The Boss Project by Vi Keeland

She stood. “I’m not a very trusting person.”

I grinned. “Why?”

She tried to contain her smile, but failed.

I reached out and took her hand. “Because you’re obviously smart. You like to play cards. You can dish it out to my buddies as good as they give it to you. And…you’re hot.”

Amelia looked into my eyes. She searched the same way she did when she was trying to figure out if one of the guys was bluffing his hand. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Wouldn’t be asking you out if I did.”

“So that’s a no?”

“It’s definitely a no.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “I have trust issues. If I get it into my head that you’re lying to me, I’ll probably search your phone when you’re not paying attention. I fact-check people—if you say you were somewhere, you darn well better have been there, because I’ll find out if you weren’t. I pick fights when I’m feeling down. I assume the worst of most people. My father’s in prison, and I don’t even know what state my mother lives in anymore.” She held my gaze. “Still want to go out with me?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

She shook her head, pulled her purse up to her shoulder, and headed for the door. I figured I’d flunked whatever test she was trying to scare me away with. But halfway to the doorway, she stopped without turning back. “I like foreign movies with subtitles. Friday at seven. I’ll meet you here, but outside.”

I blinked a few times, confused at the sudden turn of events, but I wasn’t about to give her a chance to change her mind. “Can’t wait. I’ll see you at seven.”





CHAPTER 14

Evie



The following Friday afternoon, I was in a session with one of the traders when the receptionist knocked on my door.

“I’m very sorry to interrupt, but you have a call. The gentleman said it was urgent, but your phone is showing as do not disturb.”

I held my hand out toward Derek, my patient. “I turn it off when I’m meeting with someone. Do you know who it is?”

“Marvin Wendall. He asked for Merrick first, but when I said he was out of the country, he asked to speak to you.”

My forehead wrinkled. I would think Will was the “next of kin” for any business matters. But okay… “Thanks, Regina.” I looked over at Derek. “I’m sorry. Would you excuse me? I’ll just be a minute.”

He nodded. “No problem. Take your time.”

At my desk, I picked up the phone. “This is Evie Vaughn.”

“Hiya there, Evie. This is Marvin. I’m a friend of Kitty Harrington.”

“Oh. Hi, Marvin. Is everything okay?”

“Not really, honey. That’s why I’m calling. I’m a little worried about Kitty. I tried to reach her grandson, but they tell me he’s out of the country. She talks about you a lot and had mentioned you’re a doctor and that you work there now, so I figured I’d talk to you since I couldn’t reach Merrick.”

“Merrick’s on a business trip to China. I think he flies back in the next day or two. But tell me what’s going on?”

“Welp, Kitty broke one of her ankles and twisted the other.”

“Oh, that’s terrible. How did that happen?”

“It’s a long story. But we were roller skating and—”

“Roller skating?”

“We’re old, missy. Not dead. Anyway, some little turd knocked her over, and she twisted one ankle. I helped her up, but when she tried to put weight on it, she fell again and someone rolled right over the other ankle. I heard the crack on that one.”

I winced. “Oh gosh.”

“But that’s not the worst of it.”

“It’s not?”

“Nope. We went to the ER, and they took some X-rays and did some bloodwork, mostly just routine stuff. But she came back anemic. Turns out she’s also been having some lady problems and hasn’t gotten checked—a lot of bleeding, apparently. So they had a specialist come see her about it, and that one told her she needed some surgery. They wanted her to stay in the hospital, but you know Kitty. Nothing keeps that woman down. I’m afraid she checked herself out. Now she’s in a wheelchair with two bum ankles and some woman problems, and she won’t talk to me about those. I didn’t know what else to do. She’s going to kick my ass when she finds out I took her phone and called you, but right now she can’t run to catch me, so I have some time to worry about that.”

I blew out a big breath. “No, you definitely did the right thing, Marvin. I’m glad you did. I’ll talk to her.”

“Woman’s one of the most fascinating people I’ve met in my life. But she’s also pigheaded.”

I smiled. “I see you’ve gotten to know Kitty pretty well.”

“I’m sorry to dump this on you. But I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her and I hadn’t done all I could.”

“Of course. I’m with a patient right now, but I’ll give Kitty a call in about a half hour.”

“Thank you, dear.”

After I concluded my session with Derek, I settled in at my desk to call Kitty. But while I was collecting my thoughts on the best way to approach her, I realized that if I did get her to go back to the hospital, she would need someone to look out for her and be there to help make decisions. And if I didn’t get her to go back, no one would be checking her vitals to see if her anemia got worse—not to mention, she had two injured ankles, so she wasn’t getting around too well to begin with.