Page 7
She pivots and whispers to a colleague dressed in similar scrubs before walking off. As the minutes stretch on, I settle in the waiting room. Just when I start to wonder if the nurse slipped out to avoid me and my request, Dr. Lucia Romano rounds the corner.
When her eyes land on me, she freezes.
“You.” Her shoulders lock, and her spine straightens.
I chuckle, and my side twinges a little.
“Miss me, Dottoressa?”
Rather than answer, she silently ushers me into the exam room behind her, a curtained bay with a gurney, a monitor, and the sharp, lingering scent of rubbing alcohol.
Lucia pulls the curtain shut behind us with finality, then sheathes her hands with gloves. She then peels back the bandage and inhales through her nose.
“You ignored the discharge instructions.”
“I’m not a man who sticks to the rules.”
The antiseptic burns as she dabs the wound a little too hard, her eyes glowing with what I could swear looks like malice.
A sharp hiss escapes my gritted teeth.
“Your vocabulary doesn’t include the word ‘gentle,’ does it?” I raise an eyebrow in challenge.
She keeps her gaze on the stitching. “A man who struggles to follow rules shouldn’t whine about the consequences of his actions.”
What a fiery woman.
After the two Bratva men poked their Russian noses into the room last night, she must have gleaned that I’m mafia. No doubt that played a large part in her absence from dinner.
Despite her conclusion regarding my profession, she exhibits none of the fear or nervousness I would have expected. Her chin is lifted, her weight settled back on her heels, and the faintest smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth. She wants me to know that she’s enjoying every second of having me at her mercy.
She pokes at the wound again, drawing another hiss from me. “Careful, Dottoressa. I might come to the conclusion that you’re a sadist.”
Her green eyes snap up to mine and narrow as she scoffs. “Trust me, Mr. Santori. If I were enjoying this, you’d know.”
A big grin immediately splits my face. “So, you remember my name.”
“I tend to do a little digging when I get text messages from a man I didn’t give my number to. If I’m going to get kidnapped and stabbed, I’d rather see the knife coming. Unlike you.” She offers a poignant nod to my unfortunate injury, and one of her eyebrows cocks upward in an undeniably charming way.
“Oh, really?”
I swear a grin flickers on her lips before her face disappears below my chin again. With her hair now directly in my line of sight, I spot the dark strand that’s escaped that severe high ponytail. That single strand rests against her cheek, and my fingers itch to reach out and tuck it behind her ear. I curl my hand into a fist on my thigh, my gaze zeroing in on the faint coffee stain on her scrubs.
“So, what did you find out about me?”
She raises her head to peer at me with clinical precision. “Marco Santori. The Lightning Fist. Three-time junior regional champion turned Sports Illustrated golden boy.” She presses a fresh square of gauze against the injury, again with more force than necessary, cuing a stinging ache. “Then came the doping scandal. How far you’ve fallen, from magazine covers to organized crime.”
My jaw locks. “You treat criminals in an underfunded ER. You aren’t exactly saving the world either.”
Her hand slips. As antiseptic floods raw tissue, white-hot pain flares across my side. My hands fold into fists on the bed, but my eyes remain fixed on hers.
She observes my muted reaction. “You’re that type, are you?” Her eyebrows twitch. “You’re the kind of guy who thinks absorbing pain makes him strong. I’ve seen it before. Men like you get so used to being hurt by the people closest to them that, eventually, they stop flinching altogether.” Her eyes hold mine. “Your trainer taught you that, didn’t he? Hope it wasn’t that ideology to numb the pain that pushed you to cheat?”
A smile ghosts her lips, signaling that she thinks she’s scored a direct hit. My anger sparks a wildfire that spreads across my senses.
Enough of this.
I don’t let her finish. Instead, I grab the gauze bandage on her table, wrap it around my torso to cover the cleansed wound, yank my shirt down, and shrug into my jacket. As I stand to leave, the room feels smaller.
