“Me, too,” Meghan practically stuttered. “At Children’s. I mean, I work at Children’s, too.”
Lucas’s brow lifted. “On the neuro floor with Emily?”
Hearing her name on his lips caused tightness to squeeze Emily’s chest. Darn him that he was here creating chaos in her world, not to mention making a blabbering idiot of her best friend.
Meghan nodded, still stammering and stuttering. “I’ve taken care of a few of your patients.”
He flashed one of his most potent smiles and Emily had to forgive her friend. When he was more handsome than anything Hollywood had ever put on the silver screen, how was Meghan supposed to resist? Her friend didn’t know he had a heart of ice and a soul as black as coal.
“Ah,” he said. “That’s why you look familiar.”
Emily wasn’t buying that he hadn’t known who Meghan was. No doubt he knew everything about her best friend.
Meghan’s lashes swooped downward. “I guess you heard what I was saying about how you looked.”
Her best friend was flirting with her ex. Not that Meghan knew, but still. Gag. Gag. Gag.
Just take Emily out and push her in front of a taxi driver right now. She couldn’t take any more.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to go find a ladies’ room.” She went to move past Lucas, but the photographer chose that moment to appear.
“Hello,” the overly friendly guy said, smiling and motioning for Lucas and Emily to pose. “Get together for a photo for our website.”
Emily clenched her teeth and moved one step closer to Lucas.
The photographer frowned. “Smile. Look happy. You just brought in more money than any of the others.”
There was that. Raising money for a good cause did make her happy. She sighed and focused on the help that would be provided to her patients’ families because of Lucas’s generosity.
Surprisingly, he looked a little hesitant. Lucas off guard. Now, that was something new. Still, he put his arm at her waist and smiled for the camera.
Trying to ignore the fact that he was touching her, Emily curved her lips upward.
The photographer’s flash went off a couple of times.
“Thanks.” The photographer turned to Meghan and her winner, who’d joined them. “Your turn, Pretty Lady.”
Meghan curled up next to the stockbroker she’d gone on a couple of dates with.
Which moved everyone’s attention off Emily and Lucas.
Her throat suddenly tight, she glared at him. “Congratulations. You’re such a winner.”
THAT HADN’T GONE anywhere near the way Lucas had mentally rehearsed his first encounter with Emily outside the hospital.
Then again, what had he expected? He should thank his lucky stars that she hadn’t made a scene.
The look she’d given him said she’d like to have smacked him. Or worse.
“I think you two got off on the wrong foot.” Meghan rejoined him after the photographer had snapped a few shots of her and her date winner. The brunette frowned after Emily. “I don’t understand how that’s even possible. Emily gets along with everyone. She’s the sweetest, kindest person I know.”
They hadn’t gotten off on the wrong foot, but they’d ended that way.
He closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath, catching the faintest whiff of Emily’s perfume still on the air. She’d always worn the light vanilla scent. He could never smell anything even close to the fragrance without being haunted by memories of the past.
Lately, most everything had his mind filling with Emily.
Ever since he’d been offered the position at Children’s, he’d been confronted with memory after memory. Probably because he’d known taking the job meant coming face-to-face with his biggest regret.
To head the department, oversee research in traumatic brain injury, play an active role in the decisions being made that would impact how things were done on the pediatric neurology unit—Children’s had offered him all that and more. The position was his dream come true.
He’d still hesitated.
Because of the woman walking away from him.
Just as she’d walked away five years ago.
Not that he hadn’t deserved her leaving. He had. He just hadn’t thought she’d walk away from their marriage, no matter how bad things got.
He’d been wrong.
But Emily had been right to leave. She’d been so unhappy, crying more often than not. Marriage to him had rapidly done that to her. He’d thought she was depressed, needing counseling, but when he’d suggested as much, she’d burst into tears. That night had been the night she’d packed her things.
His wife leaving him had hurt like hell, but he had gotten over it, had moved on and made a good life for himself.
But seeing Emily again had been tough. More so than he’d been prepared for. He wasn’t sure quite what he’d expected of her, but the cold shoulder he got every time he walked onto the unit just had to go.
No, he didn’t expect her to do cartwheels that he’d joined the hospital where she worked, but he was a good pediatric neurosurgeon and was now medical director of her unit. What had happened between them was a long time ago, water under the bridge, they’d both moved on. He was happy. She was happy. There was no need for awkwardness between them.
That was why he’d bid on her date.
Mostly.
As Emily’s bid had proceeded, he’d grown more and more annoyed with the man she’d arrived with.
The man she’d been comparing him unfavorably to.
The man who’d acted as if bidding on Emily was an inconvenience.
Emily was too good for the guy.
He supposed it could be argued that she’d been too good for Lucas, too. She probably had been.
Besides, the guy must make her happy, since she’d defended him to her friend. Something Lucas had failed miserably at.
Regardless, the man’s reticence to bid had irked. As he’d watched her on stage, the insecurities that only someone who knew her as well as he had would recognize flittering across her lovely face had brought out something protective.
So much so that he’d placed a bid. Then another, then, when her foolish date had hem-hawed on his last bid, Lucas had more than doubled the amount.
Probably not his brightest move.
But the guy needed to be hit over the head with the news that a date with Emily was worth every penny.
The realization hit Lucas hard.
He watched her retreating backside head out of the ballroom, appreciated the curvy lines of her body beneath the sleek lines of her formfitting emerald dress. Once upon a time, he’d slept with her backside snuggled into the curve of his body, spooned so close every breath he’d taken had been filled with her. Now he didn’t have the right to even stroke his finger over the silky smooth skin of her cheek.
Lucas swallowed. Where had that thought come from?
He hadn’t bid on Emily because he wanted a date with her. He didn’t. He only wanted a chance to clear the air between them.
Maybe he’d been led to Children’s