It was that thought more than anything that pushed her into action. Her stomach felt like she’d eaten twelve lead weights, and her heart skittered worse than the first time she’d set foot on a stage, but she could not, would not allow Harry to push her around anymore. It had been wrong of her to mislead Spencer, and there was a good chance a man like him would never forgive her for it, but she was no longer content to sit back and let life happen to her.

Ruby Taylor was officially back.

“It’s weed, Harry, not meth, and what I do on my own time is none of your business.” She snapped her latex gloves off with the ease of long practice—of thousands of catheters cleaned and baths given, of temperatures taken and wounds dressed. Nothing she’d done in the past decade had been particularly glamorous, but it had mattered. The only shame was that it had taken her so long to realize it. “I’m not going to explain myself to you or apologize for my actions. And I’m definitely not letting you administer a drug test unless you can show me where in the employment contract it says you can.”

“It’s common sense, Ruby. Anyone with half a brain would know that you can’t just sit around rolling joints with the residents. You work here, remember? You work for me.”

“Not anymore, I don’t,” she said. She tossed the gloves into the trash bin with a satisfying swish. “I quit.”

It should have been a moment for triumph—and in many ways, it was—but Harry looked down at the welted red skin of her hands with something like horror. She didn’t know why that upset her more than all the rest, but it did. She’d just put this man in his place and quit her job. She’d taken a stand. And still he only focused on her exterior. She could spend three decades working here, and Harry would never see her as more than her outward parts.

“If you dare to comment on my appearance again, so help me, I’ll report you for sexual harassment before I go,” she said with a hard set of her jaw. “And abuse of power and emotional badgering and—”

“General unpleasantness,” Spencer supplied.

Before she realized what was happening, Spencer rose to his feet and placed himself at her back. Even though no part of him touched her, she could feel every muscle in his body—the latent strength and warm, solid mass of him. She wasn’t sure if it was the physical proximity that was making her heart pick up like that or if it was the fact that he was standing up for her—literally—but there was no denying the uptick in her blood flow.

He knew the truth. He knew the truth and he was still here.