Flirting with the Society Doctor / When One Night Isn't Enough (17 page)

“I need to talk to Faith,” he explained, frustrated that he’d been the one pushed away, he’d been the one left behind, yet here he was at her apartment door and yet again she was ignoring him.

When a tiny dog launched past the woman and attached itself to his ankle, Vale was the one yelping in frustration
and pain. The dog might be small but his teeth were sharp and sank into Vale’s flesh with unerring ease.

“Don’t hurt him,” the woman squealed, coming after the beast Vale was trying to shake free without permanently mangling his leg in the process.

“Don’t hurt him?” Vale snorted, dancing around in effort to dislodge the dog. “What about me? This mutt is vicious.”

“Yoda, get back here,” the older woman called to the dog Vale had managed to free from his flesh but which was still latched on to his pants with tenacious determination.

Then what the woman had said sank in as surely as the dog’s teeth had.

“Yoda?” He glanced behind her. Sure enough. Apartment 907. The angry lady was Faith’s dog-sitter. “This is Faith’s dog.”

Vale smiled a devilish smile, knowing he wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not Faith took his calls or answered the door. She’d be calling him before the day ended.

Bending down, he scooped the dog into his arms, prepared for the pain that was sure to come in doing so. He wasn’t disappointed.

Sometimes getting what you wanted was a pain in the kisser. Or, as in this case, a pain in the arm.

He turned to the dog-sitter who scowled at him and was telling Yoda to “get him”.

“Tell Faith I have her dog. If she wants Yoda back, she knows where to find him.”

Faith blinked at her neighbor. “He did what?”

When Mrs. Beasley had burst into the tiny office space she’d rented, face red, chest puffing, eyes wild, Faith had feared for the elderly woman’s life.

“That handsome devil who you went away with, the one you’ve been moping around over, he dognapped Yoda!” Mrs. Beasley panted, her wrinkled hands fluttering against her heaving chest. “Call the police, now, so they can catch the scoundrel.”

“Sit down, Mrs. Beasley.” Sharon came over to the older woman, handed her a glass of water, and motioned to the empty chair she’d placed behind the exhausted woman. “You’re going to have a stroke if you don’t calm down.”

“I’m not going to have a stroke,” the woman denied, her face flushed with excitement. “We have to do something. That awful man has stolen Faith’s dog.”

“Hmm, he always did want a dog, but taking yours is a bit much, even for a Wakefield,” Sharon mused from beside Faith, both of them eyeing Mrs. Beasley with concern.

The poor woman really had been frantic when she’d burst into Faith’s new office a couple of blocks over from their apartment complex.

“Do you think we should call for an ambulance? You’re looking a little winded, Mrs. B.”

“An ambulance?” Mrs. Beasley stared at her as if she was daft. “We need the SWAT team, not a defibrillator.”

“It’s okay,” Faith assured her neighbor, taking her pulse and respirations. Tachypneic and tachycardic. She patted her neighbor’s shaky hand, motioned for Sharon to get her a blood-pressure cuff and stethoscope. “Vale won’t hurt Yoda.”

At least, Faith didn’t think he would.

“He might,” Mrs. Beasley cried. “Yoda could tell he was a rascally fellow and didn’t like him one bit. Even if he was dashing.”

Wasn’t it just like Vale to have caught Mrs. Beasley’s eye even while the woman had been threatening to have him thrown into jail?

“What did Yoda do?” Faith took her blood pressure. Slightly elevated at 140/90, but not too bad considering how upset the woman was.

“Attacked him.”

Mouth agape, Faith asked, “Yoda attacked Vale?”

Mrs. Beasley nodded proudly. “Probably brought blood with the way he was attached to his leg. That’ll teach him to keep banging on your door and disturbing the peace.”

Vale had been banging on her apartment door?

Faith bit the inside of her lip.

Maybe she should have answered one of his zillion calls to her cellphone, but she hadn’t. She’d erased his messages without listening to them. Talking to him would accomplish nothing. Not at this point. Maybe when time had passed and she was stronger, when he didn’t make her dream of things she knew better than to dream about. But not yet because her dreams were filled with him.

“That’s why Vale dognapped Yoda?” She tried to wrap her brain around how Vale had gone from beating on her apartment door to stealing her dog. “Because Yoda attacked him?”

“I’ve no idea why the scoundrel took Yoda.” Mrs. Beasley shuddered at what she obviously considered a harrowing experience. “He didn’t ask for a ransom, just said if you wanted your dog back, you knew where to find him.”

Faith fell back into a chair, her hand going to her temple.

Yoda dognapped by her former boss.

If she wanted her baby back, she had to go to him.

She had a good mind to do as Mrs. Beasley suggested and call the police and have Vale arrested. Watching his arrogant face plastered across the nine o’clock news would please her to no end. The great Dr. Vale Wakefield, talented
neurosurgeon and playboy heir to a real estate empire, arrested for stealing a
helpless
dog. Oh, the press would have a field day.

But instead of picking up her phone, she glanced at a giggling Sharon.

“This really isn’t funny, you know,” she advised the woman who was quickly becoming a dear friend. “Your cousin has my dog.”

“You have to give him points for creativity. Dognapping Yoda was quite ingenious in assuring you’d stop avoiding him.” Sharon smiled smugly. “We Wakefields are known for our resourcefulness when it comes to getting what we want.”

“You could go and get Yoda for me,” Faith suggested, knowing Sharon’s answer even before the woman said a word. Despite not being willing to budge an inch where Steve was concerned, Sharon seemed quite positive Faith should give Vale a chance to prove that he really had wanted to continue their relationship, that he’d wanted more than just a weekend fling with her, that she really was different from all the women he’d known.

But why give him a chance to prove that when doing so would only lead to pain down the road? Horrible pain because he wouldn’t stick around and then where would she be?

“No way.” Sharon shook her head. “Yoda is your dog. You know he has no taste and gnaws at my shoes. If you want the mangy mutt back, you’ll have to go and get him. Personally, I say good riddance.”

But the amused gleam in Sharon’s eyes told she was teasing. Mostly. Yoda had yet to be completely forgiven for destroying an Italian shoe he’d mistaken for an expensive chew toy.

Vale wanted to talk to her. They’d talk. But she didn’t
have anything different to tell him from what she’d said two weeks ago. Not really.

Of course there were all the things she hadn’t said that last day. Like how much she missed the time they’d spent together. How much she missed consulting with him, laughing with him, just being with him. How much she missed how it had felt to lie in his arms and breathe in his masculine scent.

No, she hadn’t told him any of those things and being away from the office for two weeks hadn’t helped matters, had perhaps made things worse.

She missed Vale. Horribly. With all her heart.

Wherein lay the problem.

The truth was that Vale had stolen much more than her dog.

And as much as she’d like to think staying away from him would help prevent her from hurting, she wasn’t so sure anything could help her from the devastation of being without Vale. Which made her no better than her mother. Destined to move through life searching for an elusive feeling she’d known once and desperately strove to find again.

“Fine,” she told the two women anxiously waiting to hear her plans. “I’ll go and get my dog.”

F
AITH
hadn’t been inside Wakefield and Fishe since the day she’d quit her dream job. Marcus Fishe had come to her, tried to get her to tell him what had happened, had probably already figured out the truth.

In the end, Vale’s partner said he hated to lose her, that the clinic would provide a generous severance package, see to it all her patients were taken care of with minimal disruption, and that he understood her need to move on. He hadn’t really, though. No one in the neurology profession would.

Wakefield and Fishe was
the
place to work.

Faith greeted the Wakefield Tower night security guard, who smiled and had obviously been told to expect her as he waved her in, no questions asked even though he had to know she no longer worked in the building.

Vale was here. Waiting on her. Forcing her to talk to him.

What was left to say? She’d already said more than she probably should have on the day she’d lost her temper and quit.

Apparently, he hadn’t said all he’d wanted to say. To get her dog back, she’d listen to whatever he needed to get off his chest.

But, really, what was the point? He should be grateful
she’d walked away rather than stick around mooning over him, because she’d had enough of him ignoring her just because she’d said no to continuing their affair.

When she stepped onto the fifty-sixth floor, her breath caught as she took in the scope of Wakefield and Fishe’s reception area. She’d loved working here, loved working with Vale.

But that was in the past, and this wasn’t a time for recriminations. She’d moved beyond that, was putting the pieces of her life back together, with Sharon’s friendship and silent financial partnership in planning for her own neurology clinic.

She didn’t need a man in her life.

The office was unusually quiet for only a little after 8:00 p.m. Had Vale sent everyone home at a decent hour for once?

Part of her wanted to go to her office, to see what had happened to the room she’d happily occupied for a year and a half of her life. The best year and a half of her life? But she wasn’t here for reminiscing either. She was here for her dog. Nothing else.

Forcing one high-heeled foot in front of the other (Sharon had insisted she deck herself out), she made a beeline for Vale’s office and didn’t bother knocking. He knew she was there. The security guard would have alerted him the moment she stepped into the elevator.

He sat at his desk, pretending to read a document. She knew he was pretending, didn’t know why he bothered.

He looked wonderful, a sight for sore eyes. Why did just seeing him undo what little progress she’d made over the past two weeks on putting him behind her?

Who was she kidding? She hadn’t made any progress on getting over Vale. Perhaps she never would.

His gaze lifted to hers, studied her with his intense blue eyes. “You came.”

Had he for one moment thought she wouldn’t?

“You have my dog. I want him back.” She used a tone of voice she hoped warned she wasn’t to be messed with.

His gaze flickered to his desk, lingered a moment on nothing in particular, before meeting hers again. “Sit down, Faith.”

Why was he torturing them this way? She’d stepped out of the picture and planned to stay out of the picture. He should be thanking his lucky stars she hadn’t made a stink about the Cape May weekend.

Yet he didn’t look as if he felt lucky.

He looked as if he was nervous. Which was insane. Vale didn’t scare easily, if at all.

Yet, he did look nervous. From the way his gaze darted around to the way he fidgeted with the papers on his desk.

What was she doing? Looking for excuses for Vale’s behavior? There were no excuses for how they’d ruined their relationship.

“This isn’t a social visit, Vale. Give me my dog.”

He stood up, towering above her and making her believe she’d imagined whatever vulnerability she’d thought she’d seen in him. He wasn’t vulnerable. He was a Wakefield. One who didn’t care who he hurt, just so long as he got what he wanted.

And for whatever reason, he’d thought he wanted to continue their affair and she’d thwarted his plans. That had to be what this was about.

“Not until you listen to me.”

Faith plopped down in the chair in front of his desk, crossing her legs and staring at him as if he were a bug under a microscope. “Fine.” She attempted to sound bored.
“Get to talking because I’ve a lot of things to do. Places to go, people to see, you know the routine.”

Vale raked his gaze over Faith. She was wearing make-up, no glasses, and was dressed in feminine clothes that accented the body he craved. Her hair was down, brushing over her shoulders, teasing him with its multifaceted golden colors, teasing him with memories of his fingers clenched in the soft strands when he’d made love to her.

He’d never seen anyone more beautiful.

But, truthfully, what she was wearing didn’t matter. Just that she was there.

“I’ve missed you.”

“Having trouble finding someone else to handle your calls?” she snipped, picking an invisible speck off her short skirt.

Had she purposely worn the skirt to distract him with those long legs of hers? Had she known he’d take one look and start remembering what having those legs wrapped around his waist felt like?

He moved around his desk, sat on the corner, staring at her. “You didn’t quit because of fielding calls on mutual patients.”

She didn’t answer, just examined her fingernails. When she looked up, their gazes met.

Enough was enough. If they were going to get anywhere one of them had to take a leap into uncharted waters. He’d never considered himself to be a coward, but he’d prefer her to go first, to admit that she missed him, missed not only their previous relationship but also the closeness they’d developed during Sharon’s wedding weekend.

Not that he expected her to. Not after what he’d done.

He’d hurt her with his high-handedness.

As much as he hated it, he’d have to grovel if he wanted her forgiveness.

“I’m sorry for what happened the day you quit.”

Her gaze snapped to his, but otherwise she just sat, long legs crossed, not saying a word. But her fingernails curled into her palms. She wasn’t as immune to what he was saying as she acted.