1 A blast from the past (1)

Kara woke up to the ringing of her phone, which sounded like it was doing an annoying duet with the alarm clock. She wanted to slam both of them against the wall. Her whole body felt like it had been torn apart before being slotted back together, all thanks to the all nighter she had pulled. She had been riding on a sliver of sanity and multiple cups of coffee before finally dragging her tired ass to bed at 4am. And now, her phone was ringing incessantly and her alarm—which she had forgotten to turn off before crawling into bed, was driving her crazy at barely 6am. She slammed it to shut the fuck up and picked up her phone drowsily.

"Hello, Grand View Hospital, Dr. Kara Williams speaking."

The chuckle on the other end reminded her that she was in her apartment and the phone ringing was not her work phone. God, just how badly was her brain jumbled?

"I guess I should let you go back to sleep, Dr. Williams." The taunting voice on the other end did nothing to ease her drowsiness. It was her friend, Shera, who got off on annoying the hell out of anyone she picked on.

"I'm already awake." She proved the point by pushing the comforter off her and swinging her legs off the bed, blindly feeling the cold floor for her flip flops.

"I hate to have been the one to wake you up." Shera apologized, but from her tone, it was definitely an important matter that had come up or she would not have called this early—especially while knowing that Kara constantly stayed up late to keep up with her research.

"What happened?" She asked, squinting her eyes to get used to the blinding light when she pulled open the curtains. They blocked off all the light and she had not realized that the day was already bright—thank heavens because the last thing she wanted was the early sub glaring at her face when she got into bed heartbeats ago.

Shera sighed on the other end. "Are you sure you don't want to go back to bed? It can wait."

"You are not helping by stalling." She nearly snapped.

"Right." Shera did one of those silly giggles that meant a storm was coming. "The hospital Vice Chairman resigned."

Kara slowed her steps towards the kitchen, as if that would heighten her concentration on what Shera was saying. Baffled was an understatement to what she was feeling. "And I'm only finding out now?"

It was insane. How in hell could her direct subordinate resign without telling her about it? How did the procedure even happen?

"Well, he sent me an email. I figured you'd have buried your nose into a book so I didn't contact you about it." Shera explained. It turned out, the fucker was already on his way when he emailed Shera. At least he had the decency to tell one of his bosses.

While Kara was the CEO of Grand View Hospital, the hospital was actually owned by Shera and not many people knew about it. How the VC—now former VC—knew about it was more of a mystery than how he found Shera's email address.

And the most important part in all this was, "What do we do now?"

It was as though Shera had been waiting for the question. "This is the part where you grab your coffee. Nope. Make that a double or triple espresso, and head to Grand View. Because his replacement will need to be filled in on everything."

"Thanks for the advise, I guess." She groaned but got the coffee machine running. Although she wanted to sleep more than anything, she had several appointments lined up for the morning and she had not even included handing over the work that the former VC thought was too unimportant to be handed over. The fool had sent the email on the plane right before it took off to bumfuck-nowhere, with his tail tucked between his legs—Shera's words. There was no telling what mess he had left behind that she now had to clean.

She yawned as the call ended and grabbed two croissants from the fridge, which her mother had insisted on having her bring back when she visited her on Saturday. Thank goodness she had relented because now she had something to crunch on along with her coffee on the ride to work and later, if she was hungry but too tired to move an inch. She hopped in for a quick shower and grabbed her coffee and croissants, making a beeline for the parking lot. Luckily her car had an autopilot function, she could have her coffee in the car comfortably and not worry about causing an accident in her crappy state. Seeing patients was definitely off the list for today.

The heavens were definitely on her side. The drive to Grand View Hospital was smooth with no traffic jam and when she arrived, her assistant, Cleo, was on her heel, tailing her to the elevator as if she had been waiting eagerly.

"Dr. Kara, you are finally here. Mrs. Qin just left after dropping off the new VC." She rattled off. She was always full of energy and couldn't wait to gossip.

A frown settled between Kara's brows. Just who was the new VC, that Shera dropped him off instead of throwing an address at him like she would do for everyone else? An ominous premonition started forming at the pit of her stomach.

"He is so handsome! The new VC. I'm totally getting his number later." Cleo chirped. Her words were proven barely a minute after they were uttered. The elevator doors opened to reveal a noisy hallway full of female nurses and doctors, all trying to "get to know" someone, probably the new VC. She could even spot several males trying to make their presence known. She was going to ignore the entire commotion and wait for him in her office but when she caught a glimpse at his back, her entire being froze.

There was no mistaking those curls of copper hair, those broad shoulders on which a white shirt remained spick and span despite all the women trying to tug at it, and although they were blocking her view, he didn't have to turn around for her to know that it was him!

Carlos Aubert, her arch nemesis and ex-boyfriend—if flirting around for a while counted—and he was now her subordinate?

She gripped the styrofoam cup in her hand so tightly it sloshed hot coffee to her hand.

"Well played, Shera Qin. Just pray I don't catch you."