Flirting with the Society Doctor

The National Guard? Did he expect such a rush of female would-be suitors? Casting another quick look at him, she decided that, yes, he probably did and rightly so. Forget his money, power and prestige, Dr. Vale Wakefield was still the finest catch in New York.

For the weekend she was to defend his bachelorhood? Where was the 1-800 hotline to the National Guard? She’d be the one needing reinforcements.

“She won’t buy that I’m anything more than a colleague.”

Vale shot her a quick look. “Why wouldn’t she?”

Should she list the reasons? Write him a thesis perhaps? “I’m not your type.”

“Obviously, you are.” And obviously he found her comment amusing since he chuckled.

“What’s that supposed to mean? You like tall, willowy women with IQs lower than their bust sizes,” she reminded him.

“I kissed you,” he parried.

As if those three little words explained everything.

She bit her lower lip. “Why did you?”

“I wanted to.”

He’d wanted to. Pleasure bubbled inside her like just uncorked champagne, overflowing with rich, foamy giddiness, intoxicating her senses.

She was drugged. Drugged by the insanity being around a man as potent as Vale caused. She didn’t want this, didn’t want to feel this way. Not about him or any man.

“What about what I wanted?”

“Are you saying you didn’t want me to kiss you? Because I don’t believe you.” His expression said, Yeah, right. Tell me another one.

“I stopped you,” she reminded him, chin high.

“Not until after a good bit of tongue thrusting and spit swapping had taken place. Face it, Faith, you wanted me to kiss you as much as I wanted to kiss you.”

“Eww.” Ignoring his second sentence, she wrinkled her nose at his coarse words. “Don’t be gross, Vale.”

“I was making a point.”

“Grossing me out is more like it.”

They came to a stop at a traffic light and he turned to face her, his eyes boring into her soul. “Kissing me grossed you out?”

With his gaze fixed on her, she couldn’t lie to him. Not even when that was what she really wanted to do. Instead she blurted out the embarrassing facts in the most revealing of ways.

“Kissing you didn’t gross me out.” Except at the abandoned way she’d kissed him back when she knew better.

“What did kissing me do?” His voice was husky, confident, as if he knew exactly what his kisses did to women.

Of course he knew what his kisses did to women. Just as she knew.

Kissing Vale made women crazy, fanatical, addicted. She knew that. She’d watched his effect on women, knew the dangers of being near him in any capacity not business-related.

Vale didn’t mix business and pleasure. He just didn’t. Not ever.

Only he had by kissing her.

“Kissing you made me think I’m crazy for agreeing to this when I had the opportunity to spend a weekend relaxing at home because you’d have been otherwise occupied, not calling me to meet you at the office for yet more work.”

His eyes narrowed into deep blue slits. “You don’t like working with me?”

“I love my job, but someday I do hope to have a life outside work.”

“What kind of life?”

Why on earth had she started this conversation? Or had he started it? Either way, she wanted out.

“The usual,” she said dryly, grateful they’d moved beyond what his kisses did to her, but hoping he’d let their new subject drop.

“What usual?”

Of course he wouldn’t. Not the great Dr. Vale Wakefield, New York’s most eligible bachelor.

“You know,” she admitted reluctantly. “A house in some smarmy little suburb that I can call my own. A yard for Yoda to dig holes in. A neighborhood where I can take him for long walks.”

His brows drew together in a deep furrow, his lips tight with displeasure. “That’s your idea of the usual? What about marriage? Children? That usual?”

Maybe that was usual for some women. To Faith there was nothing usual about marriage or having children. Not in the marriages she’d witnessed. And, although she was mightily attracted to Vale, she didn’t kid herself that it was anything more than that. Men didn’t stick around. Even men who promised to, and Vale wasn’t the type to make such promises to begin with.

“Women who want to make it in a high-powered career shouldn’t reveal to the boss that they also want to have a family,” she answered in the hope of steering him in a direction other than the truth. “Not if they want to be taken seriously.”

“You think I’d penalize you if you said you wanted a family?”

“I think you’re more likely to advance someone who didn’t have to take time off for maternity leave and pediatric visits.” Dear Lord, someone really had slipped her some truth serum. She couldn’t shut up. “My career is important to me. I told you that from the beginning.”

“Yes, you were quite vocal that day.”

Why did the way he spoke make her think he was mocking her?

“Laugh if you want to, but I’m serious.” She shrugged. “After I’ve achieved my career goals I’ll think about marriage.”

Not that she’d want marriage ever. She was more than happy with Yoda. Her dog would never leave her for another woman—except perhaps Mrs. Beasley and her cutie pie Miss Cupcake.

He seemed to digest her comment. “After you’ve achieved your career goals you plan to marry and have kids?”

“After I achieve my career goals …” tired of the picking apart of her life goals, she gestured toward the green light that had changed at some point during their conversation, but neither had noticed “… I’ll make plans for the rest of my life.”

Faith had already decided she wasn’t going to allow herself to be intimidated by the Wakefield family fortune. She just wasn’t.