Make Me Yours: A BWWM Billionaire Love Story (17 page)

“
And,” Bain asked.

“
He says I’m the
most natural doctor he’s ever seen,” Meaghan said not
even attempting to keep the smugness from her tone.

“
Well I could have told
you that,” Bain said.

“
Yes well you’re
biased,” Meaghan said.

“
So go on…tell me
every word he said,” Bain said. And that was the second reason
he got the first phone call; he knew exactly what to say at all
times. So Meaghan told him word for word what doctor Shelley had
said. He exclaimed in all the right places and was as excited as she
was for each sentence that Conrad had uttered.

“
That’s really
great, do you wanna go for lunch later and explore what it all
means?” Bain asked. Meaghan opened her mouth to say yes but
then thought that Dean might have the same idea and she didn’t
want to tell him – again – that she already had something
set up with Bain so she said, “I’ll check back with you
later on that.”

Bain was easy with that, as expected and she hung
up and called her mother.

“
Oh darling, that is so
great. Though I’m not at all surprised; you were always very
compassionate and also very careful with everything you did. It’s
natural that it would translate into your work. I’m just so
happy it fulfills you.”

Meaghan felt a lump in her throat at her mother’s
words. Bain might be good at saying all the expected things but her
mother was the best at making her feel all soppy and emotional and
like she needed to get home and give her a hug. She also missed her
father abominably all of a sudden. She knew her mother was thinking
of him too.

“
Your father would have
been so proud,” she said right on cue. Having been a field
medic in the American army fighting in Iraq, who’d been killed
by friendly fire, this might very well be true. She was walking in
his footsteps in a way, helping people who were in different kinds of
trenches; surviving on the wicked streets of ghetto New York. Her
mother too, as a nurse had carried on that fight. Meaghan was struck
anew by the family legacy she was carrying on. What Dr. Shelley had
said about her being an absolute natural seemed to take on greater
significance and she fought not to let the tears fall.

“
I love you mom,”
she said.

“
I love you too. Shall I
see you tonight?” she asked.

“
Absolutely,”
Meaghan said. It was high time she and her mother spent some quality
time. It had been a while.

She called Dean last after signing off with her
mother while suppressing a twinge of guilt. Where did boyfriends rank
in the space-time continuum as pertained to levels of importance in
one’s life? He answered right away.

“
Hallo Meaghan,” he
said very formally and she knew he was not alone. She looked at her
office clock; it was 9 am in the morning which meant that he might be
at work. Perhaps he was with his secretary.

“
Hi. Can you talk right
now?” she asked.

“
Er, I actually have a
meeting but can I call you back?” he asked.

“
Yeah okay,”
Meaghan said stretching her mouth in a smile as if he could see her.

“
Okay,” Dean said
and then there was an awkward silence.

“
Yeah so bye,”
Meaghan said.

“
Talk to you later
Meaghan,” he replied and hung up.

Meaghan leaned back in her chair and sighed;
well…that was why he was last. She turned to her work files,
picking up the first one and studying the patient history.

She was hard at work, dealing with the distraught
mother of a young boy who had just been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s
lymphoma when she glanced to the side after catching sight of a
familiar profile. A tall man wearing an expensive gray suit was
strolling down the corridor toward her. He drew the eye of every
red-blooded female that he passed, maybe a few of the males too.
Meaghan stopped talking abruptly and even the distressed woman she
was speaking to looked up briefly. Meaghan turned back to her and led
her gently back to the waiting room. Her son was undergoing tests to
measure exactly how extensive the cancer was and it would take a
while. Meaghan called for an orderly to get the mother some coffee
and then pressed some pamphlets into her hands so she could educate
herself.

“
Do you have someone you
can call to come wait with you?” she asked.

The mother shook her head sadly. “It’s
just me and Jeremy,” she said.

Meaghan squeezed her hand then straightened up
turning to the shadow she could see on her right.

“
Hey,” Dean said
quietly, hands in his pockets.

“
Dean,” she replied
and moved to go past him, leading the way to her office.

“
Janice,” she told
the receptionist, “Five minutes break before the next patient?”

Janice nodded agreeably. Was there a knowing look
in her eyes? Meaghan couldn’t quite tell. Dean was more or less
a fixture in her life these days but he didn’t usually drop in
in the middle of the day.

“
What’s up?”
she asked as soon as the door to her office was closed behind her.

“
This is me returning
your call,” he said smiling.

Meaghan stared in stupefaction. “Really?
Because I’m pretty sure our phone signal still works.”

Dean laughed. “Yeah I know but you sounded
like you wanted to tell me something important and were disappointed
that I couldn’t talk so I wanted to come down and look you in
the eyes as you told me…whatever it is.”

Meaghan continued to stare. “You’re
serious?” she said incredulously.

“
Yes I’m serious.
Okay and I had a site meeting not far from here so I thought I’d
take a detour,” he continued.

“
Ah. That makes it all
far less disturbing,” Meaghan said.

“
So? What did you want to
tell me?” he asked.

Meaghan opened her mouth and then closed it again.
Now that he’d come all this way, she felt like she should maybe
have something much more significant to tell him about than some
positive evaluation. She felt quite awkward in fact and braced
herself for his disappointment.

“
Well you see, this
morning Conrad Shelley came to see me,” she began.

“
Oh? What did he
want?”Dean asked all hostile vigilance and Meaghan remembered
that he did not like her boss for simply being potential competition,
which he would never be in a million years but Dean couldn’t
seem to get that.

“
He wanted to give me an
evaluation of my performance since I started working at the
foundation,” she said looking at his lapel rather than into his
deep green eyes.

Dean leaned back on her table one leg bent and the
other stretched to balance his weight. “And?” he asked
sounding like he was ready to explode if Dr. Shelley had said one
wrong word to her.

Meaghan told him everything Dr. Shelley had said.
He listened silently, intent green eyes trained on her face, taking
in not just what she was saying with her mouth but also her body.
When she finished he reached out and took her hand in his.

“
What can I say? It
sounds like it's everything you ever dreamed,” he said.

 “
It is and yet it’s
something I never expected,” she said eyes shining. He was
watching her intently as if taking in every single particle of her
being. “All I ever hoped for, dreamed of; is being a surgeon.
If I was lucky, I would be a good one; a successful one. But to have
this doctor that I respect so much tell me that I’m the most
natural doctor he’s ever seen…” Meaghan shook her
head, lost for words.

Dean squeezed her hand smiling into her eyes,
“It's vindication.”

“
Yes…vindication,
validation…it's…everything,” she told him.

He smiled at her and nodded, “I get it.”

“
You do?” she asked
searching his eyes for any hint of prevarication or pandering.

“
I do,” he said.

Meaghan smiled as she remembered why she loved him
so much, and why he was even a factor on her space-time continuum.

“
I love you so much,”
she said.

Dean smiled at her, “and
there is
my
vindication;
my
validation.”

Meaghan pushed him lightly on the chest. “You’re
such a sap,” she said with a side smile. “Now go get to
your meeting.”

“
Yes ma'am,” Dean
said leaning forward a little bit to meet her lips.

“
You want to have lunch
with me? Celebrate?” she asked him suddenly.

Dean smiled, “I’d love to. Pick you up
at one?”

“
Yes please,”
Meaghan said stepping back out of the way so he could pass.

“
See you then,” he
said opening the door to her office.

“
Bye,” she called
and looked at her watch. They’d been in her office eight
minutes. She leaned out to catch Janice’s eye so as to let her
know she could send in the next patient. As she was waiting for them
to come in she quickly texted Bain to tell him that lunch was a rain
check.

*****

The site meeting was actually at Hallets Point
with Bain and Conrad Shelley. It was the potential site for a
recreation center that the Wesson Foundation was interested in
building for Dr. Shelley’s Queens Foundation. After hearing
Meaghan go on and on for months about the work that they did and the
people that they helped and keeping in mind that his foundation was
on the hunt for a new project to support; it had seemed like the
perfect marriage. However he hadn’t wanted to tell Meaghan
about it because he didn’t want to be the boyfriend who threw
money around in an attempt to impress his girl and maybe, she might
think he was trying to buy her way into a promotion or whatever it
was doctors got. And he didn’t want anyone else to think that
Meaghan had tried to strong arm him into doing this for her own
benefit. He really hoped that this project wasn’t the reason
why Meaghan had got a good review from Conrad. He did mean to ask him
about it though. If he was being totally honest, one of the reasons
he’d chosen Dr. Shelley’s foundation was to keep an eye
on the man. Not that he would admit that even under pain of death. It
was his dirty little secret.

Bain was the architect on the
project because Conrad had met him at
La
Trattoria
with Meaghan at one of their
ubiquitous dates there. They’d hit it off and when this project
was proposed, Conrad had said he knew just the architect to take it
up. It helped that Bain was willing to work at cost but Dean still
didn’t have to like it. Still, they managed to keep a civil
tongue in their heads for these meetings and things were going
smoothly. Surprisingly Bain had honored his request not to tell
Meaghan about the project
just yet
.
He had a feeling it was because of some simpering romantic notion of
his but Dean was not about to complain.

Bain was already at the site when Dean arrived,
hard hat in place as he had an animated conversation with the
foreman. Dean stepped out of his car and walked toward them, meeting
Conrad midway as he came out of the makeshift office with a hardhat
and a second one slung across his arm. He handed this one to Dean
with a smile of greeting and they both went up to see what the issue
was that Bain and the foreman were discussing with such energy.

*****

Meaghan took the train home that evening after
having to actively dissuade Dean from coming over to pick her up. She
reminded him that they had a date with a museum the following evening
and therefore he should take the out she was giving him and go do
something fun. She passed through Mr. Henley’s garage just to
say hello and remind herself again of the good ol’ days when
she used to do his accounts for five dollars an hour. He tended to
also count the hours when she was just hanging out in his office
reading a book or doing homework so it racked up to quite a bit of
time. Mr. Henley was lounging outside his garage leaning against the
wall. Meaghan wanted to chide him on how smoking was really bad for
his diabetes but refrained. After all, he’d managed to live
this long without her monitoring his health for him so she wasn’t
going to start now.

“
Hi Mr. Henley,”
she called.

“
Oh hi Ms. Sunshine. Have
you come to help me with the books today?” he asked smiling
through the smoke.

“
You want me to look
through the books for ya?” she asked.

“
If you have the time,”
Mr. Henley said.

“
I always have time for
you Mr. Henley,” Meaghan said.

“
Wonderful. Come by later
after your mom has gone to bed. I acquired something you’ll be
jazzed to see,” he said looking pleased with himself.

“
Which album?” she
asked stopping to lean on the wall next to him.

He looked at her with a twinkle in his eye,
acknowledging that she’d got it in one guess. “AC/DC,
Back in Black. First edition.”

“
Seriously?” she
exclaimed in excitement.

“
Seriously,” Mr.
Henley confirmed nodding his head.

“
Tell you what, I’ll
do your books for you if you play it for me while I work,” she
said.

“
Deal,” he agreed
holding out his hand to be shook.