His expression was calm, but his voice held an edge. He was cocky, sure…but usually not intimidating, A tingle of unease spread down Lauren’s spine at the look in his eye as he watched her.

“Oh, yeah. Did you have fun?”

“It was a blast.” He paused for a beat. “What were you up to? Studying, you said?”

Lauren sensed something hinged on her response to this question, but she didn’t know what else to say. “Yeah.” That is what she’d planned on doing, before Logan/Andrew had asked her to dinner.

“Huh. That’s weird, because I could have sworn I saw you that night.”

Bob Barker.

“You were by the fountain with someone. He looked an awful lot like that big guy with Hodgkin’s we’ve been treating.”

Lauren’s mind kicked into overdrive. How should she respond? Did it matter that she and Andrew were there together? Should she lie and say it hadn’t been her? Or it hadn’t been Andrew? She’d been so focused on Andrew, Gavin could have passed right by them and she wouldn’t have noticed. If she tried to play it off like she hadn’t been there with Andrew, and Gavin had been nearby and saw them—especially right at the almost kiss—things would look even worse.

She wasn’t convinced she had anything to hide. The whole thing with Andrew felt like such a gray area. Plus, she was a terrible liar.

“Look, I don’t see how this is any of your business, but I ended up going to the Plaza that night. It was a last-minute decision, and I was meeting someone. I ran into Andrew and we walked around. It was nothing.”

Gavin made a humming noise between his lips. “Didn’t look like nothing.” His accusatory tone coupled with a lift of his eyebrow caused a spark of anger inside her.

Squaring her shoulders, she asked, “Is there something you want to say, Gavin? What are you after?”

A slight smile formed on his lips. “I just think it’s interesting. You’ve played hard to get with me from the start, and then this guy snags you within a few weeks of showing up to your clinic. Is it because he has cancer? You feel bad for him, or something?”

“You’re an asshole.” The words spilled out before she could stop them. “First of all, no one has ‘snagged’ me. Nothing happened. Like I said, we ran into each other that night. Second, I haven’t played hard to get with you, I’m just not interested. Not before, and definitely not now.”

Her hands shook and her face was on fire, and she pushed past him, ducking into the stairwell. She ascended one flight and paused at the landing, attempting to calm her racing heart.