How Much I Feel Read online

  And yes, he told me to call him Jason and not Dr. Northrup. That happened on the ride to the restaurant in the same Porsche that landed me in jail earlier today. I still can’t believe that happened, I think with a nervous laugh.

  He looks at me over the top of his menu. “What’s so funny?”

  “Just recalling my time in jail.”

  “I’m glad you’re laughing about it.”

  “The alternative would be to cry hysterically.”

  “Nah, no need for that. You handled it like a champ.”

  “I’m glad you thought so. On the inside, I was quaking.” I lean in to whisper. “I’ve never even been to detention.”

  He laughs, and the sound washes over me like a soothing balm, surprising me with a familiar feeling of comfort. “You’re a very good girl, aren’t you?”

  “Yes! I always have been.”

  “Here’s a newsflash. You won’t go to hell because you spent an hour in lock up.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because. They reserve hell for the evil people, and you’re a good person.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  He dips a chip into salsa. “Am I wrong?”

  “I try to be a good person and help others.”

  “There you go. An hour in the clink isn’t going to undo all that goodness.”

  “If my grandmothers find out about it, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “There’s no reason to tell them or anyone. It was a misunderstanding. That’s all.”

  “It was an hour in jail.”

  “Think of it as life experience. Now you’ve experienced being arrested.”

  “That’s the kind of life experience I could do without, so you can quit trying to make it into something positive.”

  “It’s a good story you can tell your kids someday, about the time Mommy stole a Porsche and got herself arrested.”

  I’m in the middle of a sip of water when he says that, and I cough as water comes spewing out my nose and mouth.

  He loses it laughing again, and every female head in the place—and a few of the male heads—swivel in his direction. “Do you need CPR over there?”

  I wave him off and use the white cloth napkin to wipe the water off my face. “A. I did not steal a Porsche. I borrowed it to do your dirty work and B. I didn’t actually get arrested because I wasn’t arraigned.”

  His brows furrow with concern. “You know there was nothing dirty about what went down with Betty, right?”

  “I heard what you did for her. It was very nice of you.”

  “It was no big deal. I felt so bad for her when we ran into each other at baggage claim yesterday, and she was crying because her guy blew her off. Then her bag never came, and I couldn’t just leave her there by herself in a strange city.”

  “Most people would’ve walked away and left her to fend for herself.”

  “Well, I’m not most people.”

  “I’m beginning to realize that.”

  The waiter arrives with salads for both of us.

  “Talk to me about what your goals for this so-called campaign of yours.”

  “I’m looking for community service opportunities, things I can do to stay busy and make a difference at the same time.”

  “With publicity or without?”

  “Preferably without, but I do need a way for the board to find out I’m doing it.”

  “We could make that happen.”

  “We could, could we?”

  I’m unnerved by his amusement as well as the intrigued way in which he looks at me. Since I lost Tony, I’ve been on more first dates than I can count but have mostly avoided confronting the reality that the love of my life is gone and never coming back. Everyone who is anyone has told me that someday I’ll find love again, and while I’m not opposed to that, I certainly haven’t been looking for it.

  Today and tonight with Jason is the first time I’ve felt anything for another man since Tony died. The feelings he arouses in me are unexpected and mostly unwelcome. I don’t want to react to him the way I do. I want to help him with his problem and be on my way, with my debt to him wiped clear.

  But with every minute I spend in his magnetic presence, it becomes clear that nothing about my association with this man will be simple.

  “Carmen? Are you okay?” He seems genuinely concerned as he watches me across the table.

  “I’m fine, and to answer your question, I’m sure we can find a way to make sure the right people hear about your outreach efforts without making it into a media circus.”

  “That’s good,” he says, sounding relieved. “The last thing I’m looking for is any more media attention.”

  “You promised you’d tell me the whole story of what happened in New York.”

  “I know.” He puts down his fork, wipes his mouth and sips his margarita, taking a full minute to gather himself before he speaks. “You should know one thing before you hear anything else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I thought I loved her, and I assumed she loved me, too. I thought I’d finally found ‘the one’.” His entire demeanor changes. “I’m sure you think you’ve got me pegged. Reasonably handsome dude, a doctor, must be a player, must have a different woman in his bed every night, etc.”

  “Those thoughts never crossed my mind.”

  He smiles, but it’s a sad version of the earlier smiles that lit up his entire face. “Sure they didn’t. The truth is, I work like a fiend. Or I used to work like a fiend, back when I had a job and a research team and surgeries scheduled back to back. I’d work sixteen or eighteen hours straight without blinking an eye. I had no time to be a player, and besides, I’m just not wired that way.”

  “How’re you wired?”

  “I always imagined that once I finished my training, I’d find someone I liked well enough to spend forever with and get married and have some kids. I never had the desire or time to chase a different woman every night. That’s not to say that some of my doctor friends don’t do that because they do. But it wasn’t my thing.”

  He takes another sip of his drink and props his elbows on the table. “I met Ginger at a fundraiser for childhood cancer. A doctor I went to medical school with had invited me. He’s a pediatric oncologist now and was one of the sponsors. Since my research focuses on malignant pediatric brain tumors, he thought I might be interested in the event. I was by myself at the bar when she approached me. We started talking. She was funny and beautiful, and it’d been a long time since I’d taken even five minutes for myself. When she asked if I wanted to get a nightcap after the event, I was all in.”

  The retelling of this story seems to pain him, and I feel for him even if my goal is to help him without getting overly involved. That goal slips further out of reach with every minute I spend with him. I like him. I don’t want to like him, but I do.

  “So, we went to the bar in the hotel where the fundraiser was held. We continued to talk and laugh. Pretty soon, it was last call, and we were the only ones left in the bar. When she produced a room key and asked if I wanted to join her upstairs, I didn’t hesitate. I’d had more fun with her than I’d had with any woman in years. That was the start of it.”

  “How long were you with her before you learned the truth?”

  “Three months. And I own the fact that I should’ve asked more questions, but I was busier than hell at work and with her if I wasn’t working. It was the most fun I’d had since before med school. I fell completely in love with her, or so I thought.”

  “She never mentioned her husband or children in that time?”

  “Not once. With hindsight, I can see that she was intentionally vague about her life away from me. She told me she was on several boards, including the organization that had the fundraiser the night we met, and her volunteer work kept her super busy. I also realized, after the fact, that she was intentional about us not being seen together in public after that first night. She told me she wanted to h
ibernate with me, and that was more than fine with me. After ten or twelve hours in an OR, I was happy with a home-cooked meal and a night in bed with her.

  “By the time she invited me to her home in the Hamptons for the weekend, it never would’ve occurred to me that she was married or had children.”

  “The thing I don’t get was if she wanted out of the marriage, why didn’t she just ask for a divorce.”

  “I didn’t understand that either, but later I learned that it was about humiliating him with a younger man who, in her words, was everything the husband wasn’t—young, sexy, hot in bed, successful in a way the husband would never be, etc. It had nothing at all to do with me and everything to do with paying her husband back for years of ignoring her. Or something like that. I may never know the full story of what went on between them. One thing I do know is she never intended for it to become public. That wasn’t part of her plan. The fact that her kids were deeply hurt is what bothers me the most.”

  “Because of what happened in your own family.”

  “Yeah. It’s the worst thing ever to have everyone in school find out that one of your parents has been having an affair. Kids don’t understand that shit, and it shouldn’t be something they have to deal with.”

  The forceful way he says that tells me he hasn’t gotten over what was done to him by his philandering father.

  “It’s imperative to me that you know, that everyone knows, there’s no way I would’ve been part of something like this if I’d known the truth. And yes, in this day and age, anyone with a cell phone can find out anything they need to know about anyone else. But it never occurred to me that I needed to be suspicious of her. I thought I’d finally found someone I could spend my life with. Instead, I found myself embroiled in a scandal that screwed up my entire life and threatened a career I’ve given everything to. Sometimes I still can’t believe it happened.”

  “I’m sorry she did that to you.”

  He looks up at me, his expression madly vulnerable. “You believe me?”

  “Of course I do.”

  He exhales a deep breath. “The people I worked with in New York couldn’t believe I’d no idea who she was, but I didn’t. I had nothing to do with the hospital’s board of directors. I worked so much that it was all I could do to find time to eat and sleep a few hours every day. What did I care who the chairman of the board of the hospital was? As long as he stayed out of my way and let me do my job, I had no reason to deal with him. My boss was the chief of surgery, not the chairman of the hospital board.”

  “I’ll never understand why people do some of the things they do. After I lost Tony, the wife of another officer in his squad started a fundraising effort for me and then kept the money. I never asked her to do it, but people were so nice afterward. They wanted to help. I didn’t even know she’d started the fund. I got caught up in that mess at a time when I had zero defenses.”

  “People suck.”

  “Sometimes. Thankfully not all the time. There was so much more good than bad after Tony died, but the idea that someone we knew would take advantage of his death was so impossible to believe.”

  “It’s disgusting. Did you ever get the money?”

  “A year or so later, and she ended up charged with a crime. It was awful on top of everything else I was dealing with.”

  “I’m sorry that happened to you. Losing your husband at twenty-four is more than enough trauma without greed compounding it.”

  “For sure.”

  The waiter brings our entrees—chicken enchiladas for him and tacos al pastor for me. The food is blah compared to what I’m used to, but there’s no way I was taking him home to the family restaurant, even if the food is way better. I don’t need them making this into something it isn’t.

  “Tell me about the night he caught you with her.”

  “Ugh, do I have to?”

  “I want to make sure I know the whole story so I can help you figure out the best plan.”

  He pushes his half-eaten dinner aside, takes another sip of his drink and speaks in a dull, flat tone. “She planned everything about that night to ensure maximum carnage.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “When he walked in on us, she was on her knees giving me a blow job.”

  I wince. “Damn.”

  “I heard the bedroom door open, and I looked down at her in time to see the calculating look she sent his way even as she continued to suck my dick with great enthusiasm.” He glances at me. “Sorry for being so blunt.”

  I wave off his apology. “What happened then?”

  “My first order of business was getting my dick out of her mouth, and then I was focused on defending myself because he came at me with fists flying. I had no idea what was happening, but she did. She knew exactly what was going on because she’d planned the entire shit show.”

  “Where were their children?”

  “I don’t know. I only found out she had children the next day when I heard from my boss that the hospital had suspended my privileges. I was banned from the hospital campus until the board had a chance to meet and discuss the sordid mess. He’s the one who told me that all this time I’d been screwing the married mother of two teenagers and that her husband was the chairman of the board of my freaking hospital.”

  “I can’t imagine how shocking that had to be for you.”

  “It took days for me to realize our entire relationship had been a setup on her part. I finally did what I should’ve done when I first met her and looked her up online. I found out that she’d been trying to get out of the marriage for years. He’d refused to divorce her because all their money came from her family. If he divorced her, he’d lose everything because they had a prenup. He was holding her hostage in the marriage, so she set out to humiliate him in the biggest way she could think of.”

  “What a nightmare.”

  “It’s one thing to go through a rough breakup when a relationship dies of natural causes, but this… This was on a whole other level. And then it got even more fun when the New York media picked up the story and plastered it all over the city. The headlines were brutal. Brain surgeon gets played for a fool by hospital board chair’s wife. I think that one came from one of my colleagues who was always trying to prove he was better than me when everyone knew he wasn’t. He took great pleasure in my downfall, especially when I got suspended.”

  “Have you considered a lawsuit against her?”

  “I have, and I even went so far as to meet with an attorney who told me I’d have an excellent case.”

  “So you’re doing that?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Why not?”

  “Her kids have been through enough. I just don’t have it in me to drag them through the mud again.”

  “Jason… She ruined your life. She shouldn’t be allowed to get away with that.”

  “She hasn’t ruined my life yet.”

  “She ruined your life in New York.”

  “I just want to put it behind me, and a lawsuit would keep it alive for years. I had the lawyer reach out to let her know I was considering litigation, and he said she freaked out about that. It’s enough for me that she’s worried I might sue her. My only goal now is to land this job at Miami-Dade. I want the chance to restore my reputation through the work. That’s all that matters, and I can’t do the work without hospital privileges. In many other specialties, I could fly solo, but not in neurosurgery.”

  “Does it have to be neurosurgery?”

  Chapter 5

  CARMEN

  He looks at me like I’m insane, and maybe I am. “I’ve had years of training to get to where I was before this happened. I’m board-certified, which is the holy grail. I’d be a fool to walk away from my specialty, not to mention the research I’ve worked on for years.”

  “I’m not suggesting you walk away. I’m just wondering if you have options.”

  “Of course I do, but I’ve been on this path for most of the last decade.” He s
hakes his head as his cheek pulses with tension. “I can’t let her destroy my career, Carmen. I won’t let her.”

  “Is your goal to find a way back to New York?”

  “That’d be my preference, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m persona non grata there, after the board chairman personally exiled me to Miami. And now they’re balking at being stuck with me.”

  “Is that what they said?”

  “Mr. Augustino was rather blunt. He said the board isn’t interested in dealing with me or my scandal, but they are interested in my research. That’s the only reason they’re even considering granting me privileges at Miami-Dade.”

  “Did he say what happens at the end of the two weeks?”

  “I assume they’ll decide my research isn’t worth the stink I bring with me. I think the board is giving me lip service but have no intention of granting privileges.”

  “Is there any chance at all you’d consider doing an interview with someone here in Miami to set the record straight about what happened in New York?”

  He ponders that for a minute. “I’d do it in a hot second if there was no chance of it being plastered all over the New York media. To clear my name, I’d have to trash hers.”

  “And you won’t do that because of her kids.”

  “Right.”

  I respect him for doing what he can to protect her children from further humiliation. This day has been a good reminder about the danger of leaping to conclusions about people. “What about asking her to contact the Miami-Dade board directly?”

  His grimace tells me what he thinks of that idea. “That would require me to speak to her, and I’m not willing to do that.”

  “Even to save your career?”

  “I wouldn’t do it to save my life.”

  “Could you text or email her so you wouldn’t have to speak to her?”

  “Ugh, I don’t want to have anything further to do with her if I can avoid that.”

  While I ponder other options, the waiter clears our plates and leaves dessert menus. Since Jason hardly touched his dinner, they box it up for him.