Bluegrass Seduction (The Bluegrass Billionaire Trilogy Book 1) by Alice Ward, Jessica Blake Page A

key word here is ‘was’ and now that she no longer is, that ethic is not being broken. Will there be anything else? I have a patient coming shortly and need to prepare for my day.”
    He looked like a man who’d been abandoned on a climb to the summit. “Will you stop seeing her?” he finally asked bluntly.
    “That’s my personal life. We’re professionals and that’s where it ends. Have I made my point?” I laid down the law.
    “So, you will stop seeing her?” he tried once more.
    I simply stared at him and then at the door. He finally got the message and I could see the sheen of sweat on his upper lip, even in the cool of the early morning air conditioning.
    “Yes… well,” he said, resigned to the realization that our conversation had come to an unsuccessful end. He stood and walked toward the door.
    “Jervis,” I said, stopping him cold before he left.
    “Yes?” he turned around, hope all over his face.
    “You are not to discuss Auggie or me with her mother, father or any goddamned body ever again. Do I make myself clear?” My voice was cold and completely clear, and he knew he stood in far deeper hazardous waste than he’d ever realized.
    “Of course, yes, I understand,” he mumbled and left.
    I suspected that Jervis had dirtied his hands on more than one occasion. He was an idiot, for all his education, and spineless as a jellyfish. I knew he was into my father for a handsome amount as his practice began to fail through incompetence and undoubtedly his little habit of spending afternoons at the track. I knew without question that’s why I had the office I had, but this meant nothing to me. I would have only opened my own and most likely still would. Jervis just had the setup already and it saved me some trouble. I doubted my father was the only one holding a marker for Jervis. His kind weren’t survivors.
    For the moment, my thoughts went back to the preceding night and the discussion, a/k/a argument, between Auggie and myself. I was disappointed when she’d left so suddenly. She was going to ground, retreating when flustered and unhappy with not being able to break me, as she did her horses. Obviously, there was no way I should share the conversation between the bitch Jessup and myself, and Auggie should have known this. She should trust me enough to realize I was trying to help her. I was pissed that she didn’t, but, more importantly, wondered why that was? Did it have to do with me, or with something on her side of the circuit board?
    It struck me then that I’d never cared about what anyone else was doing or thought until now. It wasn’t my habit to adjust my behavior to accommodate anyone, most especially not a woman. There was an ample supply. When you pissed one off, you simply went after the next. Even as I thought it, I knew I was lying to myself.
    There was only one Auggie. That’s exactly why I was in the mess I now found myself in. I was going to have to make some major changes in my life, but somehow that didn’t seem like such a horrible thing at this moment.
    That afternoon, when the last patient cleared the doorway, I locked up and headed for Joe’s. It was one place where I could think clearly.
    Joe’s was clogged with the smoke of cigars and pipe tobacco. No one would ever think to file a complaint. There was enough power in that room at any one point to begin the next world war. I made my way to the end of the bar and ordered a bourbon. I forced myself to sip it slowly instead of ordering six or so lined up in advance. This was the new me.
    The room was fairly filled this time of the day. It was a gathering of men to confer on the events that had gone on that day and tonight the talk was about the gubernatorial race and who they were to support. Politics in Kentucky was a variable uncertainty. State employees were expected to match the governor’s party affiliation or lose their job each term. There was an Independent in the race this election, an outsider who was