Forbidden Prescription: A Stepbrother Romance by Stephanie Brother Read Free Book Online Page B

“Away from the hospital, I mean.”
    “Ha.” She chuckled. “I don’t know about that. Why complicate a good thing?”
    She pulled on her clothes and threw away the paper cover on the exam table. She went home, leaving James behind her.

Chapter Seven
    T hings were heating up between Isabella and James. The added distance between them made them long for each other during the day. Their chemistry was unstoppable. Not only did they click in bed—or exam table, or supply closet—but they enjoyed each other’s company.
    James could hardly hide the fact that he was falling for Isabella. He tried to join her at the lunch table, but she pushed him away, worried that someone would notice their friendship. To a hospital employee, it would look strange for anyone to sit next to interns, as they were on the bottom of the totem pole.
    Isabella enjoyed her time in the research study, but she missed being out on the floor with the other interns. She missed the excitement of never knowing what was going to happen. She missed the rush of having seconds to make a correct diagnosis and prescribe treatment. She missed working side by side with James.
    She was making a good name for herself in research, though, and the doctors were taking notice. Generally hard to please, these surgeons praised her work ethic and thinking skills. She was quick to learn new things, so the surgeons were giving her more responsibilities.
    Despite this, Isabella felt like something was missing from her life, but she couldn’t decide what it was. She had everything she could have hoped for at this point. She was successful in her internship, and she was blowing off steam with a hot doctor. For her, it was a relief that she found a man who just wanted to have casual sex without wanting her to be in a time-consuming relationship.
    She wondered if maybe she needed some companionship in her life. Isabella was never one to have a large posse around, but she was starting to feel lonely in the moments that she wasn’t hard at work. Her friends from college had started their careers ages ago, and in the time Isabella was in medical school, they were off getting married and having kids.
    There weren’t a lot of close friends from medical school because her over-competitive nature was off-putting for a lot of people. People were jealous of her knowledge, but she also didn’t try to be any less insufferable. She had a few study pals she could talk to on occasion, but she was mostly alone.
    Jordan was one of her medical school acquaintances with whom she wanted to form a closer bond. For most of Isabella’s life, teachers and other adults always told her how brilliant and beautiful she was, and no one ever gave her constructive criticism. She liked Jordan because she wasn’t afraid to set her straight when she was being obnoxious. Jordan didn’t see her as a threat to her own success, so she liked spending time with Isabella, too. It was hard to be a young woman in a man-dominated profession, and it helped to have someone similar by her side.
    In an attempt to build friendship, Isabella invited Jordan out for drinks one night after work. They went to a cocktail lounge far from the hospital, where they wouldn’t be at risk of running into anyone they knew. Jordan loved having the chance to gossip about everything that had happened while Isabella was away at the lab.
    “Did I tell you about the time I walked in on Martin crying in the supply closet?” Jordan giggled into her martini.
    “What? No, tell me everything!”
    “Well, he’s such a know-it-all and he got in an argument with a nurse over the correct drug dosage to give his patient. He insists that he’s right, so he tattles on the nurse, and James set him straight. As it turned out, he was wrong, and it was too much for him to handle. I went to grab a fresh catheter from the closet later, and I found him sniveling in there.”
    “Oh man, that is too good.” Isabella laughed. “What did he say when