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The director sighed. “You can’t have it both ways, Amber. Either she was stronger or she wasn’t.”
“Sir!”
“I’m afraid my hands are tied, Amber. You broke hospital policy, you deliberately went behind your boss’s back and now a patient is dead.”
Amber took a deep breath, struggling to keep her temper in check. “You’re right, sir. I should have told Dr. Brickers that Vera contacted me. I’m sorry and it will never happen again. But you can’t blame the treatment for—”
The director held up his hand. “Who administered this so-called energy treatment?”
“I did, sir. It’s very safe. It works with the body’s qi energy—”
“Is it approved by the American Medical Association as an appropriate treatment for cancer?”
Amber grimaced. “You know it’s not.”
“Then I’ll have to ask for your resignation.”
Amber’s eyes widened in shock even though she’d known this was a possibility. “You’re firing me? Even if the treatment worked? Even if the patient got stronger and healthier because of it?”
The director just shook his head. “We can’t have doctors practicing non-traditional medicine here at Mandolin. It’s just not the way we do things.”
“Even if it works?”
“Even if. The liability is too high.” Then he leaned forward, his expression almost pleading. “Look, I know we’re all under a lot of pressure. We’re a high-profile hospital and our patients must get better.”
“That’s what I was trying to do,” she said.
“But not the right way, Amber. Still, if you’ll promise to stop with all this qi nonsense then I’ll soften this to an official reprimand. You’re a great doctor, Amber. It would be a shame to lose you.”
“The qi nonsense works, sir. I’ve done a lot of research on my own, but real statistics would be incredibly valuable. Let me do a study—”
Beside her, Dr. Brickers snorted his derision. “Oh, my God, how can you be so idiotic?”
The director also wasn’t swayed. “Stick to Western medicine, Amber, and don’t talk about Eastern voodoo.”
There it was plain as day. If she wanted to work as a doctor, she had to close her eyes to energy healing. She had to pretend that drugs were the only way to treat an illness. That nothing outside of traditional Western medicine had any value at all. She couldn’t do that. She just couldn’t.
“I can’t willingly put blinders on. I’m a healer, sir. From the core of my being, I work to heal people. So if a treatment works, I’ll prescribe it.”
“Western medicine works,” the director said.
“Not for everybody.” With a heavy heart, she turned and headed for the door. “You’ll have my resignation in an hour.”
2
Two years later
ROGER MARTELL stared at his doctor and tried reaching for humor. “That’s it? That’s why you dragged me in here? Geez, I thought I was dying!”
His doctor sighed. “Hypertension is a big deal. And if you don’t get it under control you will die.”
Roger flinched, a little frightened by the man’s flat, absolute tone. Sadly, he wasn’t surprised by the diagnosis. After all, he’d been fighting high blood pressure forever. His uncle and grandfather had both died from heart attacks before their fiftieth birthdays. And Roger was well on the early coronary track. But advances in medicine happened every day, right? He wasn’t desperate yet.
“Okay,” he said. “So this special new drug trial didn’t work.”
“Your pressure is higher than ever, Roger.”
“I know, I know,” he groused. This was his first drug trial, but his thirteenth medication. No matter what he did, his blood pressure kept going up and up. “There’s got to be another drug trial. Something really experimental? Seriously, Doc—”
“Seriously, you’ve got to stop relying on drugs and make some life changes. You’re three breaths away from a stroke, and before you ask…” He started flipping through Roger’s chart. “You’ve tried every medication possible, and some that I think were positively ludicrous. Looks like I’m your third doctor…”
“Fourth if you count the drug-trial people.”
His doctor sighed. “Look, I can’t even clear you to fly as a passenger in an airplane.”
Roger waved that away. “They never check that anyway.”
“Not the point.”
Roger closed his eyes and tried to remain calm. Sadly, the sight that came to his mind’s eye was his father in a treatment facility after his stroke. He hadn’t died like Roger’s uncle and grandfather, but he had lost the use of a third of his body. Roger tried to force away the panic that skated through his system. “I feel fine,” he said firmly.
“Do I need to outline all the reasons high blood pressure is called the silent killer?”
No, he didn’t need to hear that lecture again. “Okay, so what are my options?”
“Tell me about your exercise and diet.”
He knew this drill backward and forward, but he dutifully went through the litany. “I swim a mile and a half most mornings, I don’t eat red meat too often, and I know moldy bread does not count as a vegetable. Or olives in martinis.”
“Tell me about your job.”
Roger barely restrained his groan. “I love my job. I’m the CFO at a robotics firm owned by my best friend. He’s the brilliant inventor, I’m the business guy. I make sure his ideas get to market—”
“You do everything, run everything, worry about everything and the stress is killing you.”
“I’m not under pressure like those guys,” he said firmly. “They’re the geniuses who have to perform miracles every day.”
His doctor leaned back in his chair. “So you’re surrounded by geniuses under stress. No pressure there. No trying to keep up with their brilliant minds, no struggling against the melt-down of the day, no agony of trying to herd a zillion übersmart cats.”
Roger shut his mouth, fighting to keep his expression neutral. Yeah, he often felt like he was the only sane one in a freak show. Other times, he was just the dumb one in charge. His IQ was high, just not stratospheric high. Which at RFE meant he was a moron. “But I love my job,” he repeated.
The doctor sighed. “What about meditation? Yoga? There are some interesting guided prayers…”
Roger rolled his eyes. He couldn’t help himself. So his doctor switched tracks.
“Look, you’ve run out of medical options. Do you understand? There’s nothing more I can do. You have to make some life changes.”
Roger threw up his hands. “Got any suggestions other than quitting my job?”
“Well, when was your last vacation?”
“Just a little bit ago. I went skiing in Colorado. At Christmas.”
“Christmas, as in nine months ago?”
“Um, I think so.” Or maybe it was two years and nine months ago.
“Take another vacation, Roger. Take it now.”
Roger nodded, wondering where in the hell he was going to fit a vacation into his work schedule. “Okay, a vacation. What else?”
“Change your life. Find out what stress is killing you and fix it.”
“But—”
“Whatever it takes, Roger. Do it now.”
THERE WAS SOMETHING really rewarding in being a fill-in office-plant girl, Dr. Amber Smithson thought as she watered a tastefully trimmed fern. Mandolin Hospital hadn’t had greenery, or at least none that she remembered. Back then, Amber had thought her work environment was clean and simple. Now she realized it had just been sterile and dead. Which was why she got a special thrill now out of helping corporate America find some green life in a very non-green world.
This wasn’t her real job. It was just a way to make ends meet and help out the real plant lady—Mary—who was in bed right now suffering from an extremely painful spell of rheumatoid arthritis. Mary was a good friend who couldn’t afford to lose her plant job. So Amber filled in, got to play with plants and, best of all, got to remind herself why she had left the high-pressure life of high-end medicine.
Right now she was in the lobby of RFE, a robotics firm with high-dollar products and mega-dollar research. Pressure was in the very air up here, just like it had been at Mandolin. They might not be working on human bodies, but they were gambling with big money and big ideas. No one could afford to fail and Amber could taste the edge of panic that infected the air. Just like it had at Mandolin.
But she was well free of that, right? she asked herself. For the last two years, she’d been exploring alternative medicine just like she’d always wanted. No one talked to her about liability, no insurance company told her how to treat a patient, and—sadly—no one paid her bills.
Yes, she’d survived all on her own, but her patients were more likely to pay in apple pie than in dollars. Her bank account was getting tight, and her family would only help out if she gave up all her “nonsense” and came back to traditional medicine—preferably at Mandolin. Up until now, she’d refused. But all too soon, an empty bank account was going to force her to make a difficult compromise.
But that wasn’t a problem to be faced now. No, right now was for plants, RFE and…yes!…Mr. Roger Martell. The CFO of RFE had just walked into the building, and Amber was perfectly perched behind a planter to spy on the gorgeous man.
He’d caught her eye months ago, when Amber had first subbed as plant girl. Hell, the man caught every woman’s eye. Tall, dark, stylish and a power executive in every way, Amber’d been secretly spying on him whenever she worked as plant girl. Just being in the same room with him made the air feel electric, as if every second of his day was filled with important decisions. God, he was everything she missed about her old life—the urgency, the power and the feeling that she was doing something vitally important. That was Roger’s aura in a nutshell, and naturally, he’d barely stepped into the front lobby when the receptionist started buzzing people.
“Roger’s back,” the woman said into the phone. “Yes, I’ll let him know.” She didn’t hang up as she handed the man a stack of pink message notes. “Ginny wants to meet with you in a half hour—”
“Hour and a half, at the earliest.”
The receptionist didn’t miss a beat as she spoke into the phone. “It’ll be an hour and a half, Ginny. He knows it’s urgent.” She hung up the phone and passed him two large manila envelopes.
“Jesus,” he moaned. “I was only gone an hour.”
“It was a busy hour,” the receptionist returned.
Amber had to choke back her laugh as she stretched up to reach a planter hanging from the ceiling. Boy, did she remember those days! There was a time she couldn’t take a lunch break without returning to messages, mail and a group of anxious people pacing in the waiting room. She would have guessed that Mr. Martell thrived on the stress until he set down his pile of mail and took a deep calming breath. A big inhale that expanded his chest and filled out his expensive suit, before a slow exhale. And then, damn, a killer smile as he focused on the receptionist.
“So, Claire, how’s it going with the new boyfriend? Did he like that wine I recommended?”
The receptionist blinked as if she were stunned by the question, but she recovered fast enough. Then she flashed her own dimples. “Wine, no. Restaurant, yes. He’s taking me there tomorrow night.”
“Make sure he pays. You’re too beautiful to tolerate anything less than royal treatment.” Then he paused, abruptly frowning. “Wait a minute. I promised you a dinner there, didn’t I? For coming in on Saturday last month to help me with that grant application.”
The receptionist bit her lip. “I didn’t mind, you know.”
“Yeah, but Tommy did, didn’t he?”
The girl shrugged. “Tommy has to learn to make sacrifices for my career.”
Roger flashed her another quick but devastatingly handsome smile. “That he does. You’re an up-and-comer, to be sure. But since I promised you a dinner, I mean to pay up.” He pulled out his BlackBerry and hit a quick number. Twenty seconds later, he was speaking to the maitre d’. A minute after that, he snapped the phone shut with a grin. “You’re all set. Best table in the house, complimentary champagne and dinner is on me. They already have my credit card, and they’ll just add on the tip.”
Amber was stunned enough to peer around the fern, her estimation of the man upping by a thousand percent. Corporate promises like “I’ll buy you dinner sometime” happened all the time. But no one ever paid up. Except for this guy. Not surprisingly, the receptionist was equally surprised.
“Really, Roger, that’s not necessary.”
He shrugged, the motion tightening as he caught sight of an engineer barreling down the hallway at him. “Of course it is, Claire. I promised, and you earned it. Just make sure to toast me at least once.”
“You’re the best, Roger,” the woman breathed. And then they were out of time as the engineer made it to the front desk.
“Roger!” the man barked as he waved a stack of printouts in the air. “Have you seen these specs? Do you know what this is going to cost?”
“Calm down,” Roger returned and they began to move together down the hallway. Amber watched him go, appreciating the way his tailored suit accented his lean body.
“God, I love a man in a good suit,” she breathed, her voice low enough that only the receptionist could hear.
“Yeah, me, too,” responded Claire in an equally quiet tone. “Too bad he’s gay.”
Amber snapped her head around. “What?” No way was that guy gay. He exuded too much testosterone.
“Yup, queer as folk.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true.”
“Why? Just because he dresses nice?”
“It’s more than that!” Claire returned. She glanced down the hallway where Roger and the engineer were talking, still in view, but thankfully out of earshot. “Every woman in this company has made a run at him, me included. We’ve got all types here—brainy, busty, blonde and brunette. We’ve even got classy and the not-so-classy.”
“He never took a bite?”
“Not even a nibble.”
Amber shook her head. “That just means he knows better than to play where he works.”
“Yeah, but he goes to all these chichi parties, always with gorgeous women.”
“So?”
“So one of us always makes a point to find out afterward. You know, are they dating, what’s going on, and—”
“And they always say they’re friends.” Amber released a low laugh. “Honey, that doesn’t mean he’s gay. Just selective.” And probably very discreet.
