“No,” Tess replied after a stoplight and three city blocks. “I meant that I know the situation is for shit, which is what I should’ve said, only I didn’t. But I didn’t mean to imply that I know what this is like for you, because I don’t. I’m sorry.”
After a silence she couldn’t interpret, Declan finally said, “You’re always this honest, aren’t you?”
She opened her mouth to admit that, while she’d never use her brutal honesty unnecessarily, and she’d definitely never use it to be cruel, yeah, it was absolutely her default setting in all other situations. But then Alec’s voice slipped through her ears, unbidden and cold.
Tess, really. Do you always have to be so blunt?
She swiped back the memory, pasting a smile over her mouth as she pulled into the hospital parking lot.
“Just one of my many talents. Anyway, we’re cutting it close on time. Why don’t you go get registered while I take Jackson to childcare? I’ll meet you in Dr. Gupta’s office.”
A strange expression crossed his face then, flickering through his bright green stare in a way that made Tess think he’d argue.
But then it was gone, so quickly and so thoroughly that she’d swear she’d imagined the whole thing.
“Right. I’ll see you upstairs. The faster we can be done with this, the better.”
10
Much to her chagrin, Tess was not growing immune to the sight of Declan. The way he stood outside of Dr. Gupta’s office, his eyes bright but guarded and his lean, muscular body primed with all sorts of graceful power that Tess didn’t want to contemplate in public, made her heart race.
The thought of him living in that dingy apartment, sleeping on a recliner that was probably older than he was—if he could even sleep with all the noise going on around him?
That made her heart do other things she didn’t want to contemplate.
“Hey,” she said, re-setting her focus to the here and now. “You ready to go?”
“I s’pose.”
Before either of them could move, though, a familiar female voice snagged her attention by calling her name.
“Dr. Michaelson. Tess! Wait.” Bernadette Novak, who had been the head of Remington Memorial’s human resources since Moses was a toddler, waved them down. “Oh, good. Mr. Riley, I presume?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Declan said warily.
Bernadette’s smile was warm enough for both of them, though. “That saves me a call. I’m glad I caught you both together.”
Tess frowned. Why on earth would Bernadette care if they were here together? “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yes. Well, I think so.” Bernadette pushed her glasses farther up her nose. “I just need to clear up a discrepancy on the paperwork, here, for you and Mr. Riley.”
A tiny flare of panic threatened to rise in Tess’s chest, but she tamped it down. Bernadette was as meticulous as she was sharp-eyed. Tess had probably forgotten to (literally) dot an “i” or something. “What’s the discrepancy, exactly?”
Bernadette tapped through a few screens on the tablet in her hand, finally arriving at the one she wanted. “You both have different addresses listed for your primary residence, but I wasn’t sure which one is correct.”
“Sorry?” Tess stammered, but it was mostly to borrow time. Damn it! Aside from the obvious billing issues, how could she have forgotten that Declan would need a home health care worker to come administer some of his meds and monitor his glucose levels? Of course, he’d need to put his new address on his forms.
And, of course, Bernadette would catch that it didn’t match Tess’s.
The woman smiled, but didn’t skip a single beat. “Well, the records we have on file for you, Dr. Michaelson, show this address”—she flipped the tablet around to reveal Tess’s personnel file—“but Mr. Riley’s is listed as something different. For insurance purposes, as well as the home health visits, we’ll obviously need to know which one is correct.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit! They had to play this just right otherwise Bernadette’s radar would start belting out a greatest-hits rendition of liar, liar, pants on fire.
Declan, bless him, intervened with the truth he could tell. “Sorry about that. Things have been a bit crazy. I’ve only just moved from California recently.”
“We just got married last week,” Tess put in helpfully, trying not to overdo it.
Bernadette’s brows pulled downward. “I understand, but…both of these addresses are right here in Remington. So, at which one are you two actually living?”
If there was one thing Tess could boast as an emergency physician, it was that she could analyze facts and determine the best outcome freakishly fast.
So, even though Declan was probably going to murder her as soon as Bernadette walked away, she said, “The address in my file is the correct one. Declan and I live there. Together.”
Declan clothes-lined the urge to protest what Tess had just told Ms. Novak, even though it took considerable fucking restraint. But he wasn’t brainless. The older woman had been thorough to the point of ridiculous when Declan had met with her to fill out all the insurance paperwork for the trial last week. They had to convince her that this marriage was real—hook, line, and cohabitation.
Declan and I live there. Together.
“Sorry about the misunderstanding,” Tess said. “We just recently decided to live at my place rather than the other way around. It’s been kind of a whirlwind.”
She gave up a conspiratorial smile, which Ms. Novak returned, while Declan bit down on the irony of how literal Tess’s version of recently was. His brain knew they needed to give Ms. Novak a feasible explanation for the sake of legality. The rest of him?
Didn’t want to burden Tess any more than he’d wanted to burden Connor and Harlow. Fuck. He could not live with her.
“Well, it’s been a long while, but I was a newlywed once, myself,” Ms. Novak said. “I figured there was a good explanation. I’ll just go ahead and change that up in the file, then pass the address along to the scheduling office for the home health care worker.”
“Oh, about that,” Tess said, so casually that Declan might have believed it to be an afterthought, if he hadn’t seen the hint of tightness that had slipped beneath her smile. Served him right for spending too much time looking at her mouth in the first place.
“Yes?” Ms. Novak asked.
“Well, it seems a little silly for a home health care worker to come out, what? Three times a week? When I’m already more than professionally qualified to do the work.”
Declan shook his head, opening his mouth to say no—he didn’t even want a stranger to do the job of poking and testing and treating him as if he’d been hand-crafted out of glass, let alone Tess. But something odd flashed through her stare then, the message there hitting him as clearly as if she’d whispered in his ear.
Trust me.
“But isn’t that a conflict of interest?” Ms. Novak asked, her graying brows lifted.
Tess shook her head. “Oh, I wouldn’t be treating him. That would be a conflict of interest,” she agreed. “I’d just be administering the medications Dr. Gupta has already prescribed and performing all the tests for monitoring, per her direction. And we do already live together. Sending a home health care worker seems kind of unnecessary, don’t you think? I mean, I know their schedules are already packed, and it doesn’t make any sense to waste the resources when I can just take care of everything.”