Night Fever. Tori Carrington

to hide her exasperation. It was hard enough to successfully ignore the poor status of her love life without other people showing interest in it. Who else talked about her and her pathetic dating abilities? Oh, sure, she was busy. But as Lupe so adeptly pointed out, time or lack thereof had very little to do with a person’s personal life.

      Five kids? Did Lupe really have five kids?

      She shook her head then strode to examining room three, opening the patient’s file as she entered.

      Ashanti. A nineteen-year-old who had more sex than ten women combined.

      Or at least ten Laylas.

      The young woman smiled at her from the examining table. “So, Doc, how they hanging?”

      “Oh, they’re hanging a little lower each day,” she said automatically.

      The problem was that there was no one around to notice…

      THE FOLLOWING MORNING Sam repositioned the pothos plant his sister, Heather, had bought him, moving it first one way then another on top of a filing cabinet in his office near the window. But rather than being a gift in the true sense of the word, she’d done it to make a point. Simply that even though he was a doctor, he failed to look after himself. According to her, his days were focused way too much on work and not nearly enough on the small pleasures of life. No pets. No real hobbies—outside serial dating and an hour-long run in the morning. And the only reason he returned to the model of modern architecture in the depths of Hollywood Hills he called home, was to sleep. If pressed under threat of torture, he couldn’t tell you the color of his bedroom walls, much less the makeup of the rest of the place.

      “Come on, Porthos, buddy, you’re not making me look good here,” he said to the plant, reluctant to put his finger into the soil to see if it needed more water. Heather had given him the plant two months ago. And over that period it had gone from a lush, green plant to a dry, shriveled-up bunch of leaves. He sometimes wondered if it were still alive. No matter what he did, the plant looked worse. So he’d named it Porthos in honor of the musketeer who was popular among the ladies and had a mysterious suicide wish. Bringing Porthos to the office was a last-ditch effort to save the poor plant.

      After picking up his empty coffee cup—another gag gift from his sister, it had a pair of gigantic breasts on the front, and a woman’s arm for a handle—he made his way through the back door leading to what was called the center’s personnel alley. Essentially it was where the doctors and other center employees could move around freely without being seen by patients. Its hub was a coffee-slash-lunchroom containing vending machines of microwaveable meals, your typical snack fare and three coffee machines, along with a cappuccino and an espresso machine. He put his cup under the tap for pure, full-octane coffee then glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes before one very delectable Doctor Layla Hollister found out he was the guy who had made her day so miserable yesterday.

      “Hey, if it isn’t Dr. Lovejoy,” a male colleague came into the room from the opposite direction, navigating his way through the half-dozen other physicians already there. Bill Johnson was the center’s top proctologist and got his kicks ribbing Sam. “Good thing you’re not into proctology, huh, Sam?” he said as he put his cup in after Sam had removed his own. “Then again, I don’t know. Dr. Lovejoy, proctologist. Has a ring to it, doesn’t it?”

      Susan Pollack, a pediatrician, nudged by Sam to get a packet of artificial sweetener. “I don’t know. If your patients knew what some people said about you, Bill, they’d change physicians posthaste.”

      Sam lifted a brow. “What do they say?”

      Susan smiled at him. “That, for Bill, proctology is ‘been there, done that,”’ she said. “You know, because of the, um, fact that he’s gay.”

      Bill made a face. “I prefer homosexual. Gay makes me sound as though I should be performing in a musical on Broadway.” He sipped his coffee. “And it’s not like I hide my sexual preference. Not all homosexuals are queens.”

      “No, Bill, you definitely qualify as a king.”

      Sam laughed with good humor. “Okay, so is there any word on me yet?”

      David Jansen, a cardiac surgeon, leaned back in a metal chair. “Nope. We figure your name is funny enough. Dr. Lovejoy, master of all things lovely and joyful.”

      “Or plastic,” Susan made a face.

      Sam chuckled. Having grown up with the name, he was used to the teasing—and to the long drawn-out way people had of saying his name, as if they were introducing the star of a porno flick. “Dr. Lovejoy in Loves to Bring Women Joy.”

      Bill gestured toward Susan. “She’s Suzie Q.”

      “David is Goliath,” Susan shared.

      Everyone went around the room quoting another doctor’s nickname. Sam took a long drag from his coffee. “And Hollister? What’s her nickname?”

      The room fell silent for a heartbeat.

      “You can guess at that one,” Bill said, moving toward the door.

      “Have you met her yet?” David asked.

      Sam shook his head. “Not officially. But that’ll be fixed in fifteen.”

      Susan gave him a level gaze. “Well, given her first name is Layla…”

      “And she’s drop-dead gorgeous,” Bill added.

      “You can only imagine what we say about her,” David finished.

      Sam supported his coffee cup with his other hand. “Fill me in.”

      Bill twisted his lips. “Well, there’s ‘Lay-no,’ because she turns every guy in the place down flat. Present company excepted, of course.”

      David grinned. “There’s ‘needs-to-get-laid-now.”’

      Sam nearly choked on his coffee.

      “Then let’s not forget ‘Layl-aye-aye-aye,”’ Bill added. “But of course that was a year or so ago.”

      “Oh?”

      Susan made a face as she gathered up a chart from the table. “If you believe the gossip mill, she went out with the sleaze down on two, Jim Colton, orthopedic surgeon, for a little while.”

      Sam considered that. “Ended badly?”

      Susan opened the door. “Never should have begun. Colton’s married,” she told him in a conspiratorial whisper.

      The room went quiet as the door closed behind her.

      So Lively Layla had gotten burned by a doctor at the Center. That went a long ways toward explaining why she’d earned the later nicknames.

      And made him even more intrigued by her.

      “I take it none of you actually call her by any of these nicknames?” he asked, topping off his cup.

      The five physicians looked at each other, then at him. “No,” Bill said soberly. “We all like the family jewels right where they are, thank you very much.”

      Sam was thoughtful. “I’d do well to keep that in mind then, would I?”

      He made his way back to his office, the comments moving around in his head. So Layla had a history at the center. Not unusual. Most doctors didn’t have time to shop outside their immediate environs. He absently rubbed his neck. Judging by the little he’d gotten to know her the night before, however, he would have thought her smarter than to get involved with a married man. How long had the relationship lasted? A couple of dates? A month? Longer?

      He made a mental note to check into this guy Colton. If he made a habit of preying on fellow physicians, he’d have to call him in for review.

      He closed his office door and stood staring at the damn plant again. He’d half hoped the simple change in location would have made it perk right back up. His hopes were dashed.