Dakota stood back and listened to the exchange.
She knew Dr. Eddy watched her out of the corner of his eye as he gathered his material and shoved it in his briefcase.
“Why did you choose emergency medicine, Dr. . . . ?”
“Daniels. Sounds cliché but I wanted to help the helpless. The ones in severe crisis.”
“Let me guess . . . politics, insurance . . . malpractice . . . everything gets in the way of you doing the right thing for the patient?”
Dr. Daniels let loose a long sigh. “Exactly!”
Dr. Eddy met Dr. Daniels’s eyes. “You’re no different than anyone else in the room. A few weeks of your life a year and you’ll remember why you lived on coffee during your residency.” He slipped the younger doctor a card and shook his hand. “We have our own set of politics, but it’s nothing like it is in your paying job.”
Dr. Daniels glanced at the card and walked away with a smile.
Another suit-wearing man, probably another doctor, lifted his hand to Dakota so that she might have her turn with Dr. Eddy.
Walt stood, snapped his case together, and waited.
“I believe I owe you a drink, Doctor.”
Somewhere behind his eyes, a smile grew . . . but it had yet to make an appearance.
“It’s a little early for alcohol, Miss Laurens.”
He remembered her name. The thought had her holding back a smile.
Beside them, the man waiting to speak with Walt watched, and Dakota wasn’t oblivious to the scene and how it might play out to an unsuspecting audience.
All of it . . . every second recorded in her brain as a scene from one of her novels.
Sometimes life did imitate art.
“Coffee is a drink.”
There was his smirk.
Damn it was beyond sexy.
“You’re talking about coffee?” He didn’t look convinced.
She made a motion of looking at her watch. “I have a meeting with my editor . . . perhaps something with more punch . . . later?”
His full-watt smile brought fire.
“You do owe me.”
Dakota lifted her chin. “Seven?”
Dr. Eddy agreed with a mere tilt of his head and Dakota turned and walked away.
Chapter Three
He needed to know . . . couldn’t stop himself from taking a little walk through the second floor.
The hallways and corridors were overflowing with massive posters featuring authors and their work. Tables lined the walls with bookmarks, pens, and postcards. Walt dipped his hand into a basket and pulled out colorful condoms with an author’s website printed on the packaging. Sexy Swag to Live By. He found himself pocketing a couple of giveaways, telling himself it was for the guys he worked with back in California. Lip gloss, emery boards, squishy stress balls, colorful trinkets of all sizes and flavors . . . romance authors had healthy imaginations. He turned down another hall to find it filled with the same.
This was Dakota Laurens’s world. The overload of half-naked bodies had a strange way of turning up the heat in the room. From five yards away, Walt zeroed in on her name. The D scrolled on the page, the ass of a naked woman, her head tossed back with dark hair flowing down her back while a man leaned over her, lips to neck, filled the cover. “New York Times Bestselling Author” blasted above the banner.
Surrender to Me.
He read the title and had a strong desire to find the nearest bookstore to grab a copy.
Women, and a few men, slowly trickled from the conference rooms and began to funnel into the hall.
“Dr. Eddy?”
He heard his name, twisted toward the voice calling him.
“Did they mess up your room again?”
The blonde, Dakota’s friend, glanced behind him and began to grin.
He was so busted.
“No . . . ahh, I’m sorry, you have me at a disadvantage. I didn’t catch your name.”
“It’s Mary,” she said, not offering her last name. “It’s a great cover . . . don’t you think?”
Walt turned toward Dakota’s banner. “It certainly catches the eye.”
“It’s her best seller to date. And that’s saying something.”
Someone bumped into him and he moved aside for the women passing.
A heavy-set fortysomething stopped midtracks and turned a smile his way. “Oh, are you one of the models?”
“Excuse me?”
“Alice!” she said to the woman at her side. “Take my picture with him.” She juggled her bag and removed a cell phone from her back pocket.
“He’s not—”
Alice shoved in and suddenly Walt felt the woman’s arm slip around him. The impromptu paparazzi moment was met with a flash.
“Thanks,” the woman managed right as he felt a distinct pinch just south of his waist.
He blinked, repeatedly, and stared at the women as they disappeared around the corner.
Mary began laughing, the chuckle started low and built. Walt felt himself smiling right along with her. “What the hell was that?” he asked.
“Entertaining! That’s what that was. Dakota isn’t going to believe it.”
“No, really? What?”
Mary stepped closer. The hall was neck-to-neck women now, some pushing in between them to reach the free swag on the tables.
“There are about a dozen models running around, brought in by the magazine hosting the convention. Cover-model types that pose with the women for pictures.”
Someone beside Mary turned when she heard the word picture. A redhead with more aggression than the previous woman and too much makeup for Walt’s taste turned her attention his way. “Oh, what’s your name?”
“Walt,” he said on impulse as he tried to ignore her lean body as she pressed it against his.
She squeezed her eyes together as if his name made her look twice. “You have the businessman-suit thing going. Very sexy.” She leaned in, snapped a picture herself with her cell phone, blew a kiss, and walked away.
All the while Mary laughed.
“I think I need to get out of here.” He said the words aloud but his feet didn’t move.
“Hey, Mimi,” Mary called over her shoulder.
“Can you take our picture?” She handed Mimi her cell.
Walt lost his smile while Mary glanced behind him, pushed him to where she wanted him, and posed. “Smile, Doctor,” she told him. “Your friends back home are going to want to see this.”
They would.
He smiled.
Dakota’s phone buzzed right as her editor, Loretta, ordered a salad. “Is it too early for wine?” the woman asked.