I’m not myself anymore.
Sitting in this chair, I feel naked. Exposed. Sensitive. Every single nerve.
There is one word on the card that came with the flowers.
Behave.
When I read it, I stopped being able to breathe. My pulse is still thumping and they arrived an hour ago, as soon as I set foot in the office. He dominates me, this man. Yet I sit here feeling like a powerful goddess with the world at her fingertips. Exultant. Cherished.
Looking around the office, I notice a group of my co-workers whispering, looking over their shoulder at me, and I can’t say I blame them. These days, I stumble into this office in a sexual stupor, my bottom lip indented with teeth marks, my hair wild from having the life kissed out of me on my way out the door of Dean’s townhouse. I’m hyperaware of my body every second of the day. Even my hair brushing over my collarbone can make me shudder. Make me think of him. Dean. Doctor Fletcher. Sir. Daddy.
I catch my reflection in the monitor of my computer, which has gone dark as I’ve been daydreaming—and my God, I barely recognize the sex kitten staring back at me. I’m wearing a gray strapless pencil dress that goes all the way to my knees—but it looks painted on—and boosts my breasts up like a sultry offering. There’s a slit running up to my thigh and I’m already imagining the doctor’s hand trailing up that exposed skin, dragging it higher, higher.
I’m already imagining how he’ll command me. How roughly he’ll enter me.
Staring at my reflection, I have no choice but to acknowledge that I’m slipping.
Fast.
I’ve started spending the night. Yesterday I didn’t even make a pretense of cleaning, as I’m being paid to do. I’m accepting gifts. When he calls me an Uber so I don’t have to take the train to work, I go willingly. Gratefully.
It’s a slippery slope and I’ve already tumbled halfway to the bottom.
Through the window of my office, I can see the hospital looming in the distance—and I know that’s where I’m supposed to be. Reading through Dean’s personal files has ignited an even more powerful burn inside of me, made me chomp at the bit to put the words into practice. To learn more and become a surgeon, like I’ve always dreamed of doing. It would be so easy to accept the gift Dean wants to give me. If I’m starting to cave after such a short period of time, where will I be in a year? Living in his house? Spoiled out of my mind and attending medical school?
Letting out a worried breath, I lean back in my chair, ordering myself to get started on my tasks of the day. But just as I open the required reference file, another delivery is made to my desk. This time, it’s an orchid. It’s beautiful. Vivid. Still sprinkled in moisture.
My heart is back to flying off the handle.
Because I love him. I absolutely, one hundred percent, am in love with Dean Fletcher.
I’ve always been infatuated, but this? This is the real deal. I know him now. I’ve let my guard down and he’s done the same with me. We’re…joined. Fused. Attached.
An image occupies my brain suddenly. Dean’s head tipped back on the pillow, laughing at something I said. Peppering me with questions about myself while I do the same, in reverse. Sometimes we talk until the darkest hours of the morning, whispering as if we’re going to get caught. I think of how he pulls me into his arms when I start to yawn, tucking me into his body protectively, stroking magic fingers up and down my spine until I fall asleep. And I’m not sure how I was living without him before. I’m under his spell and I don’t want to come out.
Lips pressed together, I reach for the card attached to the orchid, reading it with stunned breathlessness.
Liver transplant surgery at 11. I’ve put your name down for the viewing gallery.
Come watch. D
I’m already surging to my feet, my hip knocking into the desk and nearly upsetting my coffee. I open the bottom drawer of my desk and take out my purse, hanging it on my shoulder, trying to calm down as I approach my boss’s office. Surgery. I’m going to watch a live surgery. And not just any transplant. This one will be performed by the Messiah himself. I read online once that Dean only allows an audience of medical students once a year—and they have to enter a lottery to win a seat. There’s no way I can pass this up. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime shot.
I tap lightly on my boss’s door and open it, stepping inside.
He leans sideways to see me around his computer monitor, giving me a blatant once-over that makes me want to gag. He’s a child compared to my boyfriend. A twenty-one-year-old kid who made millions on an app that deletes unused apps and wears shirts that say “Iconic” or “Byte Me,” and he’s generally just snarky and sarcastic to anyone who engages him. Normally I avoid him like the plague unless I’m being given an assignment, but desperate times call for desperate measures.