Chapter 4
4
ST PATRICK’S HOSPITAL, MANHATTAN, USA
Oliver felt as if he had the contents of a toolbox in his mouth. Every single spanner and a dirty wrench. A horrid, metallic taste tainted his tongue and the flesh on the inside of both cheeks. It was making him nauseous – as was the chattering machine next to the hospital bed that was recording every movement of his heart. All the doctors arriving en masse when he’d been admitted had since disappeared. He was prostrate on the bed, the sensation in his chest now nothing more than a numb ache, Clara tapping on her phone next to him. Worry was etched on her forehead. He couldn’t be here any more. He hated these places and he needed to get back to work, get to the bottom of all that was going on with Regis Software. He tried to move into a half-sitting position.
‘Oliver, don’t you dare move. The nurse said you need to lie completely still.’ Clara clamped a hand to his forearm, dropping her phone into her lap.
‘I just need to see what this damn machine is saying and then I can get out of here.’ He craned his neck. ‘What’s it saying?’ He tried to focus his eyes on the graph shapes appearing on the screen.
‘It’s saying if you don’t lie still, your personal assistant is going to get the meanest nurse she can find,’ Clara retorted. ‘Try to stay calm.’
‘In this place?! Are you kidding?’ He flopped back down.
He didn’t need to read the graph to know what it was saying. Those humps and bumps, the lines rising and falling, they only meant one thing. Heart attack . He knew without any shadow of a doubt. It was his destiny. It wasn’t a case of ‘if’ but ‘when’. It was genetic, written in family history. This was what the male Drummonds had in their future. Heart problems and eventually… death.
That realisation weighed on his shoulders like an unmoveable snow drift. Maybe this year was it for him. Time out, nothing else, not even making thirty. Like his brother.
‘It’s not a heart attack.’
Now his PA was apparently a mind reader, although clearly no physician. Oliver stared up at the ceiling, looking into the pattern of the off-white tiles, a string of cheap, silver tinsel hanging lamely from one crack. It looked like someone hated Christmas just as much as he did.
He wasn’t going to meet Clara’s eyes. The woman was just trying to keep his spirits up. That’s all people knew how to do in situations like this. She knew his family story. She knew the inevitable ending.
His tightened chest had definitely slackened slightly, but it wouldn’t stay that way. It would take him over again when he wasn’t ready, another time, another place.
‘When my first husband had his first heart attack, he turned the colour of a well-ripened plum. Then, when he hit the floor, he was paler than a hockey mask.’
Oliver swallowed away a sick feeling burning his stomach. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this.
‘His second heart attack was different. Sweating, confusion… he said it was like having a wrecking ball on his chest. ’
‘Was there a third?’
Clara nodded. ‘Oh yes, the third one killed him.’
He’d heard all he needed to. There was no escape from this death sentence and now he just wanted out of here. He began ripping the monitors off his chest and flailing up to a sitting position. ‘Don’t tell me any more.’
‘Oliver, put those back on.’
‘I can’t be here.’
He was just pulling the very last round sucker from his chest when the door opened and a dark-haired woman wearing a white coat and carrying a clipboard entered the room. She was beautiful. Asian colouring, cat-like eyes, full lips. Oliver toyed with the sticker in his hand like a kid being caught with his hand in the candy jar.
‘Mr Drummond, sorry I was called away.’ She looked at his fingers holding the sensor that was supposed to be flat on his chest. ‘I see you got impatient.’ The corners of her mouth lifted in a wry smile.
He watched her walk confidently to the machine. She pressed some buttons and began making notes on her chart.
‘I’m sorry, Doctor. I told him to keep still but he isn’t the best at following instructions,’ Clara spoke up.
The doctor finished writing before looking up, smiling at Clara and clicking off her pen. ‘I have a lot of patients like that.’ She looked to Oliver. ‘Nearly all of them male.’
He swallowed. This was a woman in control. It was intoxicating and, for a second, he felt completely disarmed. He needed to find his rhythm here. He gripped the buttons of his shirt and began to fasten them together. He was still here, alive. His heart hadn’t beaten him in this round and he wasn’t going to be throwing in the towel that easily. It was just like NFL. He’d never stopped giving his all for that. He needed to remember that feeling .
He set his hazel eyes on her. ‘So, what’s the verdict, Doctor? Am I going to be well enough to take you out to dinner tonight?’
And there he was. Back in the game. There was amusement in her expression as a smile reached her lips, a glint of acknowledgement in her eyes.
‘For God’s sake, Oliver.’ Clara exhaled a breath of annoyance.
The doctor’s eyes looked him up and down, from his leather shoes, up through his designer trousers, to the tailored shirt he was just finishing doing up. ‘You had a panic attack.’
Her words crushed his libido like a snowplough clearing the streets. He was shaking his head without even knowing it. A panic attack? Panic. Weak. Desperate. Small penis .
But just what was he thinking here? This was a good thing. It wasn’t a heart attack. This was great . He blew out a breath.
‘Your symptoms are a classic case of hyperventilation,’ the doctor continued.
‘No,’ Oliver shook his head. It may not be a heart attack but he was damn sure it wasn’t panic either. Panic wasn’t in the Drummond nature. ‘It wasn’t like that at all.’ He looked to Clara. ‘I wasn’t gasping for breath like some sort of asthmatic and I wasn’t panicked.’
‘Mr Drummond, it isn’t like most people think. Hyperventilation is a complex reaction the body makes when it needs to try to get you to slow everything down.’
He shook his head again. This did not compute. Whatever had happened was everything to do with his family history and nothing to do with being a lightweight.
‘I don’t do slowing down, Doctor…’ He scrutinised the identity badge hanging from a lanyard around her neck. ‘Doctor Khan. I run a global business.’
‘Oliver,’ Clara had her calming voice on now. It was the tone she used when she thought he’d gone too far in a meeting, when he’d made one heated comment too many. Well, he hadn’t in this case. He wasn’t going to listen to some junior doctor tell him the pain and his collapse was due to something excited teenagers got at a Taylor Swift concert.
‘Mr Drummond, I can only imagine the sort of pressure you’re under at work. People in your position, under that amount of stress on a regular basis, you’re susceptible to all kinds of health issues that aren’t always immediately apparent.’
She might be beautiful but he wasn’t going to let her tell him this was to do with panicking. He had never panicked in his life. He wasn’t even sure he knew how to do it.
‘You’re aware of my family history?’
‘Yes. I did a quick review of your file. Would you like me to?—’
He cut her off. ‘You’re sure it wasn’t a heart attack.’ It wasn’t a question so much as a statement.
The doctor nodded. ‘Your blood pressure is slightly elevated but everything else is completely as it should be. For complete peace of mind, my suggestion would be to?—’
He raised himself up off the bed, standing to his full six feet and picking his tie from the counter. ‘Thank you, but if I’m not dying today then I think we’re done here.’ He smiled at Doctor Khan, regaining his composure and control before dipping a hand into the pocket of his trousers.
‘My card,’ he said, offering it to her. ‘If you want to take me up on the dinner offer.’
He could almost feel Clara raise her eyes to Heaven.