Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“Good evening, Dr. Cove,” Dina, one of the receptionists from A&E, said as I passed her in the corridor. I smiled, nodded, and then thanked heaven that when she’d told me she’d like to suck my cock at last year’s Christmas party, I’d politely declined. Not because she wasn’t gorgeous. And not because I hated blow jobs—was that even a thing? No, it was because I didn’t want to pass a line of women who’d had my dick in their mouth in the hospital corridors, sober and under the glare of the fluorescent hospital lights as my shoes squeaked on the freshly-mopped linoleum floor.
Call me old fashioned.
“Keep your private life private.” It was almost a mantra in our house growing up. My father wasn’t around much when I was a kid, but he was quick to bark out pieces of advice here and there. I could always count on him for a could be better or why wasn’t it one hundred percent, whenever I presented him with an imperfect test score. He didn’t seem to be so easy with the advice with my other brothers, but the one thing he’d said to all of us was, “Keep your private life private.” He’d said it when each of us had gotten into med school, every time any of us got a job, and if any of us got into trouble—no matter whether it was relevant.
There was a lot of my father’s advice I didn’t agree with, but I’d always lived by his private life mantra. A friend I’d gone to school with ended up leaving the Royal Free last year because he’d fucked too many nurses and junior doctors. He’d gone for a promotion and was told he had too much baggage.
There was no rule about fraternization in the hospital. Or maybe there was and everyone ignored it. The medical staff spent far too much of their lives in the place for sex and even romance not to happen. Hooking up with someone at work was easy. And when you were exhausted from the long hours and demanding work, and wanted to blow off some steam or have some human contact with a person who wasn’t sick or dying, it made sense that you’d reach for someone close.
But not me.
Partly because of my dad’s advice and partly because . . . well, because of my last name. I was a Cove. First-born son of doctors Carole and John Cove. That last name brought a profile. I was never just “Jacob” or “Dr. Cove.” I was always “Jacob Cove, yes that Cove,” or “Dr. Cove’s son” or “Cove—was your mother Carole Cove?” It was a label I was used to and not one I wanted to swap for Jacob Cove, the guy who’d dated everyone in pediatric medicine. Or Jacob Cove, the disappointing son of the Coves. I didn’t want people I had to see every day and give instructions to and take instructions from, to know intimate details about me and my sex life. I didn’t want the Cove name associated with anything other than being game-changing doctors. I was ambitious and I wanted to be a groundbreaking doctor in pediatric cardiology or even the advisor to the government on child health. I never wanted to be denied a promotion because I’d slept with the wrong person or too many people. It wasn’t worth it. When people heard my name, the association should be with excellence. Not sex.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out. A message from Beau.
Pick up. I need a favor.
Nothing new about that. Before I had the chance to reply, his name flashed up on my screen.
I answered as I strode through the exit doors to the stairs and started to head down. Beau was the most tenacious of us all and that was saying something. “The answer’s no,” I barked into the phone.
“You haven’t even heard me out. It’s not even that bad.”
“I beg to differ. If I’m helping you, it’s bound to be bad.” Beau was mischievous. A stint doing Medicine Sans Frontiers would do him good.
“I’m serious. All I need you to do is eat some mouth-watering food and drink some wine that might even be good enough for your sophisticated palate.” He must really need my help if he was dishing out compliments.
“Out with it. What do you need?”
“I need you to go on a date for me. It’s just dinner and drinks. No big thing.”
“A date? Are you my pimp now?”
“I’m not setting you up. A friend set me up—gorgeous girl apparently. I’m totally pissed off I’m missing it. I don’t want to let anyone down at the last minute.”
I paused at the door to the ground floor so I could finish our call in privacy. “This sounds suspiciously like a pity date. Why—”