, intelligent?—“

“Shut up,” I hissed and put my hands on his torso and pushed him. He staggered two steps back, surprise etched into his face. “You don’t get to say one nice thing to me when you got me fired.”

“I swear to God, Reggie?—”

I sneered at him. “Don’t give me more of your insincere bullshit. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care if it was you or Maren or Agar or all of you playing some administrative game—because I’m not playing anymore.”

“I never—” He looked genuinely shaken.

“You signed off on the complaint. Or are you saying attendings and residents in your department do whatever the hell they like without your say-so?”

“Reggie, I didn’t sign off anything. Why would I?”

“I don’t know,” I growled, my body stiff as a board. “Maybe you needed someone to take thefall…again. Maybe you needed to prove to yourself I wasn’t good enough.”

“I didn’t?—”

“You did. Maybe not on paper, but every time you stayed quiet, every time you looked the other way, every time you told me to be more careful instead of standing up for me—you did.”

He reached for me. “Please. Let me explain.”

“Don’t you dare touch me,” I raged, stepping away from him.

He held up both his hands, palms out, looking at me like I was a wild animal and he had to be careful, or I’d attack. “Baby, listen to me. You don’t have to quit. I’m going to fix this.”

I stepped back, my voice low but lethal, “Really? You’re going to fix what, Elias? My reputation that you and Maren decimatedagain? Or my heart that you brokeagain?”

“Baby, I?—"

“No. You don’t get to call me baby.”

I glared at him, and for the first time since I fell in love with him, I didn’t feel any longing for what we could be. I just felt exhausted. I wasdone, not just with Harper Memorial but withhim.

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