1
At PTMC, everyone knew Dr. Brendon Park.
A well-established orthopedic surgeon with an impressive reputation, Park was brilliant in the operating room, demanding of his colleagues, and notorious for his sharp tongue. He expected people to know their jobs, do them well, and not waste his time.
Around the hospital, people called him Park the Shark.
Most people preferred to stay on his good side.
Nadia wasn’t most people.
A nurse practitioner whose primary home was the surgical floor, Nadia spent plenty of time working alongside the surgical teams and in the OR. She knew her patients, trusted her clinical judgment, and wasn’t about to let an orthopedic surgeon’s reputation intimidate her.
Even when that surgeon was Brendon Park.
Their disagreements had become something of a regular occurrence. Whenever Park drifted down to her floor, there was a good chance he’d find something to criticize—and an even better chance Nadia would have something to say about it.
Like that morning.
“Who approved this plan?” Park asked, holding up a patient’s chart at the nurses’ station.
Nadia continued typing.
“I did.”
His eyes lifted to her. “You want to explain your reasoning?”
“Certainly. It’s all documented in the chart you have in your hand.”
One of the nurses nearby suddenly found her computer screen fascinating.
Park’s jaw tightened. “You always have something to say, don’t you?”
“Only when someone asks me a question.”
“I wasn’t asking for an attitude.”
“And I wasn’t offering one. Would you like me to walk you through the clinical reasoning, or are we finished?”
For a moment, they simply stared at each other.
Then Nadia smiled sweetly.
Park shook his head and walked away, muttering something under his breath.
The moment he was out of earshot, one of the nurses leaned toward Nadia.
“Do you have a death wish?”
Nadia looked up. “Excuse me?”
“You just challenged Park the Shark. To his face.”
“Was I supposed to do it behind his back?”
The nurse laughed in disbelief. “You’re the only person on this floor who talks to him like that.”
Nadia shrugged and returned to her work.
What nobody knew was that Park didn’t mind her attitude nearly as much as he pretended to.
In fact, it was becoming his favorite thing about her.
He was used to people falling quiet when he entered a room. Used to colleagues second-guessing themselves under his stare, agreeing with him simply because challenging him was uncomfortable.
But Nadia?
Nadia looked him straight in the eye and told him when she thought he was wrong.
She didn’t confuse his confidence with infallibility, and she respected his skill without treating him like he was untouchable.
She made him work for every argument.
And, though he’d rather undergo surgery himself than admit it aloud, he enjoyed every second.
Later that afternoon, Park passed the ninth-floor nurses’ station again.
Nadia glanced up from her paperwork.
“Back for round two, Dr. Park?”
He stopped beside her desk, one eyebrow raised.
“Careful, Nadia. Someone might think you enjoy arguing with me.”
She gave him a bright smile.
“Someone might think you keep coming down here because you enjoy it, too.”
For the briefest moment, the corner of his mouth twitched.
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He continued down the corridor, wearing his usual stern expression.
But as he turned the corner, he caught himself smiling.
And that was the problem with Nadia.
She was clever, capable, entirely unimpressed by his reputation—and becoming far more interesting to him than she had any business being.
Park the Shark had met plenty of people who feared him.
