Free Her Russian Billionaire (A BWWM Russian Oligarch Interracial Romance) by Imani King Page B

distracted lately.”
    “I’m sorry,” I replied hurriedly. “I won’t let it affect my work!”
    “I’m not worried about your work,” she replied with a smile as she sat next to me. “Your work is still superb. I’m worried about you.”
    “I’m fine,” I lied, trying to manage a smile. “I’m good.”
    “Want to talk about it?” Dr. Barn’s asked, obviously unconvinced.
    “It’s nothing,” I replied. But then, before I could help myself, I continued. “How well do you know Lex Makarov?”
    “We’re pretty good friends,” she replied, offering me a knowing smile. “I’ve known him for almost a decade. We got to be friends after he came to own the hospital. I used to help him out with the patient care cases like you are now.”
    My eyes shot up in surprise.
    “Really?” I asked. “For some reason, this whole time I thought that it was him trying to punish me or something. It sounds silly now, but he overheard me badmouthing him the night after the M&M conference—he’d interrogated me pretty heavily in front of the entire room. The next day he started giving me cases. I just thought… I don’t know what I thought.”
    “Michelle,” Dr. Grimes replied smiled, “if this was some weird form of punishment, do you really think I would have approved it?”
    “No,” I had to agree.
    “He called me the day after the M&M conference, asking about you. I could tell you’d made an impression. He asked if I thought you could handle a little extra work. I told him I thought you would jump at the chance for a little extra experience. You’d seemed so willing before then.”
    “Yeah,” I agreed. “He just didn’t make the best first impression on me. Or second impression, for that matter.”
    Dr. Grimes laughed.
    “I understand,” she replied. “He can be that way sometimes. It’s his Russian directness. But he is truly very supportive of you, I could sense that right away.” She gave me a reassuring smile. “Yet, despite all of his good work, half the staff here resents him—anyone who knows how he came to own the hospital.”
    “What do you mean?” I asked.
    “His mother actually died during an operation here, almost a decade ago. It was a huge scandal—the doctor on duty had been drinking, it turned out. Lex was really young then, fresh out of business school. He was due to inherit all of his father’s venues, back in Russia and here, but he decided to create a pet project of his own. He started buying major stock shares of several hospitals along the Florida coast, and eventually, he extended his claws, so to speak, to Miami General as well. He became involved in day-to-day details of running the hospitals, and that’s how we met—he showed his face in every department and met all the doctors. He told me that hospital fatalities were a special interest to him, particularly operating room fatalities—because of what happened to his mom. He was especially interested in ways such things could be prevented, so he did a lot of investigations. A lot of people resented him.”
    “So that’s why he was so obsessed with the case I had presented?” I asked, suddenly feeling sick for the way I had treated him.
    “Yeah, he has a lot of responsibilities but he is always sure to make time to look over every fatality case in the hospital,” Dr. Grimes answered. “ He isn’t a doctor himself, so he often asks for help.”
    “I feel like such an ass,” I responded, burying my head in my hands.
    “Michelle,” Dr. Grimes said, “I know you’ve told me before that nothing is going on between the two of you, and I believed you. I’m really not one to rely on gossip. But it seems to me that maybe there is something between Lex and you.”
    “Yeah,” I agreed. “I guess. I honestly don’t know anymore.”
    “Well, I can tell you this,” Dr. Grimes replied, standing. “With the exception of one case, I’ve never heard Lex talk about someone the way he’s talked about you. That