On your knees, Mr. Billionaire

006

Camille Laurent

SIX YEARS LATER

~•~

“Mommy, why didn’t Grandma and Grandpa move in with us?” Caden asked as we walked down the hall.

He’d been excited to fly, but as soon as we touched down in New York, he started asking about my grandparents. I’d told him at least three times that they wanted to stay back but that didn’t stop him from asking whenever the thought popped into his head.

Caden was used to staying with his great-grandparents who watched him most of the time while I was still in residency. That was one of the reasons I’d hesitated to move back to New York. Aside from the fact that I had a grudge with the city, I also wondered if Caden would adjust to having only me around as well as his nanny, whom I still had to interview the next day.

Instead of responding to him, I brought out the key to the apartment and unlocked the door.

Caden quickly forgot about his question as his little feet ran inside. “Whoa!” He dramatized. “It’s so big!”

It wasn’t big. It was just bigger than our apartment back in California as well as my grandparents’ house.

I’d rented out an already furnished apartment to save myself the trouble of decorating, especially since I had to start at Mount Sinai in two days. The boxes, however… they spread across the apartment and I already knew they were going to be sitting untouched for a few weeks. It was a good thing I labeled them.

Caden was excited about his room being bigger than his old one and talked about how he was going to decorate the walls. He even had plans to personally paint on them and I had to shut it down real quick. I made a mental note to add wallpaper to his walls since I didn’t want the wrath of my landlord.

That night, Caden and I had takeout for dinner. The next day, I interviewed his new nanny and officially hired her and the day after that, I reported to Mount Sinai.

I hadn’t expected my first day to be fun but it was also incredibly boring. I spent the first three hours locked in an administrative office, signing policy disclosures, setting up my biometric login for the electronic health records, and finally receiving the heavy, laminated ID badge that officially bore my new title: Dr. Camille Laurent, Department of Neurosurgery.

By midday, I was trying to find my footing in the actual hospital. I was wandering near the central nurse's station, trying to cross-reference the labels with a map I’d been handed by HR, when I nearly collided with a rolling cart.

"Whoa, watch out!" a bright voice warned.

The cart came to a halt, revealing a woman in dark purple scrubs. She had a stethoscope draped around her neck, a messy bun held together by a plastic claw clip, and a badge that identified her as Dana Prescott, RN.

"Sorry," I stammered, stepping back. "I think I'm a little lost?” My words came out more like a question than a statement.

Dana chuckled, leaning her hip against the cart. She looked at my pristine, unwrinkled white coat and then her eyes locked onto my crisp new badge. "Ah, fresh blood. You’re the new attending from California, aren't you? Dr. Laurent?"

"That obvious?"

"The coat gives it away. It’s a little too crisp," Dana said with a warm, easy smile. I looked down at the coat. Even during residency, it was always this crisp. "I’m Dana.”

“Camille,” I responded, the anxiety in my chest loosening just a little. "I'm just trying to find the Department Chair's office for a quick check-in before I review my patient templates for tomorrow."

"You're heading the wrong way, Cali," Dana said, gesturing down the opposite corridor. "Take the East elevators to the seventh floor. But hey, if you survive the bureaucracy today, some of us are getting drinks across the street after shift change tonight. You should come.”

"I might just take you up on that," I said, genuinely grateful for the warmth even if I likely wouldn’t be able to make it. Caden was in a new town with a new nanny. I couldn’t leave him alone when I had the opportunity to be with him. "Thanks, Dana."

"Anytime. See you on the floor, Doc."

With a better sense of direction, I took the elevators up to the administrative wing of neurosurgery. The hallways here were a lot quieter, lined with framed portraits of historical medical giants. I smiled as I stared at the wall. I couldn’t wait to be part of those portraits.

I was walking past a row of offices, looking up at the room numbers, when a door abruptly swung open.

I froze as a tall man stepped directly into my path, a thick chart in his hand. He was wearing surgical scrubs under his coat, and his sharp jawline was shadowed by a hint of five o'clock shadow. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second. His gaze was striking, despite how tired he looked.

"Pardon me," he murmured, with a deep baritone voice.

He didn't wait for a reply. He just adjusted his grip on the file, stepped away from my path, and resumed walking.

The name on his badge caught my attention for a second before I continued down the hallway. My first day was hardly the time to worry about a stranger. I’d ditched California just to work at Mount Sinai and I wasn’t about to get distracted before I even started.