Doctor Hero by Madison Faye

Chapter Six

Jackson

“Jackson.”

“Jackson!”

I snapped out of the perfect, blissful haze I’d been drifting in, realizing I was still washing my hands. I glanced over at Aiden and arched a brow.

“What?”

My friend and fellow neo and prenatal doctor laughed deeply, shaking his head.

“Nothing, you were just blanked the fuck out staring at the wall. The hell is going on with you?”

“Nothing,” I snapped, finishing rinsing and then drying my hands. We were standing outside the operating room, in the dress-down room after a particularly intense job. This was what the call at the clinic had been about — a mother going into labor and the baby inside showing signs of distress. That’s where I came in.

It’d gotten hairy in there, but then, that’s when I worked my best. I’d tuned out the rest — the alarms, the screaming doctors, the screaming parents. All of it. And I’d done what I do best. The little guy wasn’t happy, but I’d gotten him breathing, gotten him stabilized, and gotten him back into his parents’ arms, and he was going to be a-ok.

I’m not gonna lie, it’s days like this when I fucking loved my job.

But Aiden was right, I was distracted. Shit, I wasn’t even here. My mind was firmly back with Ada — back with the girl who’d stepped out of my dreams and into my reality. The girl whose lips I could still taste, and whose sweet moans I could still hear, and whose soft touch I could still feel.

The girl who held my heart.

When I was in the operating room, there was nothing else but me and the job, because that’s just how it had to be. But now that I was out, she’d come rushing back into my thoughts, and I never wanted her to leave them.

“You did a kick-ass job in there, bud.” Aiden raised a brow at me, nodding his strong jaw grimly with that token dark look of his in his eyes. “That kid’s going to be just fine.”

“Thanks,” I grumbled, distracted still.

“But you’re not thinking about that, are you?”

I glanced at him, saying nothing.

He chuckled. “Well whatever her name was, I hope it was fun.”

“Easy,” I growled, snarling as my hands closed to fists.

Aiden looked at me curiously. “Shit, seems I hit a nerve.”

“You didn’t hit anything, it’s just not like that.”

He nodded. “Alright, alright, I hear you.” He furrowed his brow, like he was trying to peer into me.

“Oh what?”

Aiden laughed. “Nothing, Jackson, you’re just…” He shrugged. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you actually look happy. Careful, it might stick.”

I rolled my eyes, flipping him off as I yanked off my scrubs and started pulling my dress shirt back on.

The thing is, I was happy, and it’s something I hadn’t felt in a long damn time. But when I’d seen her in that room the first time, it’s like someone had thrown open the shutters that’d been closed and locked for so long that I forgot they even opened.

“Well fuck man,” Aiden growled. “I know you’re the keeping it to yourself type, but whoever she is, I like this on you. I haven’t seen you like this since before—”

“I know,” I growled quietly.

“What’s the hesitation I seem to hear there?”

I shook my head. “I have no hesitations. Not with her,” I added fiercely. “But, there’ll be complications.”

Aiden raised a brow and I sighed, grumbling.

“She’s a patient.”

He winced, but then shrugged. “Not the greatest PR, but people will live.”

“She’s young.”

Aiden’s brow furrowed again. “How young are we talking here, Brody?”

I gave him a look. “C’mon, don’t look at me like that. She’s almost twenty, it’s not like that. But still…”

“But still, you’re thirty-two.”

“Yeah.”

“Why do I get the feeling you don’t give a single shit about what I or anyone else has to say about the matter?”

“Because I don’t,” I growled fiercely, my heart racing and beating faster as I thought of Ada. “Because she’s it, man. She’s everything.”

Aiden whistled. “This mystery girl who seems to have gotten through the walled-off Jackson Brody have a name?”

“Ada,” I said softly, the very sound of her name making my heart race and my cock throb.

My friend nodded. “Well, fuck man, I guess I just have one question then.”

I raised a brow. “Yeah, what’s that?”

He grinned. “The fuck are you still doing talking to me?”

I was smiling.Me, smiling. It’s not like I hadn’t felt any happiness since, well, before. But I hadn’t ever felt this kind of happiness. Life hadn’t ever felt so purposeful, like everything was clicking into place. Ada was the missing piece I’d always known wasn’t there. Her, and what I saw in our future was what I wanted, and I knew I was going to make it happen with her.

And fuck I couldn’t wait to get back to her.

I was reaching for the door handle to my Mustang, when the voice hit me like a knife in the back. The voice I’d tried to block out — the one I’d have been just fine never hearing again for the rest of my life.

Jen.

Jen had been a lifetime ago — a mistake I kept following thinking there’d be redemption somewhere down the road.

There never was.

We’d met young, when I was still in med school and she was, well, hunting for a doctor to marry up and latch on to. And that’s just what she did — well, what she almost did. We’d planned to be married — not because I was head over heels in love with her, but because I was young and just thought that’s what you did. It’d never felt exactly right, but then, it was never bad either.

Until it was. Until I found out about her betrayal, and her true motives.

See, I wanted kids. I’ve always wanted kids, and as far as I knew, Jen was on board. We tried to conceive while she was planning our big elaborate wedding, but it just never happened. It was Aiden who saved me from the biggest mistake of my life. I knew he’d struggled with telling me and breaking his own Hippocratic oath as a doctor, and I was forever grateful for him for it.

Aiden was the one who discovered the truth about Jen. He’d been out at a bar frequented by the docs and med students of the university, and it was there he’d seen Jen, my fiancé, pulling two other doctor’s into the bathroom while putting her hands all fucking over them. He’d gone directly to the hospital and pulled up her records, because he’s a smart, calculating man, and that’s when he found the rest before she showed me.

Jen had secretly been on birth control the entire time we’d been together. Despite all her bullshit about wanting kids and a family, she’d been faking it — faking it and then also fucking her way through as many other doctors as she could. Seems I was a fetish, not a partner.

Through the PI I’d hired, I found out the rest. Her true plan was to keep “trying” to have kids with me, and when we couldn’t, she was going to file for divorce under the grounds that we couldn’t conceive. And in this state, that afforded her half. I’d been furious, of course, and I’d thrown the other men in her face and threatened to bring it to light in court, but then, I couldn’t. I had nothing concrete besides Aiden’s testimony, but Aiden’s testimony would also expose him to being the one who leaked me her medical records, which would cost him his license and his future.

I couldn’t have that.

Furthermore, the PI had used illegal surveillance to obtain what he’d discovered, so that was out too. The worse though was that Jen had come prepared for war. The whole thing had hit me out of nowhere, but she’d done her homework. During the course of me kicking her ass out, she’d filed a lawsuit for “aggrievement,” claiming I’d abused her and cheated on her.

…It’d be funny if it wasn’t infuriating.

The witch even had four women from God knows where swear that I’d tried to force myself on them, or that I’d tried to use my status as a doctor to have my way with them. Jen claimed that it was my indiscretions that had forced her to “protect herself” with secret birth control, and “forced” her to find intimacy with other men. My own lawyer had made sure that her completely fabricated bullshit about the other women never made it out of the courtroom to damage my reputation, but he hadn’t been able to keep it out of “the clause.”

And it was that that’d hung over my head for the last couple of years.

The clause stated that I ever married again, or fathered children, it would be proof that I’d meant to string Jen along and leave her all along. Utterly preposterous, I know, and so fucking thin it was a joke. But the judge had incredulously agreed with the whole thing, despite my legal team’s protests.

So, that was that. It wasn’t the only reason I’d been alone and walled off from women and most people for the last few years — I’d also just been uninterested in anyone after going through that. But, it was certainly a reason. But then I’d met Ada, and my whole world had tilted on its axis. I’d found her, and the rest of the bullshit that was in my past had faded away in a second, until all I could see was her and me and our future together.

The voice in the parking lot shattered that.

I turned slowly, my face hardening as I glared at her.

“What do you want, Jen?”

She smiled this bullshit, fake smile at me, waving her hand like we were “old friends.” My gaze landed on the rock on her hand, and I rolled my eyes. That’s right, I’d heard through the grapevine that she’d found some poor sucker to cozy up to. She couldn’t get married herself without voiding the clause, so I’m sure she was just leading the guy along on a leash for as long as it took.

“You look good, Jackson.”

“Go fuck yourself, Jen.”

She laughed, the sound piercing and harsh. “Now Jackson, let’s be nice.”

“Let’s not.”

She glared at me.

“What do you fucking want, Jen?”

“Nothing, Jackson, I was just visiting Petey here at Mercy, and when I saw your car I thought I’d wait and say hi.”

Petey?I rolled my eyes. Of course her new guy was a doc. Poor bastard. The thing is, looking at Jen then, I had no idea how I’d ever felt a thing for her. There was nothing there — just cold, calculating fakeness. And honestly, seeing her like that, I almost wanted to smile at the life of imprisonment and coldness I’d dodged. And I wanted to smile wider at the promise of real life, and a real love I’d found with Ada.

“You being good, Jackson?”

I ignored her, turning to unlock my car. “I have to go, Jen.”

“Seeing anyone, Jackson?”

I growled, my jaw tightening dangerously as I whirled back on her.

“Fuck off, you witch,” I spat.

Jen laughed. “Now, now, let’s be nice, Jackson. I mean, Petey has all sorts of money, but you’re my lottery ticket just waiting to pay out! A girl has to check on her retirement plan from time to time, right?”

“Stay the fuck away from me,” I hissed, my eyes narrowing. “And don’t test me, Jen.”

She bristled, but then she tried to hide it with a sarcastic eye roll.

“Jackson—”

“Goodnight Jen.”

I got into my car, slammed the door shut, revved the engine, and peeled out of the parking lot.

I hated that she had this power over me, and I hated that whatever I might have with Ada was going to be under this fucking shadow. At a red light, I stopped and took a breath, counting to five and letting my head simmer down.

Fuck Jen. Fuck letting her shit pull me down, when I had more happiness than I’d ever known waiting for me. The thought of Ada blew the storm clouds away, until all I could think of was her sweet smile, her eyes, and the soft, honeyed cries she’d make when I made her mine. I didn’t even realize I was just sitting there grinning like an idiot and imagining Ada all round with pregnancy until the car behind me laid on the horn, reminding me that I was sitting still at a green light.

I floored it, the engine roaring as I peeled through the streets of New York, back to the girl I loved.