Page 77 of Inferno
Chapter 19
Erin Gilliard was seething with fury.
If she were any hotter under the collar, she’d burst into flames and would need help from the roomful of firefighters. But there was only one firefighter she’d want to be rescued by, andhehadn’t spared hersomuch as a passing glance all night.
How can Stan completely ignore me like this?shewondered with mounting frustration. How could he just pretend that she didn’t exist when he’d spent the past three months confessing some of his deepest, darkest secrets to her? Telling her things he hadn’t even told his own wife?
After everything he and Erin had shared, didn’t she at least deserve some gesture of acknowledgment?A private smile?A wink?
Something?
Apparently not.
For the past hour, she’d sat at her table simmering with jealousy as she watched Stan and Prissy dance together, their bodies flowing from one song to another. Even when the music changed to something faster and they began grooving rhythmically together, Stan couldn’t resist curving an arm around Prissy’s waist and pulling her closer, so that by the end of the song they were right back in each other’s arms, kissing like they were the only two people in the damn world.
Erin silently fumed as she stared at the couple. Prissy’s head was resting on Stan’s shoulder and her eyes were closed in an expression of dreamy euphoria that drove daggers of envy through Erin’s heart.
Stan looked like every woman’s fantasy in his navy blue dress uniform. When he’d first entered the ballroom that evening, Erin knew she wasn’t the only female who’d nearly swooned at the sight of him.
She grudgingly acknowledged that Prissy—what the hell kind of nickname was that anyway?—looked lovely in her slinky white mermaid gown, though it was obvious that she battled with her weight. She couldn’t hold a candle to Erin, whose breathtaking beauty turned heads everywhere she went. From the moment she’d arrived at the ball tonight, men had been ogling her and flirting shamelessly with her.
But once again, she remained invisible to the only man whose attention she craved.
It isn’t fair, Erin raged.
Sheshould have been seated at that table with the other firefighters’ wives—laughing, gossiping,commiseratingabout wayward children and whatever else mothers commiserated about when they got together.
Sheshould have been wearing white like the others, instead of being dressed like the outsider who hadn’t gotten the memo.
Sheshould have been the lucky recipient of Stan’s adoring gaze and that powerfully moving tribute that had sent a wave of sentimental sighs sweeping over the ballroom.Shewas the only one who truly understood why he’d gotten choked up at the end of his speech.
So it should have beenherin his arms right now, looking like the most sublimely contented woman on earth.
Instead she sat practically alone at her table, feeling as miserable and unwanted as a scorned lover. To add insult to unspeakable injury, she’d been abandoned by her date, a handsome surgeon who’d been paged by the hospital where he worked. He’d apologized profusely before dashing off, leaving Erin to make small talk with an over-perfumed woman who was three sheets to the wind.
She’d jumped at the chance to escape her inebriated companion when an attractive businessman came over and asked her to dance. But when he boldly propositioned her for sex halfway through the song, she’d told him off and marched back to her table, where she was forced to sit and watch as Stan and Prissy—along with a group of their friends—laughingly boogied to the Commodores’ “Brick House.” The scene between Stan and Prissy was playful yet sexually charged, with Stan singing the chorus to Prissy and rocking his hips against her shapely backside while she grinned over her shoulder at him.
It was more than Erin could bear.
She’d worked hard to get where she was, and she’d always prided herself on being a consummate professional. So she knew it was downright unethical to become involved with a patient. She could lose her practice.Her license.Her reputation.
She could lose everything.
And none of that mattered.
Because ever since she met Stanton Wolf, she’d been forced to reevaluate the things she’d once held so dear—her medical degree, her thriving career, her luxury condo.
She’d give it all up in a heartbeat if she could have Stan.
She wanted him to leave his wife and marryher. She wanted to make passionate, back-clawing love to him every night. She wanted to bear his children, maybe give him the daughter that Prissy never had.
She wanted him like no other man she’d ever wanted before.
So she had to do something.
Since Stan refused to tell his wife about her, she had no choice but to force his hand.
Making a split-second decision, she got up and strode purposefully across the room to Deputy Fire Chief Hugh Van Dorn, a recently divorced man who had a weakness for Jim Beam whiskey and pretty women. He was seated at a table with one of the firefighters’ union bosses. The two men were laughing companionably and swigging beers as they watched the partygoers on the dance floor.
