The elevator doors opened and she started down the long corridor to conference room B. Although Marina hadn’t wanted to tell her what this was about, Krista had a pretty good idea. Her contract with the hospital ended in two months. By then, she’d have the necessary hours to become board certified. She was one of the best PTs they had at HCCH. Money was not everything, but she did hope that they took both her job performance and pursuit of board certification into consideration when they renewed her contract.
Krista knew her worth. She just hoped that they did. Unfortunately, they probably also knew that this was the only hospital she wanted to work in. Sure, she could commute to Chicago, to the larger hospitals. However, that was the last thing she wanted to do. So chances were, whatever they offered her, she would take. Which was why she was not looking forward to this meeting. She only liked to negotiate things when she had the upper hand. In this case, they did.
On the upside, at least this little interruption to her day was diverting her mind from the thing it had been obsessing about for the last twenty-four hours—no matter what she did to try and stop it!—Chase. Not even a minute had passed without some Chase-related thought popping up and making itself known. It was really beginning to piss her off.
Two days ago, Krista would have admitted—only to herself, of course!—that she thought about Chase way too much. She had even put in place self-imposed guidelines in an attempt to limit such wasted time. The rule was that she allowed herself one hour per day, which she normally utilized at night while listening to his music, to think about Chase. Said allotted time was the only time that she permitted herself to indulge in missing him, thoughts of him, fantasies starring him. It hadn’t been a complete success, but it had helped her to not obsess, which she took as a win.
Now, her entire game plan had been flipped upside down and inside out. Every minute of every hour was Chase filled. It seemed like there was nothing she could do about it.
So she’d had to revise her Chase strategy. Her mind was a goner. It had gone to the dark side and there was nothing she could do that seemed to control it. What she could control was her response to her obsessive thoughts and Chase’s presence. Keep her guard up. Not let him get a foothold into her psyche or her panties.
With that guy, it wasn’t ‘give him an inch and he would take a mile.’ Nope. It wasn’t even Chase who she distrusted. It was herself. She had to protect herself from herself, and that meant keeping her distance from Chase Malone.
At this point, she would consider it a victory if she was able to make it through his visit without spending any length of time with him—and of course without having any sexual-in-nature incidents. Krista was hanging on by a very thin, rapidly fraying thread. Looking at Chase as the enemy was the only way she would survive. Her happiness, her heart, and her sanity were on the line.
Her stomach growled once again, and of course Chase’s voice popped into her head when he’d asked her to dinner. “From what I remember, you do like to eat.” Ugh. He could be such a smartass. He got away with it because he was a sexy, hot, sexy, gorgeous, sexy, talented—oh and had she mentioned sexy—smartass.
That was the other thing she needed to make sure she guarded herself against. She knew his game. It was so easy to be drawn into their patented banter. It was one of the things she missed the most about him.
Their relationship hadn’t been all flowers and candy. Chase challenged her and she did the same to him. They called each other on their BS, which, nine times out of ten, ended up in a fight. But those had always led to hot make-out sessions when they were pre-teens and hot make-up sex once they were teens.
Everything with Chase was hot. Too hot. They had always brought out the fire in each other. Krista had dated other guys since Chase. Some of them even semi-seriously, but she hadn’t shared the same combustible energy with any of them. She knew that if she spent any kind of time with Chase the sparks that had been flying between them would be the least of her worries. She feared that if she let her guard down, even for a moment, there would be a fiery inferno she would not be able to walk away from unscathed.
As she rounded the corner, she saw that the door to the conference room was closed. She had a brief thought that that was odd but dismissed it immediately. After turning the knob and stepping inside, she saw that there was quite a spread laid out on the light oak oval table in the center of the room. Her stomach was definitely going to enjoy this meeting even if it ended up that her bank account didn’t.
The room was empty other than the insane amount of food. Moving towards the small sandwiches that were in the center of a blue dish, she saw that they were cut in triangles. Score! For some strange reason, she’d always cut her sandwiches into pizza shapes. She still did it. Her cousins and sisters would sometimes make fun of her, but she couldn’t care less. It made her happy.