The Doctor's Former Fiancee

Braden only raised an eyebrow.

Of course, he knew that she knew he was a math whiz. He probably could look at a bar graph and come up with a p-value without touching a calculator, let alone performing a page of equations.

“Never mind.” Lana turned to Dr. Everson, who was looking younger and less reliable by the minute. “Who prepared these slides? Who ran our numbers?”

“Uh, well, I was instructed to do some preliminary work, and then Dr. Montgomery finalized it.”

Dr. Montgomery, who couldn’t stay one more hour to take this meeting. Lana had a sinking feeling. Had Dr. Montgomery been so desperate to keep this funding that he’d do something unethical? Surely not. This had to be an honest mathematical error. An error that just happened to be in their favor.

One that, had it gone unchallenged, would have kept more than one million dollars coming into the hospital.

How badly in debt was her department? How hard would the cancellation of this study hit them? Her?

She was determined not to find out; she was going to save this study.

“Myrna, Dr. Everson. If the two of you could excuse us, I’d like to take the rest of this meeting one-on-one with Dr. MacDowell.”

Chapter Three

Lana had never groveled to Braden, not even when she’d so desperately wanted him to stay in Texas instead of moving across the country to Boston. Now she groveled. Begged.

“Please, give me a day to run these numbers again. I just left Washington, where I was involved in the sister study to this one, the pediatric study. Our results were clearly significant. If the pediatric results were good, then odds are that the adult results are as well, so if you’ll just give me time to calculate—”

“I ran the numbers myself, Lana, before I came here. Personally.”

An old, defensive feeling resurfaced. “Because you knew I’d be here? It’s been years since I needed your help to pass statistics class. I know how to interpret data.”

He cut her off before her indignation could build more steam. “I always run the numbers myself before committing millions of research dollars.”

She couldn’t stay impersonal; the memories were just too bitter. “I should have known it would come down to making a profit for you.”

His expression stayed impassive, but she caught the movement of muscle as he clenched his jaw.

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you—or feeds West Central Hospital.

Lana buried her personal feelings. “I was running that pediatric study in D.C. To be studying migraines in pediatrics was rare enough, but even more unusual, the results were positive. Please, Braden, I’m pleading for a second chance here. Let the second half of the study go forward.”

“There’s no gain in—”

“We’ll gain knowledge. Practically every study has shown that adult migraine medicines work poorly in children. This could be the exception to the rule. Even if the adult trial fails, the significance of a drug working for pediatrics but not adults will be novel and worthy of further research.”

She could recall the individual faces of children enrolled in the Washington study. How miserable they were, in pain. How much happier they were when the drug started working. As their pain receded, their personalities emerged, happy kids who made her laugh. She couldn’t let them down. Losing the adult study here at West Central would hurt her professionally, but keeping the pediatric one funded was personal. Those children, her patients, mattered. Not profits.

“Even if the results are novel, who is going to fund that further research, Lana? PLI isn’t going to.”

“Why not?” She wanted to pound the table in frustration. “I’m telling you, the data in peds is rock-solid.”

“Because there’s no money in treating pediatric migraines.”

No money in it?

She’d told herself a hundred times that the man she’d once loved cared only about profits. That he’d chosen not to practice medicine with her because he’d wanted the bigger dollars offered in the business world. She’d clung to that as her justification for ending their engagement.

Always, he’d protested that money wasn’t his motive for going to Harvard Business School instead of staying with her at West Central. He’d denied that the need to excel in the corporate world was the reason he no longer wanted to open a husband-and-wife family practice in Texas. Some part of her must have believed him after all, because now, to hear him say it himself—there’s no money in treating pediatric migraines—was devastating.

Even after six years.

* * *

Braden watched the light in Lana’s eyes die, the passion in her expression fade. It was the same look he’d seen on the faces of other hopefuls whose dreams he’d had to kill. The fact that it was Lana this time didn’t make it any different.

Braden felt very tired. Too old, too wise to the ways of the world.

“This is the reality of the marketplace,” he said. “Pediatric migraineurs are only a fraction of all patients.”

“You saw these slides. They estimate over twenty-nine million Americans suffer from migraines. Even if only a few percent are pediatric, that’s still a million or more patients. That’s huge.”

“No, it’s not. Only half of your twenty-nine million even know their headaches are migraines to begin with. Only half of those will seek help from a physician, and less than half of those might be prescribed a drug like this one. Another percentage will never fill the prescription. There are barely enough adult sufferers to make a new migraine drug viable. There are not enough children.”

“To make the medicine viable? You mean profitable.”

“I mean viable. Can it begin to recoup the millions—the hundreds of millions—that were spent on bringing it to the local drugstore? I estimate that only one in five drugs that makes it to the public sells enough pills to cover the cost of inventing it in the first place.”

“I’m talking patients here. There may not be a lot of them, but there are children out there who suffer terribly from migraines. They’re in pain, Braden. They can’t play and go to school. What about them?”

At the moment, Braden hated his job with a passion. Why did he have to be the one destroying Lana’s dreams? Let someone else disillusion her.

She kept championing her cause. “The adult medicines don’t work well to relieve the pain for children. Most of the treatments aren’t even FDA approved for pediatric use—”

“As it should be. They don’t work well in pediatrics. Lana, step back and look at the big picture. When the first one or two migraine medicines ran pediatric studies, they failed. They didn’t work. Why should the other drugs in the same class throw time and money down the same drain?”

“Money. Always money. What about the patients?”

“I am thinking about patients. There is only so much money out there. What should we spend it on? Who needs it most?” He’d heard her words a dozen times before. She’d always maintained that if he cared about people, he’d be a physician, not a corporate executive.

He felt himself sucked into a time warp of sorts. Felt himself once more losing the woman he loved as she accused him of placing money before all else.

As he had a dozen times before, he tried to make her understand. “This is what I do, Lana. These are the life-and-death decisions I make now. Should I fund a pediatric migraine study that might—and I emphasize might—improve the quality of life for a fraction of a percent of all children? Or should I take those same funds—because by God, there are only so many dollars out there—should I take those same funds and invest them to develop a cardiac medicine that could prevent millions of deaths?”

He was standing, he realized, as was she. They were glaring into each other’s eyes, battling for supremacy. Again. Always.

“You make that call, Lana. Should I help three million kids who have episodes of pain, or should I help eighty million adults, the parents and grandparents of those children, who are facing death? You choose, because I don’t have enough money to do both.”

She stayed silent, but she didn’t back down, not in her body language, and not in her glare. Why had he thought this time would be different?

Braden berated himself for letting her bait him into this debate. None of it mattered. Their entire conversation wasn’t going to change the fact that PLI was withdrawing further funding. He wasn’t going to throw more money at an unlikely solution to what amounted to a rare problem in the universe of medical crises.

And Lana was not going to understand him now any more than she’d understood him then. He’d had six years to stop wanting her to understand him. Wanting her to respect his career. Wanting her to trust him, to support him.

Wanting her.

She was so damned vibrant, so passionate, so beautiful. The temptation to end this match with a crushing kiss was overwhelming. That physical attraction had become a crutch for them, toward the end. They couldn’t agree on their careers and their future, so they’d fall into bed and have silent, soul-searing sex.

In Lana’s opinion, they’d had sex one time too many. The last time had had consequences neither of them had been ready for.

Still, he found himself craving the smoothness of her skin, the curves of her body, the surrender of herself. Six years hadn’t been long enough apart. He needed another six to kill his desire for Lana Donnoli—and he wasn’t going to spend it waiting for absolution and understanding in this conference room.

“I regret to inform you that Plaine Laboratories International has decided to end all trials of NDA zero two one zero six one. West Central’s contract will expire in accordance with our prior arrangements, and no renewals will be pursued. Goodbye, Dr. Donnoli.”

* * *

Braden’s decision was final. Lana knew it; she watched him close his laptop case with a single click of a lock.

He’s leaving, and I failed.

The expression on his face was no longer fierce, no longer focused on her. He looked withdrawn. Remote. He was already gone, although he was still in the room with her. Then he picked up his briefcase and was gone for real. The door closed after him with a firm, controlled click.

I failed him.

Him? Not only the hospital, but him?

Somehow, he’d been disappointed in her, yet Braden had no right to expect anything from her. What had he wanted?

Professionally, her failure was simple to define. She’d failed to keep this hospital’s study going. Failed in her new responsibility to get financing for the research branch of West Central Texas Hospital.

Is it west or is it central? You can’t have both.

She couldn’t have the migraine trials, but could she have something else instead? They had the facilities. They had the staff, the patient flow—there must be other studies that PLI needed a site like West Central for. There were other funds she could secure for her department.

She stopped debating with herself and started walking after Braden. Quickly. She needed to talk to him today, before he walked out of the hospital completely, like he’d once walked out of her life.

Breathless from catching up to his much longer strides, she followed him to the bank of elevators. The doors started to slide open before she could reach him.

“Braden, don’t go!”

The back of his head jerked up, just a bit. He turned her way and stood still, not moving away from the elevator, but not stepping into the car, either. She was suddenly so afraid he might leave without her, she jogged the last few steps to him and put her hand on his sleeve.

“Don’t go yet. Please.”

He placed his warm hand over hers. There was a clear question in his eyes, a concerned tilt of his head, a softening of the hard mask of his face. “Why not, Lana?”

“I want a second chance. I want to talk to you about PLI.”

He removed his hand to stab the button to recall the elevator. “The decision is made. I can’t explain it any better. If you don’t understand, that’s your problem.”

“No—no, that’s just it. I do understand. PLI only has a limited amount of research dollars to go around. But I want a second chance.”

The elevator doors opened and Braden walked into the waiting car, away from her. She followed, grateful that the car was empty.

“Listen, Braden, please. I just got into town. Dr. Montgomery walked out, literally, minutes after I arrived this morning. I haven’t had a chance to get my bearings or take stock of what we have here, but I know West Central has a lot to offer in the way of research facilities and staff, far more than it did when we were residents here.”

She made her best case while she had him trapped in the elevator. “Give me the rest of today to review my department. PLI and West Central can use each other, I’m sure of it. You must have dozens of studies under way, and there is always a need for another enrollment site.”

He didn’t agree or disagree. He only watched her as she pleaded.

She touched his sleeve again. “Will you give me a day? If I find out what I still have to offer you, would you be willing to consider me again?”

He let several seconds of silence tick by before he spoke. “Will I consider what you have to offer? That’s one hell of a question, coming from my former fiancée.”

Whatever answer she’d expected, it hadn’t been that. Not that personal. They’d kept everything strictly professional to this point. It felt as though he’d violated some invisible boundary by bringing up their intimate past so bluntly.

The elevator stopped to let an elderly couple on. The man was in a wheelchair; the woman was pushing him with the ease of long experience. He made a gesture to his right, and she picked up the paperwork that was tucked under his right side and placed it in his hand. Effortless communication.

Had anything been as easy between her and Braden?

Yes—making love.

And they’d conceived a baby. Too easily. Without trying. Without wanting to.

She’d miscarried that pregnancy the same way.

The memory threatened to completely breach any wall she’d maintained to this point. Before it could overwhelm her, she spoke quickly and quietly to Braden.

“You know perfectly well that West Central has excellent resources to conduct research. You need facilities and patient bases and sites. Just give me a day to get my bearings, and we can meet again to find out how we can help one another’s companies.”

The elevator reached the lobby level. Braden maintained his silence.

She didn’t. “You know I need to replace the funds you just withdrew. I’ll be offering West Central to other biotechs and pharmas.”

She had seconds to convince him as he courteously waited for the wheelchair couple to exit. “If you don’t want what I have to offer, someone else will. I’m giving you the right of first refusal.”

Braden cut his gaze to her. She stayed where she was, silently demanding an answer.

He walked out of the elevator instead.

“Braden,” she called after him. Damn it all, she was losing him. Losing PLI’s funding.

Braden turned around and looked her up and down, just once, as she stayed in the elevator.

“I’m returning to New York. Now. The PLI representative for the state of Texas is Cheryl Gassett. I’m sure your assistant knows her and has her contact information. If you find that you can make PLI an offer, call Cheryl.”

The elevator doors slid closed, separating them with finality.

Alone, Lana knew she could cry without embarrassment. She could punch the door with impunity. She could collapse in a heap of exhaustion.

None of it would change the past. She pushed the button that reopened the doors, exited the elevator and walked in the opposite direction that Braden had taken, toward her office. Toward her future.

Braden’s rejection had changed the course of her life once. She couldn’t let him derail her again.

Chapter Four

Braden needed to leave the hospital. He was done here. Done. There were too many emotions. Too many bad memories.

Too much Lana. Here, in the flesh. Not a memory of her, which he’d come ready to bury. No, the woman herself was here. Vibrant. Passionate. Real.

He was too old to be blinded by sexual attraction. Chemistry had never been their problem, so it shouldn’t surprise him now that it still existed at some level.

A level a little too dammed close to the surface...

He walked past the chapel without slowing, without stopping, without so much as throwing a glance at its doors. The entire reason he’d bothered himself with flying to West Central personally had been to stop in that chapel. He’d proposed to Lana there, and he’d had some idiotic notion that by saying goodbye to the memory of that promise, he’d be free to propose to another woman, elsewhere.

God, he was a fool. What an idiotic, sappy idea for a man of science and business to entertain, let alone act upon. If he was ready for a permanent relationship, then he’d make a commitment to the woman of his choice, and damn his youthful college engagement to hell. Lana certainly had. She’d dumped him over the phone and mailed his engagement ring to his Harvard address in an empty tongue depressor box.

Six years ago. He was over it. He was dating Claudia St. James now, a woman who could make a perfect wife for a professional man like himself, but damn it, seeing Lana in person had been a shock. Braden, don’t go, she’d practically shouted, and the plea in her voice had kept him from stepping on the elevator. His response had probably been an old reflex, a bad habit ingrained long ago. Still, it had been damned disconcerting.

He stopped abruptly at the corner of a garden fountain, disoriented for a fraction of a second. There was a fountain in the lobby now? Yes, and he’d nearly walked into it, distracted by thoughts of Lana.

He should not be distracted by his past. He’d come here to begin his future, and he’d already picked out the right woman to spend the rest of his life with. Claudia never caused him to walk into fountains, thank God.

Braden kept walking, past the paintings of his father and the other founders, not breaking his stride as he threw a glance at the modern domed ceiling. The renovated lobby looked more like it belonged to an elegant hotel than a hospital. It was a far cry from the single-story construction his father had begun. Would his father have approved of the changes if he’d lived to see them?

Braden imagined that patients who were sick and worried would appreciate the welcome this new lobby extended. It had an air of grace and authority that could be reassuring when patients arrived with serious health concerns. They’d probably feel hope, as though they’d come to the right place. His father, Braden decided, would have approved of the modern West Central. He would have approved of the job his son was doing.

That son being Quinn, of course. Quinn was the only MacDowell on the hospital board.

Dad had not approved of the job I was doing.

His father had always expected him to follow in his footsteps. Braden had tried. He’d tried for his father’s sake, and then he’d kept trying after he’d met Lana, but by his last year of residency, he’d known the life of a family-practice physician was not for him.

He’d wanted to show his father and his fiancée that his life could be a different kind of success. He had shown them, really. He’d graduated magna cum laude from arguably the best graduate school in the country, perhaps in the world. He’d gone on to be a key player in the biotech industry, working to contribute valuable medicines and devices not just to the city of Austin but to all people, all around the globe. But his dad had died before that first patent had made it to the marketplace, before he’d been able to prescribe any of the drugs his son had chosen to develop.

And Lana? Hell, she’d mailed his ring back before he’d even graduated.

Still, Braden was one of the most successful men in America, if only someone besides his accountant appreciated it.

Claudia St. James appreciates success.

Exactly. He needed to keep his thoughts in the present. Braden realized his steps had taken him to the former main entrance of the emergency department. An involuntary smirk lifted one corner of his mouth despite his bitter feelings. Not even the resurrected emotions of a broken engagement and a disapproving father could disengage his mind completely. His day’s agenda had included a quick visit to his younger brother, another physician, of course. Jamie worked here in the emergency department. Without trying, Braden had stayed on schedule.

This entrance to the E.R. was now a shortcut for staff only, and the heavy double doors were unlocked when personnel waved a badge in front of the security box on the wall. A man in scrubs stepped up to the box and lifted his name tag. A tiny light blinked from red to green, and the doors swung open slowly. The man nodded at Braden deferentially, probably assuming he was an off-duty physician.

Technically, Braden was a physician, one who was not on duty. The man had made an accurate assumption, then. Braden returned the man’s nod and followed him into the treatment area. He stopped at the centrally located wraparound desk. “Where can I find Dr. MacDowell?”

The nurse he’d addressed frowned at him slightly. “And you are...?”

From long practice, he smiled at her with just the right amount of professional friendliness. “Please tell Dr. MacDowell that Dr. MacDowell is here to see him.”

Her frown lifted into a smile. “I should have guessed from the resemblance. He’s just back from his honeymoon, but you must be one of the bachelor MacDowells.” She tilted her head at an attractive angle and winked at him.

Braden returned her smile with very little effort. The world was returning to normal. Women liked him. He liked women. It was only Lana Donnoli that made him feel irritated. Angry. Vaguely dissatisfied with his life.

“Is that you, Braden? Can’t be. That would make three times in one year that you’ve come to Texas.”

Braden turned at the sound of his brother’s voice. Jamie was the youngest son, Braden the eldest. They shook hands, which quickly morphed into a one-armed hug. More of a slap on the shoulders, really. They were exactly the same height, something that never failed to catch Braden by surprise. Jamie had only been in middle school when Braden had left for college. Somehow, Braden always expected him to still be the runt baby brother.

“What’s the occasion?” his six-foot-tall runt of a brother asked. “Is New York City finally wearing on you? Don’t tell me you missed me.”

Braden should have had a quick comeback for that one, the kind of jokingly derogatory comment brothers would exchange, but he was startled into a momentary silence by the realization that he had, in fact, missed Jamie. It had been good to see him at a charity event in the fall. Even better to see him for a few days in December, when he’d carved out some holiday time to get to know Jamie’s new wife and his baby. Jamie’s family.

Family. Braden hadn’t spent much time with his family after turning his back on practicing medicine. He’d avoided Texas for years after his broken engagement, if he was honest with himself, but that was about to change. Whether Lana would be here or not, it was time to come back home.

Braden would soon announce that PLI was investing millions in a new research center. It had taken all the business savvy he’d gained over the years to pull it off, and he’d cashed in every chip he’d been owed, but Braden had convinced PLI’s board to build the facilities in Austin. Just as his father had contributed this hospital to the community, Braden would contribute a major biotech research and development site to his hometown.

Look, Dad, I’m following in your footsteps.

The tension in his shoulders eased. Had he lived to see it, his father would have been unconditionally proud. Braden knew that. He expected his mother and brothers would feel the same way when they found out.