BWWM Interracial Romance 2: Open Heart by Elena Brown Page A

and Ashley knew he was summoning backup.
    “Alex, I need you to get this guy out of here. He’s not welcome here anymore—get a good picture of him and make sure he’s not even allowed on hospital property.”
    Kent lunged for her again, but Alex intercepted him, grabbing the other man’s hand. Just when things would have devolved into a scuffle, Alex’s backup arrived, and between the three men, Ashley watched them bundle up Kent and drag him towards the security checkpoint right at the door. She knew they’d get his picture and distribute it so that he’d be kicked off of the property on sight if he ever tried to show up again.
    Ashley went back to her rounds after her ex-husband was finally gone, trying to shake off her feelings of anxiety and uncertainty. It wasn’t that she was uncertain about finally cutting him definitively out of her life; she blocked his phone number even as she was walking back to the emergency department, and felt a flood of relief. It was just that she couldn’t understand why Kent was so insistent on getting back together with her. It was strange—Kent had been so clearly and obviously ready to never see her again when they had divorced, and for months afterward he hadn’t contacted her at all. It didn’t make any sense at all. His level of anger wasn’t the normal spurned man response. Try as she might, Ashley couldn’t figure out what was going on.
    Her mind turned to thoughts of Tony, even as she moved from one patient to another. He hadn’t replied to her last text, but she wasn’t overly worried. She knew that his schedule was just as busy as hers, though in a different way. He had constant meetings, a lot on his plate. Ashley knew that he was working hard to make decisions to grow his company still bigger—that he wanted to increase revenues. She couldn’t understand everything that went into it, but then he didn’t understand the medical journals she read.
    Ashley couldn’t help but compare the man she had been with to the man she was currently seeing. She may still have misgivings about Tony’s seriousness, but she had to appreciate the fact that he was perfectly accepting of her dedication and passion. He had encouraged her on more than one occasion to tell him outright if one of his dates interfered with her schedule—if she had something come up. The difference was so striking, and yet so simple; Tony understood the fact that she was happy at the hospital, that she wanted to be the best doctor she could be. He didn’t think she was a cold fish if she was too tired to want to do anything exciting.
    For a long moment, Ashley toyed with the idea of calling him. She wanted an outside opinion on the situation with Kent; she hadn’t told Tony about her ex-husband at all—hadn’t even mentioned that she had been previously married—but she thought they had been seeing each other long enough for her to finally bring it up. It would be an awkward conversation, she knew, but it was worth having with him. She thought even if she didn’t ask what he thought about Kent, it would be nice to just hear his voice, to be reminded of his warmth and sweetness.
    Before she could make up her mind to make the phone call, Ashley’s phone buzzed. There was a patient coming into the emergency room; a child who was coming in with a bizarre set of symptoms that seemed very close to a cardiac event. Ashley rushed to get ready to receive the patient. She forgot entirely about the idea of calling Tony.
     

Peace
     
    For a day or two, Ashley didn’t think anything of the fact that Tony hadn’t responded to her, or that he hadn’t sent her a message of his own. She was so immersed in work that she almost forgot about him; when her day off came, and she woke up in the morning, she realized guiltily that she was neglecting him. But it was strange for him not to reach out to her. Even when she had been ambivalent about giving him a chance at a second date, he had contacted her fairly