Heart Murmurs (2 page)

Vince, who plagued her like a case of herpes. Something she couldn’t cure, only suppress. Anu had to laugh, tiredly rubbing the back of her neck. It was never a good sign when you compared a man to a sexually transmitted disease. But when you lived and breathed in a hospital, that was pretty much the pool for your metaphors. And Vince McHenry
was
a sickness. She was sleep deprived and short of breath. Her pulse was erratic. She couldn’t focus. With all of her symptoms, it was amazing she hadn’t been diagnosed and admitted…to the psych ward.

Anu shouldered her way into the Subtle Knife, already crowded with regulars, first and second year residents, and the few attendings desensitized enough to drink on a night where the “kids” were out in full force. She traded the obligatory head nods with Reshma Patel, Anita Mukherjee, and Sheetal Verma—psych, plastics, and pedes respectively—and tried to look for the other cardio residents. If they were reverting to type, they’d be clustered in the back, dissecting Buffalo wings.

When she turned the corner of the L-shaped bar, she ran smack into someone coming from the back. And because her luck was as madness inducing as her dreams, of course that someone was Vince.

“Mercy,” she begged in a whisper, as she braced her palms against his chest.

****

Vince turned the corner, his mind four blocks away—focused on sixty-three-year-old Pete Brady, who was still in recovery from brain surgery while his surgeon was out getting drunk and eating bar nuts. He had torn a strip off Dr. Skillman in front of his drinking buddies, swearing that the young resident would be off the surgery board for the next two months.
Morons.
He couldn’t abide morons.

He was still fuming, so when he ran into the woman coming from the opposite direction, it took him a moment to register who she was. She whispered something he didn’t catch, hands flattening on his chest as she braced against the impact. His hands came up to steady them both, gripping her shoulders as a programmed “Sorry” (a word he seldom found a use for) slipped from his lips. Then he realized it was Anu Gupta, the cardio resident with the smart mouth…and the big brown eyes…and the perpetual ponytail he wanted to loosen so he could see all that black hair spilling across her shoulders.

“You.” It seemed to be his favorite word where she was concerned. Ironic, considering it was widely known that his favorite words were
me
and
I
. “What are you doing here?”

“Socializing.
Some
of us actually lower ourselves to do that with our own hospital’s personnel.” Her lips, shiny with gloss, tightened into the frown he was beginning to think lived on her face. “I don’t have another shift for ten hours, and my attending knows where I am. Did you want to page her and double-check?”

No, that wasn’t
remotely
what he wanted to do. Just like before, Vince was surprised by the intensity of his response, glad for the dark depths of the bar and the drape of his jacket, so she wouldn’t be able to tell he was suddenly, uncomfortably, hard. He glanced down, deliberately making note of her hands, still on him, unpainted nails curved inward against the silk of his shirt. When he arched an eyebrow, she mirrored the action and kept her hands exactly where they were.

“Well?” she prompted, coolly.

He knew his reputation as a ladies’ man. He’d
earned
his reputation as a ladies’ man, the love ’em and leave ’em medical god who never socialized with his own colleagues. He knew about the ridiculous Facebook group. What he didn’t know, and couldn’t quite wrap his brain around, was why Anu Gupta was so determined to challenge him. It would definitely require some in depth research. “Can I buy you a drink, doctor?”

“Can you? Yes.
Should
you?” He was almost disappointed when she stopped touching him so she could gesture around the bar, where at least a dozen people had paused to watch them interact, like the great Dr. Vince McHenry was the star of his own show. Skillman and his pouting cronies were shooting daggers from the dartboards. “No. I don’t think that would be wise.”

She was right, of course. So, Vince didn’t waste another minute. He took her hand and tugged her—protesting all the way—through the throng and right out the door of the Subtle Knife. Reputation be damned. Once they were out on the sidewalk, he let himself enjoy the sight of her hip-hugging blue jeans, simple tank top, practical boots. She hadn’t dressed for anyone, and yet she might as well have been wearing lingerie, because he felt completely seduced. “What
is
it with you, Dr. Gupta?” he marveled, quietly.

“What is it with
you
, Dr. McHenry?” Her eyes snapped with fire as she wrenched out of his grip, rubbing her wrist. “Are you insane, or just so used to getting your own way that you don’t give a damn what anyone thinks?”

“A little of both, probably.” Vince left her sputtering and huffing as he stepped to the curb and put his hand out for a cab. It was well after rush hour, but it didn’t take long for a yellow cab to acknowledge the hail and pull up to them. He opened the back door and then turned. “Well?” he prompted, mimicking her earlier tone perfectly.

Her expression was completely unreadable, her posture guarded. She was holding on to the strap of her small, functional purse like it was a lifeline. He watched her chest rise and fall as she took a deep, steadying breath…and then she climbed into the taxi.

****

This wasn’t actually happening. At any moment, her alarm was going to go off, and she was going to realize she’d never left the bed in the on-call room. Anu pinched her thigh, hard, through the material of her jeans. But aside from the stinging sensation, she remained where she was: in the back of a taxi with Vince. Vince, who was no longer just Vince in her head, because he’d asked her to call him by his given name. The car was zipping uptown, the eastern European driver weaving through the light traffic like an expert, and she had no idea where they were going. On both a literal and metaphorical level.

Vince was watching her carefully, studiously, with those keen dark eyes, and asking her questions about her life that she could pretty much answer on autopilot: She’d grown up in Philly, she liked Thai food, and Adele, and her favorite author was Tolkien. All the while, she was aware of him sitting just a few inches away. He wasn’t a big man, but he seemed to fill the entire cab with his aura, sprawling confidently in the seat, one arm slung across the back. His dark blue silk shirt and designer slacks practically screamed money and power. He’d lived all over the world, he told her with more than one note of pride. He liked French cuisine and the Beatles and doing the
New York Times
crossword puzzle.

“I like puzzles in general, and you, Anushka, are a puzzle.”

A shiver went up her spine, even though she was warm—overheated, sweating, burning—not cold. She’d said he could call her
Anu
, never mentioning what it was short for. “I’m not that complicated.” She shrugged, hoping her voice didn’t betray her internal chaos. “You, however, have completely bucked the expected pathology. Being seen leaving the bar with me is going to have everyone reworking their Vince McHenry hypotheses.”

“Good.” He smiled, too wide and too wolfish. “You don’t stay at the top by being predictable. You have to take informed, educated risks.”

“What’s educated about this?” she demanded. “What’s Dr. Vince McHenry going to gain?”

He cocked his head, mouth twitching in what was either amusement or disdain. Or an allergic reaction to shellfish. “I don’t know, Anushka. Why don’t you tell me? Since you have me so pegged. Is there anything to gain here?”

“No.” She had to stop looking at him. Before she scrambled her wits like the tasteless eggs they served in the caff every morning. He was too handsome, too confident, too…
too out of her league.
She forced her gaze out the window. “There’s everything to lose.”

For about a quarter mile, he let that pronouncement hang there, left her blissfully alone to war with her self-control. Then, he put his hand on her knee. It wasn’t a sexual touch, it was just meant to get her attention, but it still set her every nerve aflame. “Why all the hostility, Dr. Gupta?” It was a question that was too kind, too gentle by half. Like he was probing her for symptoms of some larger condition. “Did I do something to you to make you hate me?”

No, but I really wish you would
.
So I could stop wanting you so much
.

Not until she heard his sharp intake of breath, felt his grip on her knee flex and tighten, that she realized her blunder. Her stomach lurched, and she whipped her head around, meeting his gaze. His smug, sexy,
dangerous
gaze.

“Yes,” he chuckled. “You said that out loud.”

Anu wondered just how much trauma she would sustain if she threw herself out of a moving vehicle. She swallowed hard. Maybe dying of sheer mortification was a better idea. Then there was option three: brazening it out. Every resident worth their salt had to learn the art of backing up their claims even if they were total bullshit. This wasn’t any different. “So?” She feigned a lack of shame, shrugging and pretending to check the display on her phone. “Big deal. Everybody wants you. It’s like wanting George Clooney. You can’t possibly be surprised.”

“Can’t I? I don’t think I’ve ever been put in the same company as George Clooney before. That’s very flattering.” He was laughing at her, and she deserved every bit of it. “I thought showing someone you cared by putting gum in their hair went out of style in elementary school. What are they teaching you at Penn State these days?”

“I wouldn’t know. I graduated.” Anu scowled, more mad at herself for the slip of tongue than at the mockery it inspired. Fortunately, she was spared further inquiry when the cab stopped in front of a posh high-rise. The Grand. He’d brought her to his place, she realized, almost tripping in her haste to get out of the car. She didn’t think twice about letting him take care of the fare. Vince made more money in a year than most people saw in a lifetime. When the taxi was speeding away, and they were both standing in front of the uniformed doormen, Anu fixed him with the most baleful look she could manage. “What do you want from me? Another member of the Vincibles?”

“No.” He took her hand, like he had at the Subtle Knife, but this time he didn’t pull. This time, he stroked his thumb over her knuckles. He caressed the inside of her wrist. He counted the beats of her pulse and probably guessed that, right now, they were all for him. “I want honesty, Dr. Gupta. It seems to be your specialty.”

He couldn’t be more wrong. Anu wasn’t honest. She was deluded. As she walked with him into the hotel—breathless, dizzy, exhilarated, and delirious—she told herself the world’s biggest lie: that anything that happened between them tonight wouldn’t mean a thing.

****

She hadn’t looked directly at him for what seemed like an eternity, and he felt the loss of it acutely. She admired the art deco lobby, murmured compliments about the old-fashioned mirrors in the elevator, and made a point of focusing those amazing eyes everywhere but on him. She was still a little embarrassed, a little angry, and now that he knew precisely why, he couldn’t fault her the emotions.

While he wasn’t in the same class as George Clooney, Vince
did
know what it was like to be wanted, to be considered a catch. It wasn’t a matter of ego but of truth. He was accomplished, intelligent, and good-looking, and he’d never known anyone to work so unbelievably hard at denying it. Anu Gupta had put up a wall, brick by brick, just to mask that she was attracted to him. Now he could see it in the tight line of her mouth, in the tension of her body, and hear it in the crisp, staccato way she spoke. He could feel it in the way she didn’t look, didn’t touch, and barely breathed when he reached for her. It was taking everything she had not to fall.

“Is the prospect of wanting someone really that terrible? Or is it just the prospect of wanting
me
that’s so repugnant?”

“I didn’t go to medical school to turn into a TV cliché.” She was watching the lights across the top of the doors as they sailed up toward the penthouse, once again clutching her purse like it was going to save her from drowning. “I’m not here for an MRS degree. I’m not here to be a notch on some hotshot’s bedpost.”

Then why are you coming upstairs with me right now?
he wanted to ask. But, instead, he gave her a soft shove out the opening doors and spoke to the proud line of her neck. “How do I know
I’m
not the notch, Anushka? I’m not Dr. McDreamy, I’m more Dr. Evil, and yet women seem to take an inordinate amount of pleasure in saying they’ve slept with me. Even if it isn’t true.”

“It isn’t true?” she scoffed, holding herself stiff as he aligned himself with her back. She was the perfect height to fit against him, the top of her head just grazing his chin, and when he leaned down to whisper in her ear, he felt her shiver like it was his own.

“I fucked—” He used the word deliberately, relishing the harshness, the shock of it, and how it made her move into him instead of away. “
Two
women at Mercy H. My ex-girlfriend—who I was with for four years—and a top surgical nurse. I don’t know who any of the Vincibles are, and I wish them all luck with their vivid sexual fantasies.”

“I don’t believe you, Dr. McHenry.”

“Vince,” he reminded. “It’s Vince.”

She was determined to deny herself
and
him, because she didn’t say his name. Instead she stared at the two doors—one on either end of the carpeted hallway—clearly trying to ascertain which lion’s den he’d be leading her into. “Both,” he told her, closing his hands around her upper arms and guiding her to the left. “The entire floor is mine.”

“Of course it is.” She laughed, the pitch just shy of high. “But shouldn’t you live in a swanky mansion in the suburbs? Maybe a refurbished brownstone? You’re filthy rich.”

“I’m filthy rich, because I work nonstop,” he pointed out, “and I don’t have time to commute to a swanky mansion or to devote to the maintenance of a brownstone. Living here, I have all the space and privacy I want, and the hotel staff caters to my every need. It’s practical, Anushka, nothing more, nothing less.”