Kian (Undercover Billionaire, #1)(37)
Roxie was on her way down the hallway when she stopped. Ahead of her, in his white coat that showed his shoulders to perfection, was Kian, walking quickly before he slipped into a room. Though she’d only seen him from the back, she would know that confident gait of his anywhere. He walked how he talked and how he faced life—with determination, as if there was nothing at all in his way. To be honest, it was slightly intimidating.
The two of them were scheduled to meet at the café in two hours, and what Roxie should do was quietly slip from the hospital and prepare herself for that meeting. She’d stayed up half the night making a case to present to him on why Lily was better off with her full-time and him part-time. She was quite proud of it.
But almost as if her legs were working outside of her control, she found herself moving down the hallway in the direction of the room Kian had just slipped into. It was so wrong for her to be following him, but even knowing this, she couldn’t quite get herself to stop her forward motion.
If he caught her, he’d think she was spying. What would that say to him about her? Certainly not that she could be a responsible parent to his daughter. That thought made her feet pause. It wasn’t something she was allowing herself to think of right now. She didn’t like thinking of Kian as a father, especially to Lily. But Lily was indeed Kian and Pamela’s child. They had shared a one-night stand, and Lily was the result. Those thoughts hurt her in so many ways, she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to heal from it. The pain it caused was devastating.
But she had no other choice but to move forward. She couldn’t hate him for having sex with another woman when they were broken up, and she couldn’t hate her sister for sleeping with him, because her sister had hated herself enough as it was. She certainly couldn’t hate her niece, who was the only light out of all this. That left her with no one to hate but herself, and she wasn’t going to do that, either.
Roxie knew she should turn around and leave the way she’d come into the hospital, but even as she had that thought, she found herself moving forward again as she heard the sound of Kian’s rich laughter travel down the hallway. Her steps quickened, as she wanted to see what was amusing him.
It truly was none of her business, but she couldn’t seem to convince herself of that. She was now too curious to turn away. She’d just take a quick peek and then be on her way, and he would never even know she was there. Mission accomplished.
The closer she got to the door he’d gone in, the more Roxie felt like some damn teenage stalker about to be busted by the mall police. She glanced guiltily around her as she looked to see if anyone was paying her the least bit of attention. Would the doctor who’d just interviewed her take away the potential job offer if he could see her now? Probably. She certainly would hesitate to hire a nurse who was prone to stalking doctors. Even with these chastisements running through her head, she still moved forward until she was right at the door Kian had walked through.
His rich voice sounded sweet as he spoke to the obviously elderly woman on the other side. The woman’s replies came out childishly in her sweet, high voice. Kian laughed as she told him not to suck all her blood like a vampire. Roxie felt her lips turning up as she decided to just peek inside. She wanted to see what the woman looked like now that she had an image in her head.
Roxie was a nurse, and she’d seen it all in her years of medical service. She liked to try to imagine what her patients would look like just from their charts or the sound of their voices. She rarely ever got it right. Once in a while, though, she was 100 percent correct.
She imagined this woman as a sweet, petite, white-haired granny with glasses. Her voice was just too sweet to be anything other than that. She probably had a dozen grandbabies and two dozen great-grandkids. Roxie didn’t even want to think about the fact that she’d be lucky to have her own child, let alone grandchildren. That was a thought to ponder on another day.
Finally, she peeked into the room and then had to cover her mouth before she let out a surprised gasp. The woman was absolutely nothing like she’d imagined. She was pretty petite, that much was clear, but she wore shoulder-length purple hair and had bright-pink lipstick on her lips, and blue eyelids she was batting flirtatiously at Kian.
He was sitting next to her as he held her hand and laughed at another joke. He seemed besotted with the woman, who was old enough to be his grandmother, and the woman was eating up every single moment of it.
“I’ve told you I used to dance over at the corner of Pearl and Seventieth Street, right?” the woman said in an attempt at a raspy voice, but she went too low and caused herself to cough. Kian turned her slightly and patted her back.
“Yes, Millie, you have, and I wish I would have seen you,” he said. “But you have to slow down a little bit,” he warned.
“Are you trying to tell me I’m old?” she asked, her lips forming into a pout.
“Not at all,” he insisted as he let go of her hand and held her chart, glancing at the numbers. “But you had a close call. It’s okay to listen to our bodies and slow down. I don’t want to see you in my ER again unless it’s to stop and say hello.” His voice was warm and firm at the same time. He commanded respect because he gave it. Roxie hated that she felt her guard slipping as she stood there gawking at the two of them.
“I will most definitely stop in for a visit. If you do a good job and get me out of here quick enough, I might even bring you a coffee,” she said, her practiced pout back in place.