Chapter 39
39
She was flirting with him.
With that Chad Fields. Right there in the middle of the ED. And there was her bitch friend, making eyes at Genny’s brother.
Dr. Fields, Dr. Hiller, two of the most successful physicians in the entire hospital. Like they were something special.
Of course they were.
They came from wealthy ranching families; they didn’t have to work their way up from nothing the way Doug did.
He would be paying on his med school loans for decades. No one had offered him scholarships, like he’d heard Dr. Fields had been given. No. Doug had always had to fight for what he wanted.
Fields was taking everything from him.
“Dr. Hodges, is there a problem?” Dr. Fisher asked, coming around behind him. “You seem to be angry about something. I’ve had two patient complaints this evening.”
From whom? The damned emergency department was empty now. Couldn’t that worthless airheaded blonde see that? Who had she screwed to get this position anyway? Alvaro, Carrington Junior? Carrington Senior, maybe? Doug had put in for head of the emergency department. It should have been his.
He had heard it was going to be his .
But Caine Alvaro had asked her to run it instead. She was already the de facto assistant chief of medicine now.
She was bound for good things. Miss Perfect.
She’d had even more scholarships than Dr. Fields. Everyone talked about her. Said she was brilliant and should have been working at a larger hospital. Like Finley Creek Gen. But something had happened at Finley Creek Gen, gossip had said. To send her to the much smaller Barratt County Gen with her head hanging down. Probably screwed Alvaro’s identical twin brother or something. That guy ran FCGH.
Hell, maybe they’d been passing that blonde piece of ass back and forth for years.
It was the only thing that made sense. She certainly hadn’t gotten to where she was on merit. Mandy Kirby had told him that a dozen times already. He didn’t understand Justin’s fascination with this woman at all. She was nothing but a frozen stuck-up bitch all the way through.
“Dr. Hodges?”
“Fuck off, Fisher. I’m not in the mood for your bullshit tonight.” Doug slammed past her. His shoulder bumped her.
She fell into the counter, just a little.
Damn it.
He hadn’t meant to hit her that hard. She was a hell of a lot smaller than he was. She just always made him so angry. “I apologize, Dr. Fisher, I miss-stepped. Didn’t mean to bump into you.”
“Sure you didn’t.” She stepped right into his path. “Listen, Hodges, I know what your problem is. And it doesn’t have a place in my ED. You can’t handle that, we’ll call Dr. Alvaro over here and talk about it in his office, do you understand me?”
“Finally using your boy toy to your advantage?” He hissed the question at her. He didn’t miss the way she shivered.
Afraid.
She was afraid of him, Aubrey Fisher.
Doug really liked that. He stepped closer. Just for the hell of it.
Genny was there.
Her eyes widened. “You are such a pig, Hodges. A pig. Are you okay, Aubs? You hit the counter kind of hard.”
“I’m good. Dr. Hodges was leaving for the night. He’s out of here. We’ll take this up with HR first thing in the morning.”
Fury had Dr. Fisher’s hair practically standing on end, and her blue eyes—beautiful eyes, no denying that—snapping fire.
So there was some passion in the bitch after all.
She was nothing like his Genny. Nothing.
Fields should screw around with her and leave women like Genny alone.
“Is this what Alvaro gets? You have some fire beneath that ice, after all?” The words just came out before he could stop them. But hell, everyone thought that. Everyone in the damned hospital.
“ Out. Or you’re out of a job. Unless you want to take it up with Caine right now? Would you like to ask him that question yourself?”
She was right there in front of him. Just right there in front of him. The blonde bitch still had scissors in her hand from where she’d been opening a delivery.
Doug felt his fingers wrapping around her forearm. He grabbed the scissors from her hand. The end of one blade pricked his hand. He jerked. Taking the blonde bitch with him. “Get the hell out of my way.”
“Let her go.”
“Genny, stay out of it.”
Doug looked down. At the small fingers wrapped around his wrist. Her touch was like velvet.
It should have been his. It just should have been his. She should have been his.
“Have you slept with him, Genny? Fields. Has he touched you?”
Fury unlike any he had ever felt had him swinging out, before he could stop himself. With the scissors still in his hand.
Both women went falling.
Right against the intake desk. Like they had just a few days before.
Genny’s scream echoed through his head. Dr. Fisher was there. Right there. Ruining everything.
Her. Dr. Caine I’m-so-perfect-Alvaro. Dr. Guthrie Hiller, head of Maternity & Delivery. And Chadwick Fields, MD. Greatest pediatrician in the damned state.
Doug was nothing. Nobody.
All the rage he’d been feeling for weeks, months, years, bubbled up.
He lashed out. With the scissors still in his hand.
He just wanted to make them all pay. All of them.
That blonde bitch, especially.
And Fields . He wanted to make that arrogant cocksucker pay. For everything he had taken from Doug. Everything.
Including Genny.
He wrapped his free hand in the light teal scrub top, dotted with baby lambs and ducks of all things, and pulled the woman he would have given everything to up on her feet.
Doug almost missed the knee she aimed at his groin.
Almost.
It had him slashing out again.
With the scissors still in his hand.
He saw the blood. And he just didn’t give a damn.