Page 38 of Dr. Do-Right
“Aw, you guyssss!”
Mal and I rocked backwards as Sonnie threw herself at us, looping her arms around our necks in a clumsy group hug. “I’m just happy you’re happy. Three musketeers!”
She squeezed me hard enough to make me cough. A strangled wheeze from Mal told me he was receiving the same treatment. I reached up to pat her back, feeling Mal’s arm creep around me until we were all tangled up together. My two best friends, and not a single secret between us.
“This is nice, but at some point we’re going to have to talk about Sonnie’s questionable taste in smash music. Marvin Gaye? You need to modernize.” Mal thumped his sister on the back. She reluctantly let go of us, standing to swig the rest of her wine. I saw her swipe a finger under her eye. She wasn’t the only one feeling misty.
All at once, the pressure of the day and the guilt and regrets of the last six months caught up to me and I slumped back into the cushions. My head felt fuzzy, eyes already drooping. We were all safe, with two big, burly security men standing between us and the danger. Mal and I were together, and Sonnie was happy about it. I felt like I could give myself permission to pass out.
“Don’t be judgy. Dare I even ask what’s on your playlist?” She glared at him.
“Gotta be Boyz II Men,” he grinned, his hand reaching back to squeeze my thigh. I gave him a sleepy smile.
“Gag. What about you, Hot Asher? What’s on your smash list?”
“I won’t lie. It’s a lot of Beyoncé,” Asher answered without looking up from his computer. A faint smirk played on his lips. Sonia had been heading towards the kitchen with her wine glass, but his response made her stop in her tracks. She studied him for a beat before he looked up to meet her eyes. His smirk deepened.
“Surprising and intriguing choice, Hot Asher.” She looked him up and down. I could practically see her cataloging his features. The tattoos peeking out from his sleeve, the tousled brown hair, and his teasing expression. She bit her lip, and his gaze followed the movement. “I was going to ask where my bedroom was, but I think I should ask where yours is instead.”
“You’ll be in the guest room next to the primary suite, where Agent Kaine can monitor you. From the hallway,” Grayson intoned from the across the room as he exited the study. Asher snapped his attention back to the computer screen in front of him. I couldn’t tell in the low lights of the room, but I thought I saw a blush creep across his cheekbones.
“Sonnie, try not to get our security staff fired on the first day of a crisis,” Mal chided, leaning back to look into my eyes. “You look tired, Kitten.”
“Everything’s going to be alright, Mal. Sonia’s here…everything will be okay.”
He pressed a soft kiss to my nose. “Yes, it will. I’ll make sure of it. Come on, you’re barely keeping your eyes open.”
“I can walk,” I protested when strong arms scoop me against his hard chest.
“Of course you can, but why?”
I mumbled a goodnight to Sonia, who was quietly trying to charm Grayson. She probably felt bad about distracting his team. Mal pressed another kiss to my forehead as I snuggled into his chest. I was asleep before he laid me on the bed.
Chapter 12
“She’s just trying to draw you out. Get a rise out of you,” Asher warned in a hard voice. Next to me, Mal’s knuckles were turning white where his fingers clenched around his coffee mug.
“I’m aware,” he gritted. I reached over to push his hand down, forcing him to set the mug on the table in front of him. Any more tension and we’d have shattered ceramic and a tepid macchiato all over our breakfast table. His fingers flexed as he watched the words scroll across the screen.
Dr. Do-Right Did Me Wrong!
Last night, Christine had uploaded the weepy, confessional-style video to social media, tagging all the major gossip sites. Adam was beside himself.
On the screen, teary-eyed and twisting her fingers, a brunette woman spewed an utterly fabricated story on a grainy cell-phone video.
“…loved him so much. But when I told him about the baby, he lost his mind. I…I still can’t believe the things he said.” Christine sobbed into the camera, dabbing at her eyes. “The stress of it all…I lost the baby. And he didn’t even care. Now, I see himin Chicago with these other women. I just don’t want what happened to me to happen to someone else.”
“Dr. Dobrev, known by his social media handle, ‘Dr. Do-Right’ has in fact been spotted with at least two women in Chicago, where he is opening a new clinic,” the anchor on the entertainment news show droned while pictures flicked across the screen: Mal and Sonia walking out of our apartment complex a few weeks ago, images of him and I at the gala, hanging all over each other. “Eyewitness reports say Dr. Dobrev was definitely getting cozy with at least one of them.”
“I mean, I hear a lot of stuff while I’m driving people around, but he was talking about taking her back home and getting her clothes off. I’m not sure what he was saying is appropriate for TV, you know? It was pretty graphic.”
I gasped, jerking forward to get a closer look at the TV. “You’re shitting me! Isn’t that our driver from the gala?”
The man on the screen turned. Once I got a look at his profile and the same black baseball hat as he’d had on that night, I knew it was. Asher tensed as he watched the man detail his interactions with us that night, including how Mal had handed over a wad of cash and asked him to keep what he’d heard quiet. Mal cursed, head dropping into his hands.
“That’s one of the contractors we used for transport on the sixteenth,” Grayson muttered. He was an intimidating guy, but now the flat, no-nonsense voice I’d become accustomed to held an icy edge that made me want to shrink away, slowly. “Track him down.”
“Already on it,” Asher bit out, hammering on his laptop keyboard.
