Page 12 of Falling for the Hot Billionaire

She had already decided, and I didn't like the fact that I didn't get to make that decision. It was already made for me. The last thing I wanted was for decisions to be made for me. I was annoyed by the whole situation, and I asked her if I had any recourse.

Lauren sighed and shook her head. “You’re acting like this is punishment. It really isn’t. This is for your own safety.”

“I am being told that I can no longer work where I have been for years and where I do the best. Yeah, I take that as a personal affront.”

“The last thing I am trying to do is offend you. It just came to our attention that it may not be safe for you to continue on in your current capacity. We have to look out for our employees, Justine. That’s what we’re doing. Please don’t take it the wrong way.”

I most certainly was.

It was one of those situations where I could have argued with her for an hour about it and gotten nowhere. I was more interested in the language she used, particularly how she kept saying that it was brought to their attention. I knew that the hospital board would be the only one that would say anything, but who would have brought it to their attention in the first place? I didn't have much family and it’s not like I was the first person to take a hit from a patient. It was far more normal than many people realized. If you're in health care though, you know how it is. Lauren knew, so why was she acting so weird, trying to get me to go somewhere else?

If I thought she would have told me the truth, I would have asked her. I didn’t want to go to ICU, but it didn’t feel like I had a choice. It wasn't the last conversation that we were going to have about it, but I needed to cool down. First, I had to figure out what was going on and why everything was different all of a sudden. Then, I could go about fixing whatever ‘it’ was.

I got back home a little later and I had a lot of my mind. I saw Tyrell's car in the driveway and my eyes searched for him. I honestly didn't know how to deal with Tyrell. I went inside, set down my purse, and went to the fridge for a drink. I felt like I had been demoted and I had no idea why. When I heard a knock at the door later, I knew who it was. I was three glasses of wine in, so I answered the door without my usual nerves.

“Hey, Tyrell, you want to come in?”

He grinned and agreed, stepping past me and brushing against me on his way. I closed the door and asked him if he wanted a drink.

“Yeah, I'll have whatever you're having because you seem to be feeling no pain.”

I actually felt like crap, but at least it was coming across better. I smiled instead of adding what was on my mind. Tyrell was easier to deal with when I wasn’t worried about everything. He was just the man that I needed around. He was funny and the tension helped me to forget why I was drinking to begin with.

That was exactly what I needed, just a little bit of time to forget. Tyrell didn’t seem so dangerous.

11

Tyrell

Justine was in some kind of mood, and I'm not even sure what was going on with her. I think I was going to like it though. She had this devilish grin on her face, and I didn't know what exactly was running through her mind, but it felt like her new mood was a good thing. It didn’t hurt that it looked like she had been drinking for a bit either.

She made me a drink and asked how my day was. I told her that I was fine, and she commented how I was probably always busy. I didn't suggest otherwise. When I stepped down from the company, it made it a lot easier to take time to do what I wanted to do. That's what I was doing now, moving next to her, trying to give fate a jumpstart because it was obviously taking too long. None of this would work if we weren't given the opportunity.

I asked her how her day was and that was the first time I saw her frown. It was not a good look on her, and it was obvious that something was wrong. When I asked, I wish that I hadn't.

“I got demoted today.”

“Demoted? Why would the hospital demote you? You are the best one they have working there,” I challenged. I really couldn’t believe it.

She waved me off and told me that I didn't have to say such a thing, but I certainly meant it. I didn't go this far into something without knowing what I was getting into. I had looked into her past; I knew her record, and that she had absolutely no complaints the whole time she worked at the hospital. That was basically unheard of. Justine was literally the best they had at the hospital, so how could they demote her? It didn’t make sense.

I worried about that answer, for the simple fact that I might have used my connections to try and shift where Justine was put in the hospital. I thought it was too dangerous for her to be in the ER. Was all this because of me? I really hoped not. It was definitely not my intention to mess with her job in that way.

“What do you mean you were demoted?” I asked, only half-heartedly wanting to know.

Justine just shrugged and told me that she didn't want to share all her troubles with me. I tried hard not to think about it, but I finally had to know because if this was my fault, I was going to feel like utter crap about it. It was not my intent to cause her any stress or strife. I was trying to alleviate it and make her job safer. From the way that Justine was taking it though, something very important was being taken from her. I really didn’t want this to be my fault, but I knew.

It was just as I had imagined. The wrong words got to the wrong people, and it was suggested that she needed to get out of the ER department because it was too dangerous for her. She was too likable, too trusting, and they put her in ICU instead.

“Well, ICU is critical patients and maybe you will be able to help out people that really need it,” I offered, trying to make it sound better, so that she wouldn’t feel so bad about it.

Justine sighed, tossing her hair to the side and running her fingers through the long tendrils. “I guess. I just only do the ICU when it's needed. It is the most critical patients and many of them aren’t going to make it out of there. It's crazy and sometimes there are miracles, but most of the time it just drains your soul to see all that suffering. It took me a long time to get out of ICU and into the ER. Things are always different, there's never a dull moment, and I don't find it that dangerous at all. I just don't like that I don't get a choice. Who are they to tell me where I can work and if it's too dangerous? It's my decision to make, not theirs!” Justine ended with a huff, clearly working herself up. I shouldn’t have brought it up and my curiosity was going to make it worse.

She said it was such a vengeance that it was probably right then and there that I knew I had to keep my participation in it quiet. She was upset to think that it was her boss that made a decision, but it was actually me. I was the one that thought I knew better, and it was becoming quite clear to me that it was the wrong way to think about it. What if nobody knew right or wrong? What if I had ruined everything because I had gotten in the middle of it? She was so fierce in her independence that it worried me what I had done.

I thought that she would be happy, but she wasn't. How could I fix it now? It's not like I could call her boss back and say that I didn't mean any of it. Justine could just never know. She could never know that I used my strings to get her demoted as she said. It wasn't my intention, not even in the least bit, but I learned a long time ago that intentions were only half of it. What played out in reality could always be completely different. It seemed like now was one of those situations.

“I'm sure that they will come to their senses and put you back where you're needed most,” I assured her.

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