“Your doctor from home sent over plenty of notes for me to read through. I gather you’ve had a difficult few years.”
Poppy’s jaw firms, and for a split second, there she is: the firecracker from yesterday. Then she’s smiling again, sweet and placid. “May I?”
I blink at her outstretched hand, hovering over the expanse of polished wood. Her slender fingers curl slightly; her olive skin is smooth and unmarred. My eyes snag on the faint grooves of her palm.
“They’remynotes, right?” The warmth in her smile slips a few degrees, but she claws it back with clear effort. “Surely I have a right to read them, Dr Whitaker.”
“It’s an unusual request.” She opens her mouth to argue, but I’m already sliding the tablet across to her, because Poppy’s right. It’s her medical information. She has a right to it.“I’m afraid the notes aren’t written in the kindest terms in some places, Miss Lennox. You might prefer—”
Poppy spins the tablet to face her. “Nope. This is fine.” Her ponytail swings over one shoulder as she leans forward, hunching over the tablet, chewing on a thumbnail as she reads. Now and then, she can’t quite hide a scoff.
A flush climbs her throat.
Her rising anger is thick in the air.
“You disagree with your previous doctor’s assessments?”
A grunt. She doesn’t even bother to look up. Birds trill outside the window and I drum on the desk, watching her lips purse, her mouth curving down as she reads her doctor’s comments.
And yeah—I get it. The judgment in those notes surprised me, too. Because the behaviors they describe are a cry for help, not a call for scorn.
“There’s no reason to be embarrassed,” I tell her gently, but Poppy Lennox glares at me like something sticky on her shoe. So much for the docile girl of a few minutes ago: this Poppy is furious. Spoiling for a fight. I pull the tablet back, bracing myself.
“You believe this shit?” she demands.
I pause. “…You don’t?”
Poppy’s scoff bounces off the walls. “About as much as I believe in fairies. It’s my life, Dr Whitaker. I think I’d remember,” she flings a hand toward the tablet, “stripping down at my father’s gala and dancing in the fountain. If nothing else, the inevitable photos would haunt me online for the rest of my life.”
That’s… true. But why would her doctor lie?
“It’s creative, I’ll give them that.” Poppy’s eyes are fixed on the tablet, and she’ll tear her thumbnail if she’s not careful, gnawing on it like that. “Not like them at all. I bet an intern wrote this.”
I can’t search for stripped photos of my patient online. Not even to prove a point. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
But: “Do it,” she says, sitting up straight in her chair. Poppy stares at me, eyes bright, and it’s like she read my mind. “Do it, doctor. Google me right this second.”
“That would be inappropriate.” And way too difficult to temper my reaction to the inevitable photos in front of an audience. It’s bad enough sitting across this desk from her, catching hints of her floral scent with every breath. Bad enough forcing myself to sit calmly, my expression cool, my fingers knotted loosely on top of the desk.
Whatisit about this girl? From the first moment I laid eyes on her, I’ve been so antsy. Out of sorts.
But Poppy snarls and shoves to her feet, rounding the desk in a few strides. She snatches the tablet up again, leaning her ass against the edge of the table, and jabs at the screen.
“You shouldn’t be over here.”
“On this patch of floorboards?”
This close to me.“There are rules, Miss Lennox.” I roll my chair away a few inches. “Procedures in place to protect you.”
She gives a loud huff. “If you want to protect me, take a look at this.”
Her fingertips brush mine as she hands over the tablet. Fuck, fuck, fuck. And surely it’s all the static in the air, making my skin jolt like that. Making it feel like we’re throwing off sparks.
“No fountain nudes.” She’s triumphant, nudging my chair with her foot. And…really? None at all? That makes no sense. I frown down at the search results, scanning the innocuous mentions of Poppy Elizabeth Lennox.
There’s a high school spelling bee medal. Her name listed in special thanks for a gala. Several photos of her standing behind her father as he shakes hands with politicians and investors, the Poppy in each of those photos looking well dressed and faintly bored. Prissy head shot bun: activated.
No messy drunk photos. No salacious hook ups. Nothing that her medical notes would suggest.