Jamison (Beautiful Mine #3) (17 page)

“Maybe we can meet up tomorrow?” I proposed. “I can show you around the city.”

“We’d love that, kiddo,” my dad said, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners.

“I’ll get a hold of you in the morning,” I said, slowly walking back toward the party. “I need to go mingle for a bit.”

They stood side by side, watching me like proud parents, a look I hadn’t seen from either of their faces in years. I wanted to both punch and kiss Jamison at the same time. Once again, he knew exactly what I needed.

“You know you have to tell them tomorrow,” Jamison whispered into my ear as his hand pressed into the small of my back.

“Tell them what?”

“About your diagnosis.”

“I can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “Look how happy they seem. I can’t tell them. Not yet.”

“Have I ever steered you wrong?”

“Here she is! The artist herself!” A woman in a long, flowing gown the color of a pink rose glided over to us, ending our conversation before it had a chance to reach a full boil. “I have to ask you about this piece over here…”

She grabbed me by the arm, gently pulling me away from Jamison as she rambled on about a piece of mine Mia had put on display. It was the heart I’d painted the day I realized I loved Jamison.

“I’m sorry, this one’s not for sale,” I said, trying my best to be polite. “It was mistakenly displayed.”

I leaned over and ripped the plaque off the wall that displayed the price.

“My dear, everything has a price,” she scoffed, slipping a manicured hand across the diamond necklace that hung into her cleavage. “I’m simply in love.”

“If you’d like to commission a piece, I’d be happy to paint another just like it,” I offered.

In art school, we were taught never to get too attached to our pieces. We were taught that if someone wanted to buy your painting and the price was right, you were a damn fool not to sell it to them.

But this one was special. This one represented fresh starts. New beginnings. Budding love. Jamison.

This one was priceless.

“I’m very disappointed,” she huffed, her nose in the air as she walked off. I was sure to a woman of her distinction, everything had a price. If I had to guess, she was rarely, if ever, told “no,” and anything she ever laid eyes on she was able to procure.

“I’m sorry,” I said, genuinely apologetic for letting her down. But by the time I’d said it, she was already clear across the room, eyeing one of Mia’s watercolors.

“You all right?” Jamison appeared out of nowhere, studying my face with his worried expression.

“That one’s not for sale,” I told him.

It never would be.

JAMISON

The bed felt unusually cold for a Saturday morning. We’d stayed at the gallery until the last of the guests left, and then I took Sophie back to my place. Several glasses of celebratory champagne had knocked her off her feet, and her eyes barely fluttered open as I unzipped her dress and slipped off her shoes before tucking her neatly under the covers of my bed.

My hand flew over to the other side. Empty. I drudged myself up, heading across the room to where the bathroom door was closed.

“Sophie?” I knocked. I popped the door open just a crack, and the gentle splash of tub water drew my eyes to where Sophie was relaxing in a deep tub full of bubbles. Her lips widened into a smile.

“Want in?”

I stepped into the bathroom. “Couldn’t sleep? Kind of early for a bath, isn’t it?”

“I slept like a champ,” she said, her dark hair spilling down the back of the slipper tub. “Woke up feeling like a million bucks. Thought I’d take a bath since my place only has a shower.”

Clean-faced and washed in an early morning glow, Sophie radiated as if she were lit from within.

“I’m meeting my parents in an hour for breakfast,” she said. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m kind of looking forward to it.”

She lifted a bubble-covered arm up and let the water drip back down into the tub, completely in the moment.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you last night,” she said gingerly, shrinking down into the water.

I sauntered to the tub, lowering myself down onto my knees. “You had every right to yell at me.”

Her eyes met mine and she nibbled on her lips, which were like lush peaches against a canvas of cream, and I leaned over to kiss her.

“You need me to go with you today?” I offered.

“No,” she said. “I need to do this on my own.”

“You going to tell them?”

“Yes,” she sighed, brows raised in slight annoyance. “I’ll find a way.”

I stood back up, tugging at the waistband of my silken pajama pants and tossing them in the hamper across the room.

“Yummy,” Sophie teased as she ogled me from beneath the blanket of bubbles that unfairly covered her naughty bits.

“I’m jumping in the shower,” I announced. “Going to run to the hospital this morning and catch up on some charting.”

***

I rounded the corner to my office, only to find the door already open. The cleaning people had a bad habit of forgetting to lock up, so it wasn’t the first time. I pocketed my keys.

“Oh, hello,” I said as the hospital chief, Dr. Whitehorn, and a man I didn’t recognize were going through my files. “Can I help you?”

My heart pounded with sickening thuds, each quiet second dragging on longer than necessary.

“Dr. Garner,” Dr. Whitehorn said. He stood up, smoothing his gray suit and locking his flint gray eyes onto mine. He always seemed more like an attorney to me than a doctor, and I never could picture him giving a damn about a sick person. He had the self-serving attitude of a politician and was unquestionably a card-carrying member of the Good Old Boys’ club of Mercy Grace Hospital. Younger guys like me made the older guys like him feel insignificant and irrelevant. They all hated me because I made them look bad.

“Mind telling me what’s going on?” I demanded.

“There’s been an accusation,” Dr. Whitehorn said, watching my body language like a hawk.

I kept a stoic face. “What kind of accusation?”

“Improper relations with a patient,” he said. “This is the hospital attorney, Richard Upton. We’re looking for a file on a patient, Sophie Salinger. Know where we might find it?”

My blood boiled. The entire thing reeked of Daphne.

“I’m really being accused of having improper relations with a patient?” I asked. If I told them she was no longer my patient, they’d interpret it as a sign of guilt. If I told them her name didn’t sound familiar, they could easily check her records and see that she’d met with me twice. “Because if so, I’d like to be questioned with an attorney present.”

“Jamison,” Dr. Whitehorn said in his thick New York accent, cocking his head and smiling as if we were two old pals. I wanted to rip every last one of his white hairs from his scalp one by one and then slap the smug smile right off his pudgy little face. “Come on, now. All you have to do is cooperate. If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

“This is absurd,” I huffed. “You’re wrong.”

My thoughts scattered, and I couldn’t make sense of a damn one.

“We have to ask you to leave,” Dr. Whitehorn said. “You’re on paid leave until our investigation is over.”

I rushed home, catching Sophie as she was on her way out to meet with her parents.

“You’re back early,” she said, greeting me with an oblivious kiss and leaving the taste of peppermint on my lips. “Change your mind about working? Feeling like slothing it up for a change?”

I raked my fingers through my hair, trying to figure out a way to tell her shit had officially hit the fan.

“What’s wrong? What is it?” she asked, her smile fading.

“I’ll tell you later. Just… just go on. You don’t want to be late.” I pushed past her, jamming my key in the lock and entering the familiar walls of my grayscale apartment.

“Jamison.” She spun around, following me back inside. “What happened?”

“I’m under investigation at work.” The words were gritty like sandpaper as I spit them from my mouth, and the taste of them burned my throat going down. My jaw clenched as I saw my entire life’s work swirl down the drain. My shoulders drooped and my head fell.

“Oh, God,” Sophie said, her voice trembling. “But you didn’t do anything wrong!”

“I know. I know. Try telling them that.” I could only imagine the picture Daphne painted for them. I closed my eyes, picturing her seated across from Dr. Whitehorn, the top two buttons of her nearly see-through silk blouse strategically undone so that he could catch a glimpse each time she’d lean in to whisper her secrets across the desk. With lashes curled, perfectly framing her big, blue eyes, and a devilish grin equal parts flirt and assertive bitch, she had the uncanny ability to make any man putty in her manicured hands.

“I will. I will tell them that,” Sophie said, holding her shoulders back and her chin up. “You’re not sacrificing your career for something you didn’t even do. Nothing about this was planned or intentional, or anything. It’s her words against ours, right?”

She pulled out her phone.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m telling my parents I’ll need to reschedule,” she said, preparing to fire off a text.

“No, stop.” I held my hand over her phone. “Go to breakfast with your parents. Let me handle this. This isn’t your fight.”

Her lip trembled for a second before she drew in a long breath. She didn’t have to utter a single word for me to know what she was thinking in that moment. She blamed herself, like she always did, but I refused to allow it.

“You have enough to deal with right now. Go on. Go meet with your parents. Have a nice time. I’ll be here when you get back.” I kissed her forehead and led her to the door, watching as she headed down the hall and disappeared around the corner toward the elevator.

And when she was gone, I slammed the door.

Fuck
.

SOPHIE

I dressed in my most conservative outfit the following Monday morning: a white button-down top with a fitted black jacket and matching pants. I looked like I was heading to a job interview in corporate America.

I’d been thinking of Jamison’s predicament all weekend and how wrong they were about him, and I had to do something. I couldn’t stand by and watch his world fall apart all because of me.

“I need to see Dr. Whitehorn,” I said to his assistant. I’d promised myself the entire walk there that I wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer. I’d sit outside his office all day long, if I had to.

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked, scanning her computer screen. “I don’t see anything on his schedule for right now.”

“It’s urgent.” I said. “I don’t have an appointment, no. But I have to see him. It’s regarding one of his surgeons, Dr. Garner.”

She picked up her phone and punched in four numbers, covering her mouth as she whispered something into the receiver. As soon as she hung up the phone, she said, “It’ll be just a second. You can have a seat over there.”

With suspended breath, I lowered myself into a chair in a makeshift waiting area outside the chief’s office. My palms sweated and my heart raced, despite having practiced everything I was going to say in Jamison’s defense on my walk there.