Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Ethan
She’s sitting at a barstool outside the closed cafe in the main lobby, cradling a plastic cup in her hand. The low-hanging overhead lights are my friends in how they detail every inch of her face for me.
Her eyes are closed, and her hair has escaped the knot completely. Gold highlights glint in the light, short, wavy strands framing her face. The smudged lipstick’s gone, and so is the rest of her makeup. Her lashes clump together. Whether because of tears or because she washed her face, I can’t say.
One thing’s clear though.
She’s young. Too young for me.
Innocent brown eyes pop open and skewer me as I reach the table. She might as well see into my soul and read my dark desires.
It’s unsettling to reach my age and wonder if love at first sight exists.
Although is it first sight if I’ve known her for eleven months?
I raise my hands, palms up, in surrender. “I’m sorry for behaving like an unmitigated ass.”
Surprise slackens her lovely mouth, which I realize I didn’t pay attention to—big oversight.
Her lips are dark pink, the upper one fashioned like a perfect bow. A drop of her milky coffee lingers right in the middle. She licks it off as I watch, transfixed.
“It’s okay,” she says, waving me off. Then she shakes her head. Her stiff shoulders droop. “No, it’s not okay. But it doesn’t mean I can’t accept your apology.”
I frown. “So, you do?”
She nods and looks down into her cup.
I drag a chair close and perch myself on it. “They said Mom’s surgery went well.” I’m being manipulative as hell, but I’ll take every advantage I can get. “She’ll need extensive physical therapy, but her knee can recover full mobility.”
The shadows in her eyes disappear instantly. “Oh, I’m so glad. Martha would hate to lose her freedom.”
“I didn’t have time to say this on the phone earlier this week,” I say jumping to fill the stretched silence. “But thank you for taking such good care of her this last year. You pumped new life into her.”
She scrubs a hand over her eyes. Those are tears that cluster like tiny diamonds over her long lashes. “I didn’t take care of her, Dr. Cross. I just lived with her, made her feel less alone, I think. She’s the one who…” She drags a rough breath in and shakes her head again.
“Who what, Ms. Rao?” I demand. That near-violent curiosity strikes me again. I want to know what she bit off. I want to know all her secrets.
I want to take her home with me tonight.
The realization, and how impossible it is, makes me fall back against the stiff chair. I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I don’t fight it either.
For the first time in two decades, a woman has caught my interest. Every little detail I know about her keeps adding to my desire, like adding small bits of kindling to an already flaming fire.
“I learned a lot from Martha.” She looks back into her cup again. “She helped me more than I helped her. I’m very grateful for these eleven months with her.”
“May I ask why you’re leaving then?” I blurt out. “If you aren’t happy with the compensation—”
“No, you may not,” she retorts, but it doesn’t have the earlier bite to it. Her tone is wary when she says, “Can I ask you something? About Martha?”
I nod.
“After this injury, what are your plans? I know it’s not my concern, but I would like to know.”
“She’ll move in with me.”
“Martha hates New York,” she says with such vehemence that I grin.
There’s the girl I want, peeking from behind the shadows. The girl who went toe-to-toe with me on the phone about not treating Mom like an invalid.
Her shoulders squirm before she meets my gaze again. The wounded look is slowly melting away, bringing that initial interest back into her eyes. It lights her up as if she were standing under stadium lights. “Not meant as a judgment on you.”
“Don’t worry. If anything, you have earned the right to question my decisions in this matter.” I lean forward and touch the tips of my fingers to hers lightly on the table. “I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot, Ms. Rao. And that’s totally on me. Ask me anything.”
“Anything regarding Martha, right?” She taps my fingers, then pulls away. That quick touch goes straight to my cock. “Or are you allowed as a topic too?”
I snag my lower lip with my teeth, fighting the savage satisfaction flowing through me from showing in my face. This girl is into me.
I might not play the swipe right/left games like some residents I boss around at the hospital, but I know interest when I see it. Sense it with my whole body. I feel like a randy teenager, but with the wisdom of a man who’s been knocked to his knees by life a few times.
“Are you? Interested in me?” I ask, riding the high.
A flush claims her cheeks. Fuck, but she’s pretty when she blushes. Her lips tremble, and she sighs, giving in. “You’ve become a near-mythical figure in my head the way Martha and Arthur talk about you. It’s idle curiosity.”
“Ahh… so you aren’t sure of my mother’s view that I’m nearly god-like in looks, wealth, and wisdom.”
Her mouth twitches. “Something like that,” she says, all grace.
A full-body flush overtakes me. At least, she isn’t holding my earlier behavior against me. “That’s a challenge if I’ve ever heard one, Ms. Rao. You’re provoking me into making an ass of myself once again.”
She laughs. It’s a deep, hearty sound that steals under my skin, into my sinew, taking residence deep in my heart. Her front two teeth overlap, but her smile is brighter than the domed lights hanging over us.
“You’re exquisite.” I breathe out, desire coating each word but unable to keep it out.
Fuck, what if she thinks I’m an old, perverted creep who preys on a young woman like her? How do I tell her I’ve never, ever, done this? Jesus, the last date I’ve been on was six years ago.
She meets my gaze. And there’s that thread of desire again in hers. “Thank you. You’re kind, especially given my current state.”
I follow her gaze down to the bodice of the sequin dress clinging to her tits. I want to run my palm over those scratchy things, feel her heart beating underneath. See how she reacts to my touch.
“I’m not kind at all.” I need to be honest with her from the get-go, my gut tells me. And I listen to it. “If anything, I’m being the opposite of kind.”
Her pert nose scrunches adorably. “Which is what?”
I tap the table with my knuckles, weighing how far I should go. Tension thrums through me as if I’m a tightrope walker at a carnival. I haven’t been this worried even when cutting into a patient in a long while. “Selfish, I guess.”
“Oh.” The color in her cheeks deepens. “Selfish how?” she says, as if she wants to make sure we’re on the same page.
“I’ll answer that if you allow me one question.”
Her gaze skids to my mouth for one infinitesimal second and jerks away. The smooth swells of her tits thrust up from the neckline as her chest rises and falls.
“The man you dressed up for… why isn’t he checking up on you?” I try to clear my voice of judgment. And fail, badly. “There’s a storm brewing outside, and it’s late.”
“He texted me earlier. I told him to leave me alone.” She stares at her phone, flicking the screen on and off.
I stay silent, aware of the fact that she’s weighing how much to tell me, how much to trust the connection that crackles between us.
My stomach rolls as she looks up, decision made. “He and I have been wrong together from the beginning.”
Relief floods me in powerful waves. I hide my shaking hands in my lap. She sounds sad about it, like she should have recognized it sooner. But not heartbroken.
I can work with that.
Picking up her phone, she softly slams it face down. Her chin lifts, and I can clock the exact moment she decides to pursue this. To pursue me. “I answered your question.” When I stay silent, she prompts, “How are you being selfish?”
As if I need the reminder.
“I want to spend the night getting to know you. In fact, I want to take you back to my hotel suite.”
Her eyes glitter with dawning understanding. To give her credit, she’s not surprised, nor does she fake it to play coy. I like her even better for that.
She simply holds my gaze. As if she understands the heaviness of the moment, of the very air around us.
“I said no excuses,” I say, shaking my head ruefully. “And I hate that whole ‘boys pull girls’ braids because they like them’ bullshit. But I was thrown by my physical reaction to you. Then, to discover that you’re the one Mom praises endlessly, the one I trust implicitly, was a shock. Of the ‘shake the foundations of my life’ kind.”
She gives me her full attention, and that makes me take another step.
“This might sound completely nuts, but I feel like we’re already in a relationship, Ms. Rao. But we’re doing things out of order, and the meet-cute is the only thing left.”
Her eyes widen, and she grins. “You know what a meet-cute is.”
I chuckle. “I’m forty-three, not decrepit. And my son’s a closet romance reader.”
“Jonah?” she says, sounding delighted by the concept.
I nod. “It felt like I was losing you before realizing I could have you. Why I acted so rudely.” The words come pouring out of me. “I have never asked a woman to come home with me like this. Not even during my college days.”
“Which must have been a while ago,” she says.
I bark a laugh. She did it to puncture the building tension, to give us both a moment to breathe. Which means she can feel the avalanche building around us, propelled further by every stolen glance.
Her fingers follow the patterns the light fixture casts on the oak grain. “I-I have never done this before, either.”
“So, you’re considering it,” I say, pouncing on the distinction.
She grins. Then something flashes across her face, and the grin drops. “To be honest, I have no place to go tonight. The friend whose couch I was supposed to sleep on this week…” She catches herself. “I can’t go there now. For reasons.”
As if the very universe is conspiring to help me, lightning flashes across the sky, visible through the revolving doors at the entrance. The boom of thunder is close behind, a more visceral warning to speed this conversation up.
“We can reach my hotel via the skywalk,” I say, rising. “I insist, for your safety.”
She looks out the doors and then back at me. “Can we take it as we go, Dr. Cross?” Her gaze zooms to my lips and holds. “As slow or as fast as I want?”
I drag a deep breath in. Fuck, if only I could show her what her trust does to me. “Yes, absolutely.”
She pulls the collar of her flimsy jacket closer around her shoulders. “I’m notorious for making poor decisions, and I don’t want this to be another one.”
That lightning bolt might as well have struck me because energy fills me in fizzy, electric tendrils. I grab her hand, turn it over, and rub my fingers over her knuckles. “Then I’ll make damned sure it’s not.”
She clasps my hand tighter. “Martha will be okay?”
I nod and drag her with me.
No time to waste.
I only have one night to see where this leads, one night to make her mine.