Page 12 of Dr. Lillian Harrington
“Dr. Lang?” Lillian’s voice snapped her back to the present.
Rebecca blinked, her focus shifting back to the surgery as she pushed the memory aside. She couldn’t afford distractions. Not here, not now.
But as the surgery concluded and Rebecca removed her gloves, she couldn’t help but glance at Lillian again. The youngerwoman was methodical, efficient, and completely professional. Just as she should be. Yet Rebecca couldn’t ignore the tension that lingered between them, unspoken but palpable.
Tuesday morning brought another meeting, this time with the team of interns, where Rebecca outlined the week’s surgical cases and expectations. Lillian sat among them, her expression calm and focused, as if the weight of her surname wasn’t constantly hanging over her. Rebecca couldn’t help but wonder if Lillian was truly as unaffected by their shared history as she appeared to be.
“Dr. Harrington,” Rebecca said, addressing Lillian directly during the meeting. “You’ll be assisting on the cardiac repair tomorrow. I expect you to be prepared and fully briefed on the case. No mistakes.”
Lillian nodded. “Of course.”
No hesitation. No faltering. Rebecca wanted to test her further, to push her harder, but she held back. There was no need. Lillian seemed determined to prove herself without any extra pressure.
Later that afternoon, as Rebecca passed through the hall on her way to another meeting, she spotted Lillian speaking with Benji. Their easy rapport was clear, Benji laughing at something Lillian said. Rebecca watched from a distance for a moment, noting how different Lillian seemed with her peers—lighter, less burdened by the weight of her family’s expectations.
Rebecca felt a flicker of something unexpected. Jealousy? No, it wasn’t that. But there was something in the way Lillian carried herself outside of the OR that made Rebecca even more curious. She was used to keeping her interns at arm’s length,maintaining a strict professional distance. Yet with Lillian, it was becoming increasingly difficult.
By midweek, the strain of mentoring Lillian had started to weigh on Rebecca. Each interaction, no matter how brief or professional, felt like a balancing act. She was determined to treat Lillian as she would any other intern, to maintain the boundaries she had set for herself long ago. But the personal history between them kept surfacing in her thoughts, and it was harder than ever to compartmentalize.
After a particularly grueling day of surgeries, Rebecca returned to her office, exhausted but still on edge. She pulled out her phone and found herself staring at the dating app she had used to meet Lillian. She hadn’t opened it since that night, but now, as she stared at it, she felt a strange pull to revisit the moment they had shared.
Before she could act on the impulse, there was a knock at her door.
“Come in,” she said, her voice steady despite the sudden rush of nerves.
Lillian stepped inside, holding a stack of reports. “I wanted to drop these off for the review tomorrow.”
Rebecca took the papers, their hands brushing briefly. The touch was electric, sending a jolt of heat through her that she tried to ignore. She glanced up, meeting Lillian’s eyes for just a moment. There it was again—the unspoken tension between them, the weight of something neither could acknowledge but both clearly felt.
“Thank you, Dr. Harrington,” Rebecca said, her voice a little too stiff, a little too formal.
Lillian nodded, her expression unreadable. “Good night, Dr. Lang.”
She turned and left, the door clicking softly behind her. Rebecca sat back in her chair, her heart still racing. She hated that she couldn’t seem to shake the memory of that night, that Lillian’s presence in her life had complicated everything.
She had always prided herself on keeping things professional, on not letting personal desires interfere with her work. But with Lillian, it was becoming harder and harder to maintain that control.
By the end of the week, Rebecca was exhausted, both physically and mentally. She had been pushing herself hard, determined to maintain her composure and professionalism, even as the tension between her and Lillian simmered just beneath the surface.
The final surgery of the week had gone well, and as Rebecca scrubbed out, she glanced at Lillian, who was cleaning and packing up the surgical tools. The younger woman had performed flawlessly throughout the week, never once letting her guard down, never once slipping.
It was impressive.
But it also made Rebecca feel as though she was constantly on edge, always waiting for something to crack—whether it was Lillian’s composure or her own.
As she walked back to her office, Rebecca felt a strange sense of frustration. It wasn’t just the professional challenges of mentoring Lillian; it was the personal pull, the fact that Lillian had gotten under her skin in a way no one else had. And despiteher best efforts to keep things strictly professional, Rebecca couldn’t deny that the lines were starting to blur.
She sat down at her desk and stared at the reports in front of her, but her mind wasn’t on the work. It was on Lillian, on the way she had walked out of that hotel room without looking back, on the way she moved through the hospital now with the same cool confidence.
Rebecca exhaled sharply, leaning back in her chair. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. She was supposed to be in control, always. But with Lillian, control was starting to feel like a fragile thing, slipping away faster than she could catch it.
And that, more than anything else, terrified her.
5
LILLIAN
Lillian sat in the break room, nursing a cup of stale coffee. The hospital was quieter at this hour, the usual buzz of activity muted as the evening shift took over. Her fingers tapped absently against the side of her mug as her mind drifted back to the week she had just survived. Her first full week as an intern had been brutal—long hours, demanding surgeries, and the ever-present weight of expectations hanging over her like a storm cloud. But none of that compared to the tension simmering beneath the surface every time she was around Dr. Lang.
