Chapter 11 #3
Dylan muttered, “Snitch.”
I ignored him.
Bennett laughed. “Good to know. She’s tough on everybody, Degan. Don’t take it personally.”
“I don’t.”
Lie.
The air snapped with it.
Bennett, who was a doctor and therefore occasionally blind to things that did not appear on imaging, kept going. “Actually, Rourke, I’ve been meaning to ask if you’re off this weekend.”
My hand stopped on the tablet.
Dylan went utterly still.
Oh no.
Absolutely not.
“Doctor,” I said carefully.
Bennett smiled like he thought my tone was flirtation instead of warning. “There’s this new place near Old Town. Good mezcal, supposedly decent food. I thought maybe?—”
“Dr. Bennett.”
“What?” His smile widened. “Is that a no?”
I looked at Dylan.
Mistake.
His eyes were fixed on Bennett with such cold, controlled fury that for half a second I forgot he was the one in the hospital bed.
No defense team lurking around.
No Edge in the doorway.
No Tarak ready to break fingers.
No Regan with that look that could make grown men apologize for thoughts they had not finished having.
Just Dylan.
Wounded, engaged, half-drugged, and looking at another man like the world had briefly forgotten who I belonged to.
Except I did not belong to him.
That was the problem.
I turned back to Bennett and gave him the only smile I could manage. “You can’t ask me out in front of my favorite patient, Doc.”
Bennett blinked.
Then laughed.
Dylan did not.
“Favorite?” Dylan asked.
His voice was low.
I kept my eyes on the chart. “Clinically speaking.”
“Clinically,” he repeated.
“Is that still a no?” Bennett asked, because apparently medical school did not teach survival instincts.
Dylan’s hand curled against the sheet.
I saw it.
So did he, probably.
His knuckles went white, then pain flashed across his face before he could hide it.
My nurse instincts overrode everything.
“Do not tense your abdomen,” I snapped.
His eyes came back to me.
“Then tell him to stop flirting.”
The room went silent.
Bennett’s brows lifted.
My heart kicked hard against my ribs.
Dylan’s face gave nothing away except the fact that he had said exactly what he meant and regretted none of it.
“Excuse me?” I said.
His gaze held mine.
“You heard me.”
Anger rose fast.
Good.
Anger was cleaner than longing.
“You’re my patient,” I said.
“I noticed.”
“And Dr. Bennett is checking your chart.”
“Is he?”
Bennett cleared his throat. “I am, in fact, checking the chart.”
Dylan’s eyes did not leave mine. “Could’ve fooled me.”
Heat rushed up my neck.
Not embarrassment exactly.
Something worse.
Because I could feel the possessiveness in him. Could feel the fury and jealousy like a pulse. Could feel every buried thing he had no right to show me now, not after choosing Georgia’s hand over mine.
I stepped closer to the bed, lowering my voice. “You don’t get to do that.”
Bennett shifted, suddenly very interested in the monitor.
Dylan’s jaw flexed. “Do what?”
“Act like this.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Like what?”
“Like it matters who asks me to dinner.”
The words landed.
Hard.
Dylan flinched.
Not much.
Enough.
For one brief second, the anger slipped from his face and what was underneath nearly ruined me.
Longing.
Raw.
Helpless.
Full of every unsaid thing we had spent years bleeding around.
Then he blinked, and the wall came back.
“You’re right,” he said.
The words sounded dragged from him.
I hated them.
I wanted him to fight.
I wanted him to stop.
I wanted too many things at once, and none of them were decent.
“Good,” I said.
My voice was steadier than my hands.
Bennett looked between us.
Finally, finally, something like comprehension dawned.
Too late, but at least it arrived.
“I’ll come back later,” he said.
“Doctor,” I said, grateful and mortified.
He gave me a look that was not unkind, then glanced at Dylan. “Try not to pick fights with your blood pressure.”
Dylan said nothing.
Bennett left.
The door closed behind him.
The silence he left was worse.
I stared at the tablet.
Dylan stared at me.
Neither of us spoke.
The monitor beeped.
Steady.
Too fast.
Mine might have matched it if anyone bothered to hook me up.
Finally, Dylan said, “You going to go?”
“To Old Town?”
His mouth tightened.
I should not have asked.
I knew that.
But some bitter part of me wanted to see if he would bleed openly or keep pretending he had no wound where I was concerned.
“No,” I said. “I’m not going.”
His breath left him slowly.
Relief.
There it was.
Clear as sunrise.
I hated him for showing it.
I hated myself for noticing.
“You look relieved,” I said.
“I’m in pain.”
“Convenient.”
His eyes lifted to mine.
“I am relieved.”
The honesty hit me so sharply I had to look away.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
He said nothing.
I looked back at him.
His face was pale. Exhausted. Angry in a way that seemed mostly aimed at himself. He had survived a bullet, surgery, and flatlining, but apparently jealousy was what brought color back to his cheeks.
“You’re engaged,” I said.
The words hung in the room like a blade.
His gaze flicked toward the empty chair.
Georgia’s sweater.
Georgia’s coffee.
Georgia’s promise.
“I know.”
“You chose her.”
His eyes came back to mine.
Something in them broke.
“I know.”
I nodded.
One small, professional nod.
Because if I did anything else, I might say all the things I had no right to say while another woman’s cardigan hung three feet away.
“Then don’t look at me like that.”
His voice dropped.
“How am I looking at you?”
Like Cabo.
Like the grave.
Like the ICU.
Like I’m the thing you want and the thing you won’t let yourself have.
Like you forgot for one second that you promised yourself to someone else.
Like I’m yours.
I said none of it.
Instead, I reached for his chart and typed something meaningless just to make my fingers move.
“Like you’re going to make both of us worse,” I said.
That got him.
His mouth parted slightly.
No words came.
Good.
I was glad.
I was devastated.
I finished the vitals, checked the line, documented what needed documenting, and stepped back.
“I’ll let your nurse know your pain is increasing.”
“Destiny.”
My name in his mouth almost ended me.
Not Beautiful.
Not Nurse Rourke.
Destiny.
I looked at him.
He swallowed, the movement pained.
“I didn’t know you’d be assigned here.”
“I know.”
“I wouldn’t have?—”
“What?” I asked softly. “Looked?”
His face tightened.
I gave him the smallest smile.
It hurt.
“Because we both know that’s not true.”
He closed his eyes.
I moved toward the door.
Before I reached it, it opened.
Georgia stood there with a coffee tray in one hand and a paper bag tucked against her hip.
She stopped when she saw me.
Then her eyes moved past me to Dylan.
To his face.
To whatever was still written there despite all his effort to erase it.
The room changed again.
Georgia’s smile faltered.
Not gone.
Just wounded before she could hide it.
“I brought breakfast,” she said.
Her voice was bright in the way women sounded when they had already cried and refused to do it again in front of witnesses.
I stepped aside immediately.
“His vitals are stable,” I said. “Pain is elevated. I’ll update the nurse.”
Georgia nodded.
“Thank you.”
Two words.
Civil.
Awful.
I looked at Dylan one last time.
He was looking at me.
Georgia saw that too.
Of course she did.
Women always knew.
I walked out before the room could ask any more of me.
In the hallway, I pressed my back against the wall for exactly three seconds.
Three.
No more.
Inside Dylan’s room, Georgia’s voice softened. His answered, rough and low.
I could not make out the words.
Good.
I did not want them.
I wanted too much already.
I pushed away from the wall and walked back toward the nurses’ station, pulse still racing, hands still steady, heart still stupid enough to ache because a wounded, engaged man had glared at a doctor for asking me to dinner.
Possessive.
Jealous.
Mine and not mine.
And the worst part was this:
For one brief, terrible second, when Dylan looked at me like he wanted to tear the room apart because another man had smiled too long, I had not felt ashamed.
I had felt wanted.
Then I remembered Georgia’s ring.
And the shame came back twice as sharp.