Off the Clock

“Are you here for an appointment?” he asked.

She tucked the tissue in her purse and gripped her stack of papers tightly. “Yes. And I need to get going or I’m going to be late. The guard already held me up forever at the main entrance.”

He ran a hand over the back of his head, still trying to place her. She had that Demi Moore vibe, Ghost era, with her pixie cut and those big hazel eyes. Maybe that’s what was poking at his brain. Or maybe she was some B-list actress that he’d seen in a movie. Lord knows there were enough of them who came here for treatment. But she didn’t have that emaciated body that so many of the wannabe stars strived for. There were soft curves and gentle lines. His fingers flexed. “I’m really sorry about bumping into you.”

“My fault. I was looking at my phone instead of up. I—” She pressed her lips together and shifted her gaze toward the main building. Nervous. “I’ve got to go.”

“Need me to point you toward any place in particular?”

She had already started walking, her heels click, click, clicking on the pavement. She called back over her shoulder. “Nope. Thanks. I’m good.”

She had a smear of mud on the back of her skirt from the fall, but she held her head high as she walked like it didn’t bother her. Only the stiff set of her shoulders told him she was strung up tight. Huh. Maybe that’s what she was coming in for—anxiety. At least it would mean she wouldn’t be one of his clients. Thank God. Talk about awkward. Hello, doctor. Oh yes, you were the one doing the walk of shame this morning. Nice to meet you. Now I will confess my deepest, darkest secrets and trust you with my mental health.

Talk about breaking any semblance of professional credibility before even getting started.

Donovan jogged the rest of his way to his place and thanked the universe he hadn’t run into anyone he knew. Now he just needed to make sure he was at his desk before Dr. Suri tracked him down again. Small miracles. He’d take what he could get.

7

The place used to be an asylum. Considering how crazy Marin felt for even taking this interview after what had happened in the parking lot, it seemed fitting. When she’d looked up and found Donovan West holding his hand out to her, she’d tumbled back in time for a second. Everything in her had fluttered like she was still some eighteen-year-old girl with a crush.

But when he hadn’t recognized her, she’d slammed right back into reality. She was here for an interview, sitting in the mud, and the man she’d lost her virginity to didn’t even know her name. She didn’t blame him for not recognizing her. It’d been nine years. There was little left to resemble the girl she’d been. Her contacts were in, she’d chopped off her hair a few years ago, and she’d gained at least fifteen pounds since then. He looked different, too. Older. Broader. More of a man now, with his morning scruff and the faint lines of life around his eyes. And she wasn’t going to think about the bare chest beneath his shirt or the dark hair that had curled down a body he obviously took very good care of. She would not think about that at all. Especially considering the very obvious pink lipstick that had been all over his ruined shirt. Someone had apparently not lost his penchant for hookups.

That wasn’t a surprise. Perversely, she’d followed Donovan’s career for a few years after they’d slept together. It’d been her secret, masochistic indulgence. Everything had been so chaotic then. She’d had to drop out of school for almost a year, had to fight for custody of Nate, had to figure out how to support a household on her own. Looking up Donovan had given her a brief escape.

She’d watched his research get published. She’d seen the buzz that had made it all the way into the mainstream media. And she’d seen him do interviews on the talk shows. She’d been happy for him, but after a while, seeing his success had begun to sting more than comfort. The sweet, sexy guy she’d gotten to know that spring break week had changed. She could see the shift in the interviews. The limelight had made him smug. Cocky. Soon, there were rumors that he was dating actresses and Hollywood elite. The media gave him a ridiculous nickname. Marin had stopped looking.

So she had no idea why the hell he was in nowhere Louisiana now. She would’ve assumed he was still riding his sliver of fame with some private practice in L.A. But nope, he was here. Half-dressed and helping her to her feet.

Maybe he was a client here. Ha. She wouldn’t be so lucky. She should walk straight back to the rental car and get the hell out of here. She’d already ruined her outfit anyway. She was going to walk in looking ridiculous.

But she’d come this far, and she didn’t have any other options that would give her a chance at the pay she needed. She needed this. Nate needed this. She took a few more steps forward.

The chalk-white building loomed in front of her, intimidating and grand with its three-story-high Greek columns and a grove of ancient oak trees surrounding it. Gnarled branches with snaking Spanish moss seemed to hold the historic structure in their grasp. Breathtaking, really. But a pervasive sense of dread filled her. She imagined the people who were committed here back when it was an asylum had found no comfort in it either. Beauty with bite. This place seemed too grand, too ancient, too everything. She felt like an intruder at the gates.

“Need help finding something?” someone asked from off to her left.

She turned to find a tall, dark-skinned woman in a white coat sending her a polite smile. “I—”

Her smile fell when she took in Marin’s state. “Oh, Lord. What happened to you?”

Marin looked down at the splashes of mud on her skirt and her soggy papers. “I got in a fight with the lawn and lost.”

The woman gave her a sympathetic laugh. “Oh, no. That bayou mud will get you after a rainstorm. I can show you where the bathrooms are if you want to wash out your skirt and can get you some scrubs to put on in the meantime.”

“Thanks. I would, but I’m here for an interview with Dr. Suri, and I don’t want to be late.”

She cringed. “Oh, wow, yeah. Being late would be a bad idea. She’s kind of stickler for time. Just tell her what happened with the fall. Why does that kind of thing only happen on job interviews? I got a flat tire when I came for mine.”

“Guess you got the job anyway.”

“That’s because I’m so good.” The woman brushed imaginary dust from her shoulder with playful confidence. “Two years and running. Hey, maybe bad luck before the interview is a good omen.”

After the parking lot, Marin was thinking not. But she smiled anyway. “Maybe.”

The woman stepped closer, her brown eyes flashing golden in the dappled sunlight that streamed through the branches of the surrounding oak trees. She stuck out her hand. “Oriana Wallace. Addiction wing.”

She shook her hand. “Marin Rush. Interviewing for the sex therapy program.”

Her eyebrow lifted. “Wow, the X-wing, huh? Interesting stuff.”

“The X-wing?”

She shrugged. “It’s what we call it around here. You know, rated X? All the departments end up with their own code names. My area is referred to as the R and R.”

“Rest and relaxation?”

“No, rinse and repeat. My clients are the ones most likely to make repeat performances. Nature of the addiction beast, unfortunately. Come on, I’ll lead you into the gauntlet and show you the quickest way to Suri’s office. It’s easy to get lost. They had to retrofit a lot of the offices and it can make you feel like a rat in a maze. I have yet to find cheese, though.”

Marin smiled, thankful for the help and a friendly face. “That’d be great.”

Oriana led Marin up the front stairs and into the building, which had been beautifully restored to period details of the nineteenth century with its wide baseboards and Greek Revival architecture, but there was a poshness to it that she doubted had been present back when it was an asylum. Expensive-looking artwork, a lobby area with fine antique furniture, and a chandelier that sent sparkling light over the marble floors. It was a lobby meant to impress. But when they went through the double doors to get to the offices, Marin understood what Oriana had been talking about. Signs pointing every which way demarcated the offices, but it was a twisting tangle of hallways and doors. She half-expected that little kid from The Shining to roll up on his Big Wheel.

They took the elevator to the top floor and Oriana dropped her off there. She put her hand out to keep the elevator door from closing. “Dr. Suri’s office is the one at the end of the hall.”

“Thanks so much,” Marin said, her nerves bubbling up again and making her voice shake.

“No problem. Good luck with the interview. Just remember that if you managed to get an interview here, you’re already great at what you do. She only talks to the best, so be confident.”

“Ha. Sure, no problem. I’m just going to walk in with my muddy clothes and wet resume and wow her right out of her chair.”

She laughed. “How about I be confident on your behalf? When not if you get the job, you owe me a cup of coffee for being your tour guide.”

“Deal.”

She tapped the side of the elevator. “Go get ’em, doctor. Lord knows the X-wing could use some estrogen.”

“Oh?”

She smirked. “See ya.”

The elevator doors shut, leaving Marin in the hallway alone. She took a deep breath and headed toward the office, the sound of her heels echoing off the floors with an ominous reverberation. She tried not to think about how little experience she had in clinical work. She tried to forget that the man she’d tried so hard to block out of her mind was somehow tied to this place. She tried to remember why she was doing this.

This was insane.

She walked into the office and gave the secretary her name.

The woman smiled. “You can go on in, Dr. Rush. She’s waiting for you.”

Welcome to the asylum, we’re all crazy here.

8

“Do you think once a cheater, always a cheater? I mean, how am I supposed to trust him when he screwed that skinny bitch behind my back?”

Donovan hooked his ankle over his knee and leaned back in his chair, trying not to cringe at his client’s shrill tone. He should’ve had more coffee and extra aspirin before this first appointment. “I think each situation is different. Rarely are things always or never.”

Claire Daniels swept her long bangs away from her face with a huff, but tears glistened in her eyes. “This is such bullshit. I did the cover of Maxim last month. Men all over the world want me. And my jackass boyfriend fucked a wannabe catalog model.” She leaned over and yanked something out of her purse. She held up a computer printout of a redhead in a bikini. “Look at her. She looks like a boy. Who would you rather sleep with?”

Donovan frowned. The truth was he had no interest in sleeping with either. He’d rather go celibate than hook up with another actress. He’d learned that lesson the hard way. But he wasn’t going to answer that type of question in a session anyway. “Is that really what you want to know?”

Her gaze dropped down to her hands. “No.”

“What would you like to ask, then?”

She closed her eyes, and two fat tears rolled down her cheeks. The reviews of her latest movie had called her a pretty crier. Donovan hadn’t thought there was such a thing, but Claire did seem to make it look tragically elegant. She shook her head. “Am I that broken, doc? Would he rather be with someone like that because I’m just not worth the trouble?”

There it was. The real question. He was proud of her for being brave enough to voice it. In their early sessions, Claire had maintained a cool facade of the untouchable actress and had been combative when Donovan had tried to get her to open up. Finally, she was showing some trust in him. “I think we’re all broken in some way, Claire. But no, I don’t think you’re unworthy or that you deserved to be cheated on. And blaming yourself for someone else’s actions isn’t going to help. Benny strayed. You’re not responsible for his behavior.”

“But if I was giving him what he needed, if I wasn’t so fucked up …” She looked up and swiped at her tears. “What kind of woman can’t enjoy sex?”

“Lots,” he said, leaning forward and bracing his forearms on his thighs. “Especially ones who went through what you did as a teenager. Give yourself a break and some time. You’re here and working on this. That’s more than most can say. And I don’t know exactly why Benny cheated without talking to him. People stray for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it’s a lack of impulse control, other times it’s some kind of internal issue—insecurity, fear of aging, depression. Sometimes it’s impaired judgment from drugs or alcohol. It could be a lot of different reasons.”

She looked out the window at the sprawling oak trees that stood like sentries throughout The Grove. “Because the other person is sexier?”

Donovan let out a breath. This was one of Claire’s issues. The people who watched her in movies and smiling on magazine covers would never suspect how deeply insecure she was, that she’d grown up hearing that she was ugly and dumb. It was one of the reasons she was attracted to shitty guys and jumped from relationship to relationship. She needed empty compliments filling the ever-draining well. “I think if you want to work through this with Benny, he’s going to have to come in for a few sessions with you. You two need to decide whether or not this is a deal breaker.”

She chewed her lip and looked away. “I’m not ready to leave him. I know you probably think I’m stupid. The press definitely does.”

He glanced down at his steno pad and made a note. “I think decisions in life aren’t as cut and dried as they appear from the outside looking in.”

“Have you ever been cheated on?”

Donovan’s gaze jumped back to her, his pen pressing hard into the paper.

She gave him a sheepish look and an apologetic shrug. “I heard you dated Selena St. Pierre. And she got together with Ryan Vickers right after that.”

He held back the grimace that tried to surface. He hated that clients could so easily dig into his personal life. He was supposed to be this blank slate, a sounding board, a trained ear. But people could find dirt on him if they wanted it because he’d been stupid enough to date a TV actress. He’d been stupid in general. Luckily, the only thing that had made it to press had been the breakup and the rumored infidelity, not the … aftermath.

“Claire, my personal life has no bearing on yours. And every situation is going to be different.”

“But is that why you two broke up?”

Yes. No. He’d tried the committed thing with Selena. After being in L.A. for a few years, riding the success of the arousal research and indulging in too many women who wanted their round with the Orgasm Whisperer, he’d given a relationship a shot. He’d been moving too fast for too long, trying to run from all that had happened in Texas, and was burned the fuck out. Selena was a beautiful and talented woman. They got along. And she’d had a big family and group of friends surrounding her. Part of him had been so drawn to that, that possibility of belonging somewhere after so many years on his own. He’d let himself take a breath.

It’d been a mistake.

After six months, they got engaged. She wanted the big diamond and the celebrity-grade wedding and the smiling couple cover of People. He didn’t know what he wanted, but that train had been on greased rails. He’d gone along with it until he couldn’t. When he told her he wasn’t ready to set a date, instead of just getting mad or breaking it off, she hooked up with her co-star and timed it so that Donovan would find them together. Naked bodies twined up in his bed.

She’d wanted a reaction. A big declaration. A surge of possessiveness from him.

But it hadn’t come. Instead, he’d just felt … nothing. Resigned. Like part of him had always known it would end. That Selena and her family and their group of friends were mere apparitions, players on a stage, and he was easily cut from the cast.

He’d been trying to be something he wasn’t, and they’d found him out.

She called him heartless.

She was right.

“I’m sorry. I can’t answer that.” Donovan set aside his notes and gave the clock behind Claire a pointed look. “And unfortunately, we’re out of time for today.”

She sighed and shoved the photo of the women in the bikini into her purse. “Okay.”

“This week, I want you to practice the relaxation exercises we talked about and try some self-stimulation when you feel ready.” He stood and went to the cabinet behind his desk. He pulled out a small unmarked box and walked over to hand it to her. “This is the vibrator I mentioned to you earlier. It’s a simple one meant for clitoral stimulation but has more focused power than what you’ve been trying to use. And I’ll send over the file with the audio recording to your private email.”

She stood and took the box from him. “Thank you.”

“I also want you to see if Benny would be willing to come in with you for your next session.”

She nodded. “He’s on the road right now, but I’ll let you know.”

“Great.” He opened the door to let her out. “Good work today.”

She paused before stepping out. “Thanks, Dr. West. I thought you were going to spend the whole session telling me how I needed to leave him.”

“That’s not my call to make.”

She gave a put-upon sigh. “I know I should probably cut the asshole loose, but I really have this gut feeling that he’s the one, you know? He can be so sweet when he wants to be, and I think it’s just hard for him to know he can’t magically fix me.”

Donovan gave her his sympathetic therapist smile. “Let’s get him in here and see what happens.”

She nodded, a glimmer of hope coming into her eyes, and then slipped out the door, gracing the hallway with a hip-swaying runway walk.

Donovan closed the door and shook his head.

The One. Right. It was such a crap concept. One that got a lot of people in trouble. So many of his clients had this fantastical notion about The One—this fated person who would make everything in their world click into place. The sun would look brighter. The sex would be amazing every time. Their lives would be perfect. Fa-la-fucking-la.

But it was such a damaging goal. People spent all this time trying to track down that elusive unicorn and trying to make their lovers fit into this mold of being that one imaginary person. But he’d done this long enough to know that the concept was just words in a fairy tale. The only two people he’d ever seen who had come close to the soul mate thing were his parents. And even then, there was no happily ever after. Why would fate have given his parents their one magical person only to have them murdered a few years after they found each other? It was bullshit.

Relationships were simply negotiated terms between people. Sometimes they worked. Sometimes they didn’t. Even in the early stages with Selena, he’d never thought she was some predestined soul mate. They’d gotten along. They’d had chemistry in bed. They’d fit into each other’s lives in a practical way. Then they hadn’t. It was really that simple.

When couples came in for therapy, his job was like a mediator between businesses, making sure middle ground was found, needs were met. He was good at it. But when people brought up the mystical concepts of fate and The One, he kind of wanted to throw one of his psych textbooks at them. If people were convinced it was fate, why bother with therapy? They wouldn’t hear anything he had to say that didn’t fit into the story they’d already created for themselves.

Which is why he dreaded the next session with Claire and Benny. Couples therapy drained him. Give him someone with arousal disorder or sex addiction or a fetish any day. He’d much rather tackle those issues than deal with the should-we-or-shouldn’t-we-stay-together situations.

But Zach, the guy who’d been hired to help take some of Donovan’s caseload and handle those types of marital issues, had quit two months ago when he decided Donovan was “difficult” to work with and that the clients were too intense. Really, the guy had gotten chewed up and spit out by a particularly combative couple who’d threatened to sue when they blamed his treatment plan for making the marriage worse.

Amateur mistake.

Celebrities and the wealthy were their own breed. They were used to people catering to them, and a therapist’s job was to help them see things about themselves in a way they didn’t necessarily like. It didn’t always go over well. People got pissed. They swung their power around. You couldn’t let them. Zach was the second therapist they’d lost on this floor in eight months.

Donovan hadn’t been surprised. The only way to deal with big egos was to make sure you had one, too. That’s who survived here. And Zach just didn’t have the backbone for it.

Of course, Donovan’s boss had blamed him for the loss. Apparently, she’d seen it as a failure to be an effective mentor, and it’d ended up being a mark against him for the promotion. Another point to add to her list of grievances.

So now he had double the caseload and another hill to climb in Suri’s eyes. He didn’t mind the extra work. In fact, he preferred having the floor to himself. He liked the control of that and being busy. But too many couples sessions in a week could drive him to the brink. And if he ever wanted to add research to his plate again, he would need to get promoted and have someone else on this floor to ease the workload. Another therapist would be for the best. He just dreaded the process of dealing with someone else new.

The buzzer on his office phone went off, and Ysa’s voice filled the office. “Dr. West?”

He leaned back in his chair and rubbed the spot between his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Six people confirmed for the sex addiction group this afternoon. But Karina showed up early in an outfit that was, uh … quite revealing, so I ushered her to the private room across the hall so she wouldn’t bring that distraction into group.”

Donovan looked to the ceiling. “How revealing?”

Ysa sniffed. “She sat across from me in the waiting room. I can confirm that the carpet matches the drapes.”

Donovan couldn’t stop the chuckle at his assistant’s deadpan tone. Ysa wasn’t fazed by much these days. “Call the main building and have someone bring her a pair of scrubs. Tell her she’s not allowed into group otherwise.”

“Will do. Oh, and Dr. Suri just called. She wants you in her office in ten minutes.”

Donovan sat forward, his chair squeaking in protest. “For what?”

“Didn’t say. And you know I’m not asking. She had that tone.”

He sighed. “Fantastic. I’m on my way.”

Ysabel wished him luck, and he got up to head over to the main building, hoping Suri hadn’t somehow found out that he’d shown up late again today. He greeted people as he made his way through the snaking hallways and jogged up the stairs. When he walked into the office, Agatha, Dr. Suri’s assistant, gave him a broad smile. “Long time no see, Dr. West.”

“I’ve missed your beautiful face, Aggie. But you know me, I try to avoid trips to the principal’s office.”

“Stop trying to charm an old woman. It won’t work on me.” But she gave him a wink from behind her glasses before picking up her phone. “Dr. Suri, Dr. West is here.”

Aggie nodded and hung up the phone.

“You can go on in,” she said.

“Am I in trouble?”

Aggie’s smile went sly. “Aren’t you always? But not the kind you’re thinking.”