Page 23 of Hot Doctor & Secret Baby

11

Joshua

What the hell am I doing…

The question keeps resounding in my mind over and over again. The only thing that breaks it up are my relentless fantasies about what would have happened if Hudson hadn't barged in that door.

I have to stop acting like this. I have to stop thinking about her.

I have to blow off some steam.

The hospital provides a gym for its staff which is meant to keep us healthy while also giving us a place to destress when the work gets hard. I imagine it's not typically used as a distraction from a burning need to sleep with your co-worker, but then again…I'm not the first leading doctor of Bardot to go down that road. So maybe the gym is used for that very purpose more often than I think.

Speak of the devil.Just as I'm getting into a good groove on the bench press, Hudson Gray walks in. If this gym is frequently used to curb temptations, he would know better than anyone.

"Don't look at me like that," I scowl.

"Like what?" he shrugs with a sarcastic innocence. "Like I just caught you nearly making out with our new hire? One that previously accused you of discrimination at that."

"Bardot had barely been open a few years before you impregnated one of our patients. Everyone else may have forgotten, but I haven't. So don't act all high and mighty with me."

"That patient is now my wife, and she wasn't a patient when we slept together," he defends.

I shoot him an accusing glare.

"At least she wasn't a patient…the first time," he adds, nervously smoothing a hand down the back of his neck. "That's all in the past. It has nothing to do with the mistakes you're making right now in the present."

"Just because you married Madison Levine and the publicity somehow worked in our favor, doesn't cancel out what it was in the beginning. You were crossing a line and violating hospital policy."

"If you have such strong morals about it all, then I'm even more confused about what I saw and how you're behaving," he scoffs.

"I tried to warn you not to hire my ex. We have unfinished business. I knew it was going to be a train wreck."

"Then you should have said as much," he argues. "What you did instead was try and undermine her expertise and capabilities." He takes a seat on the bench next to mine and props his elbows on his knees. "Look, Joshua…It doesn't matter what I think. I know I don't have much room to talk, and I prefer to stay out of people's personal business. But…it's not about me. There are rumors floating around about the two of you. You need to be careful."

"I know what I'm doing," I assure him, though as soon as I say it - I feel a questioning tug inside.

My lost sense of direction is what brought me here to work out in the first place. I'm flailing, and he knows it. He can see it written all over my face. But I always say - fake it until you make it. So I stick to my guns with him.

"Are you so sure?" he questions.

"Positive."

"Joshua…You know Sturgill loves having you here. You're one of his golden boys. He's not going to give you up without a fight."

"What's your point?"

"My point is if you two get caught, it's probably going to be Vanessa that gets fired. Not you."

"So what? Worried about another lawsuit threat?" I laugh.

"No." He hangs his head, then looks back to me. "I'm worried about you two finding a cure to cancer, because I think you're both brilliant, stubborn, and crazy enough to pull it off. And I'm worried about you hurting this woman's career. Two things you should also be very worried about, by the way…if you have any heart at all."

He gets up and walks off to the treadmills, leaving me to grunt and sweat away the rest of my lifts. I wish what he said didn't get to me, but it does. I've been so stupid and selfish through every part of this. I don't know what about her makes me act this way. But it's clouding what's really important here - like he said.

I can't let her suffer for my mistakes all over again. I don't want to hurt her again. And most of all, I want to see what we can accomplish together in our work.

This childish longing for what might have been has to stop.

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