Chapter 2
Chapter 2
My heart plummeted. Ten minutes? Twenty minutes? The consultation room door remained firmly shut.
The complaints outside grew louder, nurses tried to calm people down, but it was no use.
An icy sensation spread through my limbs. Not from the air conditioning-but from knowing that behind that closed door lay territory 1, as his wife, rarely set foot in. yet another young woman had effortlessly claimed.
Even with Aiden himself breaking the rules.
Finally, the door opened. Vera emerged holding a payment slip, her cheeks flushed, eyes bright-showing absolutely no signs of the “severe abdominal pain” she’d mentioned earlier.
She walked toward the payment counter with light steps.
As she passed by me, she even shot me a look that carried triumph, almost defiant in its smugness.
Aiden followed, his expression restored to its usual calm, as if he’d never broken any rules at all.
He looked at me, not giving me a chance to speak: “Almost off duty.
Finished with your checkup? I still have a few patients-after that I’ll drive you home. Too much rain outside, rideshares are impossible.”
I said nothing.
The crushing disappointment and sense of betrayal left me heartbroken. I followed Aiden silently to his break room to wait.
Every minute of waiting felt endless.
The break room still carried the faint scent of jasmine perfume-Vera’s fragrance from earlier.
I stared at the neatly arranged files on Aiden’s desk and the no-smoking sign beside them, remembering that argument from a month ago.
I’d just finished throwing up from morning sickness and felt suddenly hungry.
When I went to see Aiden, I brought only the mildest lemon water-I knew how sensitive he was to strong smells.
But when I took a sip in his office, Aiden said coldly. “Tina, this is a hospital, not a coffee shop. That smell will linger for hours-it could affect my clinical judgment. Please don’t eat or drink anything in here again.”
Just one sip of water. Aiden had used such harsh, cold phrasing as “affecting judgment.”
And now, Vera, merely an “intern,” had not only broken Aiden’s rule about working with female interns, but had also been privileged enough to skip the rowded clinic queue and enter his consultation room because of a “stomach ache”?
Yet her lingering jasmine fragrance-wouldn’t that affect his “professional judgment”?
When Aiden returned after seeing his last patient, I was standing by the window, watching the storm outside. “Let’s go.” He grabbed his car keys. “I parked in he basement garage, no need to get soaked.”
The underground garage felt somewhat damp from the storm’s penetration. Aiden’s black SUV sat in the spacious parking spot.
When I reached the car, Aiden didn’t immediately unlock it, instead looking toward the passenger side.
I followed his gaze and saw the passenger door open.
Vera poked her head out, her face a picture of “surprise” and “apology”: “Tina? Oh my God-I’m so sorry! Earlier, Aiden saw I couldn’t get a ride and with this terrible rain, he offered to drop me home… I didn’t mean to intrude. Aiden, maybe I should sit in the back?”
She pretended to unbuckle her seatbelt to get out, but Aiden simply unlocked the rear doors and said to me: “Get in.”
