Pursued by the Playboy (2 page)

His fingers skimmed lightly over her waist to rest at the base of her spine, just above the swell of her bottom.  “Ah, Professor…”

“You can call me Kate.”

He dipped his head and breathed her in.  “Kate.  Bonny Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom…”

Her lips quirked.  “And Kate the curst.  I know, I know.  The shrew comes out at midnight.”

He laughed.  “Is that an invitation?”

“No, thank you, Petruchio.” 

His pager vibrated, interrupting his response.   In a few quick steps he twirled them toward the edge of the dance floor and stopped.   One arm still wrapped around her, he leaned back and checked the number, then swore softly.   “Sorry, I need to get this.  It’s the SICU, and I’m on call.”  He let go and fished a cell phone out of an inner pocket.  “Don’t disappear.”

“Actually,” she nodded toward a nearby table, where a tall dark-haired man half-waved in her direction.   “I need to get back.”

Marc paused in the process of punching in the callback number.  “You’re together?”

She hesitated, and in that moment Marc took an instant dislike to the other man.  “Yes.”  She turned
and
offered Marc a parting smile that made his gut clench and his palms sweat.  “Pleasure meeting you.”

He followed her with his eyes, even as his call connected and he spoke with the critical care nurse at the other end.

When he got back to his table to excuse himself, his sister Emma grinned.  “What happened?” 

Isabelle, his other sister, joined in.  “Not like you to retreat in the face of a little competition.”

He glanced involuntarily toward the table where Kate’s escort had gotten up and was now draping a silk wrap across her shoulders.  “Sorry to disappoint, but I was called in.  Fever and dehisced wound on one of my post-ops, and the resident is
—
”  He broke off, sighed.  “It’s July, you know how it is.”

His siblings winced and made sympathetic noises.  July first marked the official start of the academic year, when medical interns and residents began their clinical rotations: a fresh batch of inexperienced doctors-in-training let loose on the hospital floors. 

Marc’s stepmother, Sophia, half smiled.  As the only nurse in a family of doctors, she was well used to deflating overblown egos when the occasion demanded.  “Wasn’t too long ago you were in their shoes, hot-shot.” 

Joseph DiSte
f
ano patted his wife’s hand and winked at his son.  “Four years and counting,” he said.  “But from the residents’ perspective, it might as well be a hundred.  You forget that training years are like dog-years:  easily seven-to-one.”

Marc grinned and took his leave, the sound of his sisters’ appreciative laughter echoing in his wake.  

Outside, as he waited for the valet to bring his car around, he caught sight of Kate stepping into a low-slung Porsche.  Her companion closed the passenger door behind her and circled around to the driver’s side, boot heels ringing on the pavement.  Just before folding himself in behind the wheel, he removed his black Stetson and tossed it into the car, presumably onto Kate’s lap.

Three days later, Marc knocked on the door of Kate’s lab, and without waiting for a response, walked in. 

Kate stood at one of the counters that ran down the center and along the periphery of the room, her slim form hunched over an electrophoresis unit.  In one gloved hand she held a pipette, with which she was transferring samples into the tiny wells of a prepared gel.   A shapeless lab coat covered her from neck to mid-thigh, but left her legs bare, and it was there that Marc’s gaze focused and remained riveted. 

“Can I help you?” A young man in jeans and a white coat looked up from his perch at another counter. 

Marc tore his eyes from Kate.  He hadn’t even noticed the other man until then.  “Thanks, but I’m here to see Professor Warner.”

She glanced over her shoulder, frowned.  “Dr. DiStefano?” 

“Hello, Kate.  I was in the neighborhood.  Thought I’d stop by and see where you work.”

Her gaze flicked
to her student and back.
“I’m setting up an assay.  If you want, Mahesh can show you around.  There’s not much to see.”

Marc shook his head.  Subtlety was clearly lost on her.  “Actually, the tour can wait.  How about some coffee?”

She carefully set down the pipette and stripped off her gloves.  “Thank you, but—”

Mahesh interrupted.  “I can finish up here.  You’ve already loaded the gel.  I’ll just babysit it for a couple hours.  Take as long as you want.  You skipped lunch today, you need to eat.”

Marc grinned.  Thank goodness for eager-to-please grad students.  “Come on, Kate, I’ll feed you.” 

She hesitated, then started unbuttoning her lab coat, revealing a thin white V-neck T-shirt and loosely belted khaki shorts.  “Fine.  Thanks, Mahesh.  Let me just grab my bag.”

Marc kept a hand on her elbow as they navigated through the basement corridor, up the stairs, and out into the sunlight.   She fumbled in her purse for sunglasses and slipped them on.  “Where are we going?”

“White Dog Café?”  The local favorite was a short walk across campus, and unlikely to be busy this late in the afternoon.

She fell into step beside him.  “Didn’t think I’d see you again.”

He skimmed her profile, admiring the delicately curved ear, the graceful neck, the tempting handful of her breasts.  “We didn’t get a chance to talk the other night.”

They walked silently for a few minutes, past the hospital complex and beneath the glass-enclosed overhead walkway to the Tower Hotel.   Marc wondered what was going on behind her cool demeanor.  Had she even given him a second thought after they’d parted at the gala the other night?  She had certainly made no effort to contact him.  Nor did she seem particularly pleased at his appearance in her lab.  Then again, she had a
greed to accompany him to lunch
.
  He’d take what he could get.

They waited for the light to change before crossing
Spruce Street
.  Despite the warm day, she shivered when his fingers grazed the small of her back. 

“How did the rest of your call go?”

He suppressed a smile at the catch in her voice.  Maybe she wasn’t as unaffected by him as she pretended to be.  “Fine, thanks.  Only had to go in once for a wound that re-opened.  Luckily I didn’t need to take the patient back to the O
.
R.  A little irrigation, a little debridement, a little hand-holding.”

They arrived at the old brownstone that housed the restaurant.  He held the door for her and followed her inside.   After the brightness and heat of the day, it took a moment for their eyes to adjust.  Kate removed her glasses and tucked them into the V-neck of her shirt.  Marc’s mouth went dry. 

A waiter seated them near a window overlooking the quiet tree-lined street.  As Kate studied the menu, Marc studied her.  On the surface, it was hard to say what attracted him so much.  Kate was the complete opposite of his usual tall voluptuous blondes—Barbie-doll wanna-be’s, as his sister Emma called them.  Her hair was short, pixie-cut, a deep chestnut shot through with strands of gold.  It framed her face and made her eyes appear larger.  Her nose was small, slightly upturned, her lips lush and slicked with a touch of gloss.  Her jaw was firm, hinting at a strength of character that he was just beginning to recognize.  From what little he’d gleaned about her in the campus directory, she was something of a wunderkind, blazing through college and graduate school at breakneck speed, and landing an assistant professorship at the unprecedented tender age of twenty-five.   That was three years ago. 

But other than her brief bio on the university website, and a bibliography of her publications, he hadn’t been able to find out much about her.
No facebook profile or LinkedIn account, not even a
n Amazon wish-list.  W
hich was strange i
n this age of online exhibitionism, where everything that might once have been private was b
roadcast for public consumption.  To leave such a small public footprint meant either she zealously guarded her privacy, or she didn’t have much of a personal life.

By contrast, if Kate were inclined to find out more about him, she would encounter a plethora of material online.  Over the last few years, he had somehow captured the attention of the local society columnists and gossip rags.  Every time he showed up with a new face at one of the charity events that his family frequented, or at a restaurant opening, or at some high profile university sponsored reception—there they were, like vultures, snapping his picture, calling out intrusive questions, and fabricating responses from some “close unnamed source”.  He had no interest in reading the exaggerations, speculation, and often outright lies about his social life.  But his Aunt Lucia kept him gleefully updated on all the latest trash.

“I don’t need my ego stroked,” he’d tell
his a
unt
whenever she called him up about a particularly juicy bit.  “And frankly, I can do without
all
the attention and aggravation.”

“Don’t be such a sourpuss,”
Aunt Lucia
scolded.  “Where else am I going to get inspiration for my characters?”

Leave it to Aunt Lucia to skew the perspective.  For her, everything was fodder for the racy romances she wrote.  Pointless to argue, though he tried.  “How about focusing on those train-wrecks in the entertainment industry?  Or whichever politician caused a scandal this week?”

“Please, that’s so pedestrian.  I much prefer your
shenanigans, my boy.  So tell
me what
really
happened with that underwear model last month?”

Kate shifted in her seat, pulling Marc from his thoughts.  He caught a glimpse of shadowy cleavage where the earpiece of her sunglasses dipped beneath her shirt.  Sweat beaded down his back.  His fingers clenched in the effort to avoid reaching across the table and brushing across the delicate collarbone to where the pulse fluttered at the hollow of her throat. 

After the waiter took their orders and collected the menus, Kate folded her arms atop the table.  “So shouldn’t you be with patients now?”

“I block out Tuesday afternoons for administrative time.”  He smiled.  “We have a couple hours before I’m due back for evening rounds.”

“Ah, so you’re playing hooky.  Or is this work-related?”

He shook his head.  “Work can wait.  I’d like to spend some time with you.  Hear more about the brilliant Katherine Warner.”

She frowned
.   “You’re making fun of me.”

“Not at all.  I want to know all about you.  Your dreams, your aspirations, your favorite flavor ice cream.  How you spend your weekends.  And with whom.” 

For a moment she was silent.  Then she withdrew her hands from the table and leaned back.   “I work.  Weekdays, weekends, doesn’t matter.  Research isn’t nine-to-five.  I’ve been lucky enough to get good students who don’t mind putting in the extra hours.  And I teach a couple classes each semester—a graduate seminar and something harder-core:  molecular biology or regulation of gene expression or whatever.”

“All work and no play?”

“Oh, please.  You’re a doctor.  You come from a family of doctors.  I shouldn’t have to tell you about hard work.” 

“You’ve been asking about me?”

A faint flush rose
in her cheeks.  “Don’t flatter yourself.  There were a slew of DiStefanos listed as benefactors on the program the other night.  All with MD’s behind their names.  I assumed you’d be related.”

“Shot down, yet again.”  He sighed theatrically.  “That would be my dad and sisters.  And you’re right, of course.  Dad does obstetrics.  Izzy, too.  That’s Isabelle, my baby sister.  Emma went into dermatology—which is way saner schedule-wise for a woman.  Probably why she’s able to balance a couple kids and a husband with work so well.  The rest of us—well, we’ll do what Dad did:  still try to make it to our kids’ baseball games and concerts, even if we have to duck out early.  Working hard doesn’t mean working all the time, you know.”

Her mouth tightened.  But she remained silent despite his deliberate provocation.  He wondered what it would take to get her to lose her cool.  Unable to help himself, he leaned forward and smiled. 
“
You don’t think it’s possible, do you?  C
ombining work and family?”

“Maybe for some,” she conceded.  “But you can’t expect to rise to the top of your field if you’re always getting distracted by what’s going on at home.  You either have to focus on work or on family.  Trying to do both means you’re constantly torn and everyone ends up suffering.”

“That’s a pretty cynical attitude.  Especially for a woman.”  He raised his hands in self-defense.  “Sorry, no offense.  But don’t you want kids?”

“No.”  Her sharp tone took
him
by surprise.  She took a breath, then continued in a calmer voice.  “I wouldn’t have gone into academe if I’d wanted kids.  You know the odds of actually making tenure if you take time off for maternity leave or because your kid has a sniffle or daycare is closed for the gazillionth obscure holiday of the year?  There’s a reason these hallowed university walls are lined with photos of men.  They have stay-at-home wives to take care of
the domestic life
.  If I could get a stay-at-home wife, I would too.”  She unclenched her fingers and raised her water glass. “Then again, maybe not.”