Page 7 of Lethal Attraction

My scowl deepens as I try to redirect her attention. “Since you’re awake, can you tell me your name?”

“Why don’t you tell me your name?” She challenges.

“You’re really being difficult?” My jaw grinds. “You’re the one with a gunshot wound. Not me.”

“Ooh,” she drawls. “Someone has a temper.”

I lift my gloved hands, cocking a brow. “You’re really testing the man who has your life in his hands?”

She snorts, fogging the oxygen mask. “I’ve done worse. I’ll tell you what, if you show me your face, I’ll give you my name.”

Hmm. That’s not a horrible request, and records haven’t been able to find anything on this woman. She lied about having an ID on her, and I don’t want to know what she was planning to do to Wanda when the nurse discovered her pocket was empty. But this back and forth is distracting her while Dr. Woods figures out what went wrong. So, I keep it going.

“Mhm, and who’s saying I don’t already know your name?” I question.

She giggles, sounding loopy as the meds ooze through her veins. “You wish you knew my name.”

My face falls slightly behind my mask before I nod. “Maybe I do…”

Those pale eyes flicker to me, and I see something so much more. She isn’t just a pretty face, and though I’m enchanted by her, it’s the raw emotions I see lurking beneath her bravado that draws me in. She bleeds an untold story, as if her life has been far more complicated than my mind can comprehend. It’s a slap to the face, jarring me so harshly that I don’t even realize I’m lifting my hand to my mask. I pull it down, my face impassive as those haunting eyes flicker across my features. Her lids are half closed, droopy with the anesthesia pumping through her system.

“Dr. Dreamy,” she smiles slowly, looking off-kilter and high on the drugs.

I snort. “And what’s your name, Mystery Girl?”

Her eyes lizard blink into the fluorescent lights overhead. “Thalia…” she whispers before she’s dead to the world, and I’m stuck, left craving an interaction I never imagined having with a patient on my operating table.

“Dr. Bellamy?” One nurse urges.

“Right,” I clear my throat before pulling my mask back up. Heat travels along the back of my neck, and while I work to remove the bullet, our interaction replays in my head like a film.

Chapter four

Thalia

Iswear, if I open my eyes and see that old nurse hovering over me, I’m punching her right in the fucking trachea.

I crack my eyes open, ready for a literal war against the grey nurse who sedated me, but relax the moment I notice I’m alone in my room. There are two large windows to the right of me, showcasing the nighttime skyline over Miami. There’s a tray of untouched food beside me, and my face twists at what could be waiting under the dark cover shrouding the plate. The steady beeping of the monitor behind me is uniform and loud in its annoying rhythm.

This is hell.

I woke up in the underworld.

Fuck! I wish that fall had killed me.

I shift up, hissing at the pain that travels through my shoulder. I glance down, stopping when I notice the bandage wrapped around me. My hospital-issued gown is hanging half open, but I’m covered as if someone took their time to make sure nothing indecent was showing.

Dr. Dreamy.

I’m shunted into a memory of handsome, sharp features and light brown eyes with specks of gold in them. He was older, maybe middle thirties, with dark stubble and a strong nose. There was a scar over his right eyebrow, pale and healed as if whatever happened to him was too long ago for it to have been within the last ten years. His coat obscured most of him, but the moment I saw those massive hands, I knew what he was packing beneath his uniform.

The messy hair and the profound, deep emotion in his eyes were like looking into a fucking mirror. I saw myself in this complete stranger, and I had no idea who he was.

My time before the second set of anesthesia circles back, and the way he spoke so casually to me has my brow furrowing.

And what’s your name, Mystery Girl?

My pulse pounds at the memory. I know the nickname was only his way of squeezing information out of me, but Christ, did it work…