AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Going into the operating room, the only doctor on call that could operate on the man, she started telling the others what to do long before the door behind her had swung closed.
Her first move was to remove the nail from the board. In order to do that, she was going to have to pull it free. Then, she would clean out each of the wounds, stitching them together as the nail made its way from the large section of wood to his thigh, which was the starting point. Once she started cleaning the thigh, she realized just how lucky that he’d been in missing femoral vein.
He might well have bled out if he’d nicked that. The man had waited an entire hour before calling an ambulance to come and get him. He was, rightly so, embarrassed. He’d told the medics that when they arrived and thought that he could remove it on his own.
“I would like to make time to speak to you.” She told Madison as he spoke to her through the link that she supposed they shared as mates, that she was very busy right now at work. “Yes, all right. I don’t even know what you do for a living. And I only just found out that— I’ll wait. Contact me please when you have time.”
“Will you get out of my head so that I can operate on this man? Christ, you certainly know just how to time shit, don’t you?” He told her again that he was sorry and then he left her. But not entirely. She could still feel him there and was so angry that she had to take several deep breaths in order to do her job.
Concentrating on the job at hand, Layla was able to save the man’s leg. He would have to be in therapy for a good long time. He’d done a lot of muscle damage, and she had been thinking that he’d lose his entire leg. But when she started to look his damage over, she thought that he’d be all right so long as he got his head out of his ass and started acting like the adult that he was. Shaking her head just as he was being wheeled to recovery, Layla was nearly out of the room when someone knocked on the ceiling above her.
“Christ, you’re wonderful.” Layla almost didn’t know who was up in the gallery until Madison pulled his mask off his face. “I’m sorry, but I loved watching you work. My brothers were all doctors at some point in their lives. However, it was never anything that I thought I’d be any good at. You’re really good.”
“Are you spying on me?” He said that he deserved that. He’d been an ass. Layla stared at him for several seconds, not understanding the change in him when she headed for the prep area. “I have stuff I have to get done. Whatever you want right now will have to wait. I have to go and tell a very pregnant woman that her husband is a moron and that she should leave him while the getting out is good.”
“You really wouldn’t say that, would you?” She rolled her eyes, just remembering that he couldn’t see her. “Nah, I might well have done that a few days ago. But you’d never do that. You’re very nice and generous with your job. That made a great deal more sense in my head. But you’d think that I believe that his wife would, too, but you’d not say it. It’s not your—”
“Do you have a fucking point while you’re rambling around in my head? Didn’t I just tell you that I have stuff to do?” He laughed, a sound that she’d never heard from him before. “Who are you really? Any one of your brothers has been nice to me, but not you. You’ve been a prick since I met you. And if you think about it, that wasn’t my fault either. You should have just let the bullets spray into me, and your life and my own would have been a good deal better.”
“Don’t say that. Please? I’ve fucked everything up but would like to have a second or even a dozen more chances to make it up to you. Please?” She said that she didn’t want him around. “I can understand that as well. But I’d like to make it up to you. As much as I’ve fucked up, I’m sure that it will take me centuries to get even one percent of what I’ve done to you and said to you. I’m sorry. With all my heart, I’m profoundly sorry.”
She didn’t want him to apologize to her but to get out of her life. When she was finished up with her clean up and changing into her clean scrubs, she made her way out of the area to meet with the people that were here with the young man.
Making her way home, she was happy to hear on her voicemail that the paperwork had gone through for Madison, and she’d be able to pay off some of her immediate debt. Also, she thought that Madison had overpaid. But it would go a long way in cleaning up the debt that her parents have left for her to take care of. Stretching her neck, she listened to the voicemail four times when it said that the person who had bought the house had paid cash and that she could pick up the money at any time. Soon, she begged. It was a great deal of money. She reached out to him to find out what the hell kind of game he was playing with her.
“I’m in the parking lot of your apartment. Can I—I had no idea that it was your home that I bought. I’m not sorry, but could I come up, and you can tell me why you’re so angry with me?” She asked him if he was seriously asking her why she was angry. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I…may I come in? I’m not going to knock—you seem to have some very nosy neighbors.”
“They don’t piss me off as much as you do.” She opened the door and saw him standing there. If she was smart, she thought that she should have slammed the door in his face and told him to go away. But she was curious what he’d been thinking when he’d bought her home. Not that she didn’t need the money, but she didn’t want him to have it.
“I’m part vampire. You need to invite me in.” She said that she liked that. Then asked him about the last time when he’d been here. “I didn’t come into your home until I was mostly dragon. I guess, and I didn’t know this, it matters what I am before I have to be asked.”
“You can come into my home this one time. But I reserve the right to uninvite you if you give me any shit.” He smiled at her. A good look on him, she thought. “Well?”
“Thank you.” When he stepped over the threshold, she right then realized that he was a big man. Not that she’d not been around him before but this time, it seemed like he was filling every space of her apartment. “This is a tiny place. May I ask why you were living here instead of the family home?”
“I can’t afford it. I have debt from when my parents were alive.” He pulled something out of his suit jacket and told her that he’d forgotten to give this to her. “What is it? It’s a check.”
“Yes, when you were hospitalized the first time that I was here, I petitioned to the courts that I be able to have the right to collect your money. Since then, I’ve been able to do some serious research on your parent’s debt as well as…would you have dinner with me? Now? I’ve not eaten all that much today, and I’m suddenly famished.” Her own belly echoed his thoughts of being hungry, and it took that time to growl loudly. “I’m going to take that as a yes. Is there anything that you won’t eat? I mean, I could go for about anything right now.”
“I don’t eat all that much meat.” He said that he could do that for her. “No. I won’t have you giving up on something that you like just thinking to impress me. We’ll go where we can get both. And I said I don’t eat that much. I didn’t say that I didn’t eat it ever.”
By the time she’d changed out of her everyday clothing, he had made them reservations at a nearby restaurant. She’d not dressed up, thinking about what he had on with a suit jacket and jeans but she did feel much better in her favorite flowing skirt and a light blouse and jacket. They were out the door in a few minutes and on their way when she remembered the check. Pulling it out of her backpack/purse, she asked him about it.
“Oh. Well, I didn’t do it out of the kindness of my heart, I’m ashamed to say. I had my mom—and please don’t kill me but I had my mom file some paperwork that made it look as if we were husband and wife. I couldn’t allow that much money to go to those men. I’ve had it at my apartment for the last few weeks, but I kept forgetting about it.” He glanced at her, and she thanked him. “I was afraid that you’d be pissed off. But as I said, my mom is looking into what happened to your inheritance from your parents. I don’t know when or how they passed away, but my mom has found a great deal of information that you need to be made aware of.”
“This will make a huge difference for me. Plus, the sale of the house that you purchased. Did you know that I owned it?” He nearly drove off the road when he looked at her. “Yeah, lack of conversation, I guess. But it’s been in my family for generations, each person that lived there would do some major renovations on it for the next that came into it. What on earth possessed you to pay that much for it?”
“I fell in love with it as soon as I pulled into the driveway. I didn’t know who owned it, but I put in a bid so that I would have it at whatever the cost.” He pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and looked at her after shutting off the car. “May I ask why you had to sell it? You can tell me to fuck off. I’m sure you’ve done that at least a dozen times, but why did you do it? It seems to be the perfect place for you to live.”
“My parents were in debt up to their eyes when they passed away. My brother, he’s gone too had gone to prison for a life sentence, and they were responsible for—actually, I don’t know if they should have been responsible for his debt, but they owed millions of dollars to several families when Thomas killed a bunch of people when he’d been depressed. He’d been found guilty of their deaths, which was, if you ask me, a no-brainer. He confessed to it at his trial, but Mom and Dad were paying people through our attorneys. Well, their attorney. I never trusted them.” He told her that with what his mom was telling him that it was a good thing that she didn’t trust them. “I don’t know what that means. Did they have to pay those families or not?”
“Not.” That had her thinking about all the money that she’d paid out to the attorneys who had taken the money without a single thought as to how much this was hurting her financially. She looked at Madison as soon as they sat down. “I’ve asked my parents to join us. I hope that’s all right. Mom will be able to explain a great deal more than I could. And my dad just wants to sit with a pretty woman.”
Nodding at him, she knew that his dad was a flirt. A harmless one, but he was an outrageous flirt all the same. She didn’t know if she cared all that much for his mom. She was pushy and opinionated. Much like she was. But she was his mom, and she couldn’t tell her off like she might well have others.
As soon as his parents showed up with David, her boss, she knew something more than just a few bucks were being stolen from her. David had been crying, something he rarely did when he was out in public. He was, like Alex a flirt, an emotional man. When Daniel showed up, she sat up straighter in her chair.
Daniel and David had been partners forever, she thought. They complimented one another well, and opposite attractions were perfectly balanced in their relationship. Layla had been to their home several times over the years and had thought well of them both. However showing up at a meeting like this one had her jumpy.
