MARRIED TO MY RIVAL DOCTOR

chapter three

The Call

Emily

I spent the rest of the outreach doing an admirable job of avoiding Seth Hernandez entirely.

It wasn't difficult, technically. The square was packed, patients lined up three deep at every station, and he had his own team to manage without needing to hover around the visiting doctor's granddaughter. But every so often, across the chaos of folding tables and clipboards, I'd catch him glancing my way, and every time, I looked away half a second too late to pretend I hadn't noticed.

By the time the sun started dipping behind the church steeple, my feet ached, my scrubs were creased from six hours of bending over borrowed exam tables, and I was more than ready to go home and forget the entire humiliating catch had happened.

"You survived," Grandma said as we walked back, far too pleased with the day's events for my liking.

"Barely."

"He asked about you, you know. While you were bandaging that little boy's knee."

"Oh okay. But I don't want to hear it."

"I'm just saying..."

"Grandma."

She laughed, the sound warm and familiar, and looped her arm through mine the rest of the way home.

---

That night, alone in the guest room with the window cracked open to let in the sound of crickets, the day's adrenaline finally wore off, and something heavier settled into its place.

Tristan.

I hadn't let myself think about him properly since the airport, hadn't let the betrayal sit still long enough to actually hurt the way it should have. But lying there in the dark, replaying the sound of that other woman's laugh through his phone speaker, I finally let it in.

Two years.

Two years of convincing myself that patience was a virtue, that love meant giving someone the benefit of the doubt even when your gut told you otherwise. Two years, and he'd repaid it by making me feel foolish for ever trusting him at all.

I curled onto my side, pressing my face into the pillow, and let myself cry the way I hadn't allowed on the plane, quiet, angry tears that had less to do with missing him and more to do with hating how much of myself I'd handed over to someone who'd never deserved the weight of it.

I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of promising myself I wouldn't make that mistake again.

---

My phone rang before I'd even opened my eyes the next morning.

Xena's name flashed across the screen, and something about the hour, barely past six, already told me this wasn't a casual call.

"Xena?"

"Boss." Her voice was tight, rushed. "You need to come back. Today, if you can."

I sat up fully, sleep evaporating instantly. "What happened?"

"The board called an emergency session. They wouldn't tell me details, just that it involves the hospital and that they want you present, no exceptions." A pause. "They sounded serious, Emily. I've never heard them like this."

My stomach dropped. Gifted Hands had weathered board disputes before, budget disagreements, personnel conflicts, the usual friction that came with running a hospital that carried my parents' legacy on its walls. But something in Xena's voice told me this wasn't the usual friction.

"I'll book the first flight out."

"I'll pick you up from the airport."

The call ended, and I sat there for a moment, staring at the ceiling fan turning lazily overhead, my quiet week of healing officially over before it had even properly begun.

I found Grandma in the kitchen already, humming to herself over a pot of tea, and the moment she saw my face, the humming stopped.

"You're leaving."

"The board needs me back. Something's happened." I rubbed a hand over my face. "I don't know what yet."

She studied me for a long moment, the playful glint from the day before entirely absent now, replaced by something more searching.

"Whatever it is," she said quietly, "you'll handle it. You always do."

I wanted to believe that as easily as she said it.

I packed quickly, throwing yesterday's optimism about a full week of rest into the same suitcase as my barely-worn sundresses, and by the time I reached the door, Grandma was waiting with her arms open again, exactly like she had at the airport two days before.

"Call me the moment you land."

"I will."

"And Emily?" She held my face in both hands, the way she had when I was small enough for it to feel like the whole world. "Whatever's waiting for you back there, you're stronger than you think you are."

I didn't know yet how much I'd need to hold onto those words.

I didn't know yet that the emergency waiting for me in that boardroom would have a name I'd only just learned two days ago, standing in a town square, catching myself against a stranger's chest and telling myself it meant nothing at all.