Chapter Two
Wow, I actually did a chapter two! It's looking promising! Muse is still pretty good, and I'm having fun writing this. Hope you all enjoy it too!
The three of them were sitting in silence, writing out what they knew, and filling out the forms they needed the patient to sign for the tests suggested. They hadn't spoken to one another yet, besides identifying what sickness their patient had. It was almost like they didn't click. Almost like Jones intended for that to happen.
"So what did you think of Dr. Jones?" Nolan broke the ice, keeping his eyes on his papers.
"Guy's a sociopath." They all glanced at Cassidy, and he shrugged. "At least that's what I heard."
"He's quite arrogant. Thinks highly of himself. I'd go for narcissist. Probably only of those doctors that thinks he's always right, no matter what."
"Makes me wonder why he hired us in the first place."
"We're his lab rats," Swan finally spoke up. The two looked at her, but she was typing away at her laptop.
"What makes you say that?" Cassidy inquired, suddenly interested.
Swan gave him a look. "Guy said he only hired me for my looks. Pretty sure he's not taking any of this seriously. Can't hold a decent conversation with someone who thinks taking his crap is crap."
Nolan and Cassidy gave each other glances before Nolan spoke up again. "I'd guess and say you talked to him?"
"Correct. And he's a pompous ass. Not worth any of our times."
"So…" Cassidy began. "Why'd he hire us, then?"
"Why does anyone hire us? He was forced to, obviously. Can't have a diagnostics team without an actual team. His boss most likely made him hire three doctors, and we fit the match according to his own made up criteria," Swan said, sighing.
"Well, you sound like you don't like the guy at all. Must have really offended you," continued the dark-haired neurologist, Cassidy.
"How would you feel if a doctor you respect said you were too good looking to be a doctor? That you most likely didn't actually earn the grades you got. You'd be pretty damn offended, too." She was doing her best not to lose her temper just thinking about the words Jones said to her. "Maybe he's the one who can't handle a good-looking, female doctor, so he's taking it out on me."
"I think you're right. It's just so difficult to control myself around you that I'm feeling insecure, and am trying to offend you as my coping mechanism."
When the three looked at the door, they saw the blue-eyed doctor leaning against the door frame. Swan nearly groaned, realizing he probably just heard everything she said about him. Fantastic. More for him to make her job hell. And it was still just her first day on the team.
"Dr. Swan, can I see you in my office?" Jones asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
He could try to act innocent and sexy, but it wouldn't work on her. She wasn't going to be one of the many women he's most likely ensnared with his charming accent and handsome looks.
Swan stood up gracefully, closing her laptop, and then walked with her head high after him to his office, and watched him as he shut the door behind them. "I know what this is about," she said immediately. She needed to hold the power. Otherwise, she would never find her footing trying to keep up with him.
"Do you now?" he asked in response, sounding almost unconcerned as he sat down.
"Yes. You're about to talk to me about the complaint I filed. Your boss told you to fix it," she replied, feeling smug.
Jones almost looked impressed. "She did. But no, this actually isn't about the complaint you filed. This is more about you knowing your place here, Dr. Swan."
"I know my place here already."
"Apparently not, because you told my boss I was harassing you."
"Because you were."
"Tell me, Dr. Swan. Have I laid a single finger on you? Or…perhaps made any inappropriate advancements? All I've made were suggestions, and I could see it in your eyes every single time I did that I didn't just anger and insult you. No, I…hurt you. Which is strange, because you don't even know me, so my opinion of you shouldn't matter. So tell me, Dr. Swan, why does my opinion of you matter so much?"
Damn, he was good. He'd read her like a book. And she didn't even have to say much to him. This irritated Swan a bit, but also made her curious. A man like him, who read people so well, meant he'd met a lot of people, and dealt with many. Yet, something made him this way. Bitter and…so arrogant. And it wasn't this job or that he was one of the most brilliant minds in medicine. It was something else.
"It matters because coming into this, I admired you. Respected you. I actually thought I was going to learn a lot from you," she bravely stated.
Jones stood up slowly and looked at her long and hard. "Lesson number one, you do as I say, when I say it, because at the end of the day, I'll be the one who's right."
"But"-
"Lesson number two. It's never about you, and it never will be. It's about the patient, no matter how you feel. If you're angry, upset, sad, insulted, frustrated – the patient comes first."
"What if"-
"Lesson number three. You have a problem, you come to me about it. Don't go about it the cowardly way and go behind my back. I don't need doctors who are afraid of confrontation."
"I"-
Jones walked right up to her and kept his eyes on hers. "Lesson number four. You're not supposed to like me. I'm supposed to be arrogant and a pain in your ass. Otherwise, you will be slacking, and Dr. Nolan and Dr. Cassidy both know that. You're the only one who doesn't seem too know it. You wanted to be a team player, so be a team player."
He stopped, and Swan was a bit timid to say anything else. But it seemed like his speech was done for the moment, so she took a deep breath. "Thank you," was all she responded, and it seemed to surprise Jones.
"That's all you're going to say?"
"Well, no, but I think I'll survive longer here if I choose to go with a 'Yes, sir' rather than a 'you're an asshole, you know that?' comment."
He almost smiled at her. It was more of a twitch, but it was definitely better than that scowl he often wore. Jones stepped back from her and Swan felt herself being able to breathe again. What was it about him that she found so mysterious? It wasn't his looks, it was something more personal. But what?
"See, you're learning already. As you should. A good pupil swallows her pride."
"I've never really made for a good pupil, Dr. Jones," Swan let him know.
"Well, that's all right, love. I've never really made for a good teacher," he replied with a very brief but very present twinkle in his eye.
She Googled him later that night. Not like she hadn't done it before, but she was only looking for his smarts and intelligence before. This time, she was digging in a little deeper. Something more personal to him. What made him tick?
"King of…Yes, yes, we all know…" she murmured to herself, her glasses on her nose as she scanned article after article. But every article ever written was about a case he's solved, or how he received yet another reward. The guy was arrogant, and maybe he had a right to be. He'd saved many lives when other doctors couldn't figure it out.
But he still had a… "Got it!" Swan exclaimed to herself, immediately pulling up an old newspaper article from fifteen years ago, when Jones was still very young and definitely not a brilliant mind.
Her eyes moved quickly as she read the article word for word, and the furrow in her brow only deepened the more she read. Jones was a lot more than anyone knew. And he'd made sure of it, judging from the lack of details and other newspapers or online news articles. But this? Swan, definitely wouldn't have suspected it. In fact, it would have been the last thing she would suspect. The man seemed nothing like it.
Of course, it's not like Jones would just go ahead and shout it from the rooftops. And certainly not to a new doctor he'd just hired, and then immediately told her to become a stripper. No, he needed to know he could trust his new employees before even considering telling any of them more than just what he ate for breakfast that morning.
For some reason, Swan felt like she had to know. She had to solve him. She had to understand the way his mind functioned, and it wasn't going to be an easy task either. He was probably going to insult her and hurt her ego many, many more times before he would ever dream of sharing anything with her. But it would be worth a shot, right? He needed to know that he could trust her. And to do that, to be able to trust her as a person, Swan needed to prove that he could trust her as a doctor, first. Which should be easy, considering she was an excellent doctor, whether Jones would ever admit to that or not.
Yes, she could definitely unravel the secrets her boss was keeping. Should be a piece of cake.
