The memory of Lillian’s golden hair that had been like silk in her hands, it was now braided back from her face and finished in a neat bun at the nape of her neck.
The elegant pale neck she had kissed, licked, bitten in the throes of desire.
She felt her breath catch, but she controlled it, burying any sign of surprise or confusion under the practiced mask she wore daily. Her composure, the one thing she never let slip, was holding. She had trained herself well. This was not a problem. This was just another challenge she could handle.
Lillian, on the other hand, stood frozen for a beat, her green eyes widening just enough for Rebecca to catch it. She knew. But just like that, Lillian’s expression shifted, matching Rebecca’s controlled professionalism.Good, Rebecca thought,she's capable of keeping this buried.
“Miss Harrington,” Rebecca said, her voice cool, revealing nothing of the turmoil beneath the surface. She gestured to the chair in front of her desk. “Take a seat.”
Lillian moved slowly, sitting down with a kind of quiet uncertainty that Rebecca hadn’t seen in her the night before. Not in the hotel room where they had both indulged in anonymity, where names and identities had been inconsequential. Not in the heat of that night, where all that mattered was the thrill of escaping their lives for a few hours. But here, in this hospital, everything was different. Everything.
Rebecca forced herself to focus and compartmentalize. This was how she always operated—one part of her mind sharp and analytical, the other locked away behind walls she’d built over the years. What happened that night was personal. This was professional. There was no room for overlap.
“I’ll be overseeing your cardiothoracic rotation this year,” she began, her voice steady, even as her pulse raced beneath thesurface. “I expect nothing short of excellence from you, and I won’t tolerate anything less.”
Her eyes scanned Lillian’s face, searching for cracks in her composure. She wanted to see how much of this Lillian was taking in—if she, too, could compartmentalize as Rebecca had. Lillian sat there, her gaze locked on Rebecca’s, offering nothing in return but a firm nod. No acknowledgment of what lay between them, no slip of emotion that would betray the night they shared.
Good. That’s how it needs to be.
Rebecca continued outlining the expectations, her words precise and her tone clinical. But no matter how hard she tried to focus on the details of the rotation, part of her mind kept drifting back to that night. Flashes of memory—Lillian’s laugh, the feel of her body, the way they had both shed their everyday roles like skin—kept invading her thoughts. She hated that. Hated that she couldn’t simply dismiss it the way she did with other fleeting encounters.
There was something about Lillian that was different. Maybe it was the way she had left without asking for more, without needing anything beyond what they had shared in those hours. It was the lack of neediness, the lack of expectation, that had drawn Rebecca in. Lillian hadn’t wanted anything from her then. She wondered if that same quality would hold in their professional relationship. Could Lillian separate the personal from the professional as sharply as Rebecca had trained herself to?
“You’ll need to prove yourself,” Rebecca added, her tone hardening as she leaned back in her chair. “The name Harrington won’t do the work for you here.”
Lillian blinked, her jaw tightening just slightly. There it was—an almost imperceptible reaction, but Rebecca caught it. The flicker of pressure that came with bearing a name likeHarrington. Rebecca knew that feeling all too well. She had spent years in the shadow of great surgeons, constantly proving that her own legacy wasn’t tied to anyone else’s name. She wondered if Lillian felt the same burden—or if it weighed heavier because it was her mother’s name, not just any mentor’s, hanging over her.
“Understood,” Lillian replied, her voice steady, though Rebecca could see the tension in her shoulders.
The silence that followed was thick, filled with everything neither of them would acknowledge. Rebecca found herself staring at Lillian longer than she should have, the air between them charged with the memory of that night, as if it was just beneath the surface, waiting to break free.
She cleared her throat, pushing those thoughts down once more.Compartmentalize, she reminded herself.You’re good at this.
“Good,” she said, standing up to signal the end of the meeting. “You’ll receive your schedule by the end of the day. Be punctual. Be prepared. I don’t tolerate mistakes.”
Lillian stood too, her posture stiff but composed. She gave Rebecca a nod, the same one she might give any superior. “Thank you, Dr. Lang.”
Rebecca watched as Lillian turned to leave, her hand already on the door. But before she could stop herself, Rebecca spoke again, her voice lower, softer.
“Miss Harrington,” she said.
Lillian paused, turning slightly, her eyes meeting Rebecca’s with an unspoken question.
“Don’t let anything get in your way,” Rebecca said, her tone deliberate, leaving no room for misinterpretation. “Especially not something personal.”
Lillian’s eyes flickered, something passing through them, but only for a moment. She nodded once more, her expression unreadable. “I won’t.”
With that, Lillian left, the door clicking softly behind her.
Rebecca exhaled, her chest tight. The moment the door closed, the tension she had been holding onto slipped away, and she allowed herself to lean back in her chair. Her heart still pounded in her chest, but she forced herself to breathe slowly, methodically. This will be fine, she told herself. Lillian had walked out without so much as a crack in her professional demeanor. They could do this. They could keep it buried.
But as Rebecca turned her gaze toward the window, her thoughts drifted again, unwelcome, back to Lillian Harrington. She had never been rattled like this before, not by a fleeting encounter, not by anyone.
And that was what unsettled her most.
For now, she would compartmentalize. But she knew that Lillian—this situation—was already pulling at the edges of her carefully constructed control.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur of meetings, case reviews, and preparations for the week ahead. Rebecca moved through each task with her usual efficiency, her mind honed in on the next surgery, the next patient, the next critical decision. But no matter how focused she tried to stay, her thoughts kept drifting back to that moment when Lillian had walked into her office.
