Arriving at the boardroom on the first floor, she forced several calming breaths before opening the door. The room was full of doctors and the meeting had started without her. From the front of the room, her father didn’t even glance her way as he pointed to a slide on his PowerPoint presentation.

She felt like a ten-year-old who’d failed a math test.

Every seat was full. She would have to stand there like a moron. Embarrassed and feeling judging eyes on her, she squared her shoulders.

“Psst,” Darren whispered. “Sit here,” he said, getting up from his chair at the table.

She quickly and quietly took his place with a grateful look and he handed her a double espresso and a note.

Sorry, I knocked on your office door for ten minutes.

She shook her head. Not his fault. Just her own. He wasn’t even her intern anymore.

Then he discreetly took her disorganized files and set to putting them back together.

Tears burned the back of her exhausted eyes and the lump in her throat made it impossible to swallow the caffeine as she sent him another grateful look.

He winked at her as she turned her attention to the presentation at the front of the room. Her father was outlining the details of the trials and assigning different teams to different patients. She was so far behind. She may as well have been gone for months. Her father’s gaze landed on her and the message was clear.

She needed to get it together.

Which meant no more long, late-night calls with Reed.

Chapter Twenty-Three

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

HE WAS GETTING the brush-off.

Days of barely any contact from Erika had Reed on edge. The brightly colored Christmas lights strung above the bar and the earsplitting sounds of Mariah Carey’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” wasn’t helping his mood.

Was this stupid CD on Repeat?

He’d heard this song a dozen times already that evening.

Grabbing a bottle of tequila from the shelf, it slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor.

Damn.

Going into the kitchen, he got a mop and broom and quickly cleaned up the mess.

“Still waiting on those tequila shots, Reed,” Tank said, appearing at the bar with an empty wait tray. The man owned the place, but he couldn’t make the simplest cocktail. Whenever he was forced to be behind the bar, everyone drank beer.

“If they’d like to come lick it off the floor, they can be my guest,” Reed mumbled, tossing the shards of glass into the trash.

“That bottle’s coming off your paycheck.”

Tank’s attempt at a joke earned him a middle finger. Opening a new bottle, Reed poured the six tequila shots and set them down on Tank’s tray, spilling liquid over the sides.

“You good?” Tank asked.

“Peachy.”