Chapter 5 Marcus
MARCUS
My staff are shouting, and the stranger’s voice rips louder than all of them.
What now? A threat in broad daylight?
My receptionist said something about…an animal? I’ve had rats and squirrels dumped at my door, back when that whole Bronx-hospital fiasco blew up, which Liam nobly rebranded as “community outreach.” But this sounds different.
Is this some activist stunt? Against the beauty industry, maybe, or some lunatic group trying to make headlines in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis? But why target me?
Whoever’s raising hell out there, she’s doing it for attention. She even threw Charles Pompeo’s name into the mix. Was she paid by a network? But it doesn’t track. Bought by another organization? Possibly. But the angles don’t line up.
I’m not about to cower behind my office door while my staff get trampled. If someone’s here to make a spectacle, they’ll find I don’t spook easily.
I step out.
There are no banners, no activists waving signs, and no pig on a leash. Just a young woman in the center of my marble lobby, poised to kick my security while clutching a filthy mutt. Her eyes blaze, her hair falling loose.
And in the corner, Mrs. Milano, my most delicate client, is pressed into the wall with her Hermès bag clutched to her chest. The absurdity almost makes me laugh.
This isn’t a protest. It’s trouble of a different breed.
“Mr. Lockwood, stay inside. We’ll handle this,” my security guard urges while my receptionist whisks Mrs. Milano to another room.
“I’ll see you shortly, Mrs. Milano,” I say, already moving past my guard.
Threats, stunts…nothing new. But the sight of a young woman clutching a ragged mutt stops me in my tracks. If the Hunts ever caught wind of this, they would laugh themselves sick.
“You’re looking for me?” I say evenly. “I’m here.”
She stares. But it’s not the coy, suggestive look I’m used to from women who come with an agenda. This one’s rigid, caught between shock and defiance. I know the feeling. My gut’s twisting, but hell if I’ll show it.
Her face hardens. “Don’t even think about kicking me out.”
“I don’t usually smile at someone trying to make a scene in my clinic,” I reply. “But trust me, this is my friendly face.”
Our eyes lock, each of us daring the other to blink first.
“I need you to help my dog,” she finally says.
They say there’s a first for everything. I’m still trying to believe this one just happened in my clinic.
“Follow me,” I say.
There’s too much I need to say, though not here, where anyone with a phone can twist it. She could scream that I torture rabbits for face cream, ignorant of the fact that I built my name on refusing that exact bullshit.
I lead her through the hallway.
“You’re not locking me in while your staff call the cops,” she fires back. “You’ll see to this dog, or else.”
My instinct is to shut her down and remind her whose clinic this is. But there’s something in the standoff, something in her, that almost drags a smile out of me. I crush it down. This won’t make tonight’s banter at The Station Bar, but it’ll stay in my head longer than it should.
“No police,” I tell her, opening the door. “No tricks.”
She hesitates, then crosses the threshold into my consultation room, glancing at my name shining on the mahogany.
“Put the dog there,” I say, pointing to a clear patch beside the desk.
She sets him down. The mutt doesn’t move, just huddles, his eyes dull. His hind leg is hanging wrong, the flesh exposed, the skin wet. Jesus.
But first things first. The young woman looks absurdly innocent, but I’m not taking any chances, so I call my nurse and say, “Check her.”
“Wait, what?” my guest snaps.
“Follow my nurse, and I’ll see to your dog. Do anything stupid, and you’re both out the front door. The police will be the least of your problems.”
Her eyes widen. “You think I’m wired?”
I value privacy. Mine, yes, but more so my clients’. I won’t risk Mrs. Milano’s face becoming tomorrow’s gossip reel if this woman has been filming.
My answer is a frosted gaze. She trails after my nurse to a changing room, muttering under her breath.
Meanwhile, the so-called patient makes his own statement.
The scruffy mutt bolts and skids across the floor.
His bad hind leg drags behind him, but it doesn’t slow his ambition.
The little bandit scrabbles up the arm of an antique sofa—display only, not a jungle gym—and somehow makes it to the top.
Then, he bites down on a silk cushion, an heirloom my parents gave me when this clinic opened, and vanishes under a cabinet.
I groan. Perfect. A stray with expensive taste.
At least he’s keeping me from thinking too hard about what’s happening with his human behind that door. It’s not a strip search; my nurse knows what she’s doing. Still…
Fuck, I shouldn’t even be thinking about it.
I glare at the mutt, whose jaws are clamped on my cushion, his whole body tucked out of sight.
“She’s clean, Doc,” my nurse calls out. I abandon the hound for a moment and meet her.
The woman shoves past me. “What did you do to my dog?” Her eyes sweep the room. “Blanket?”
Blanket? That’s his name?
“There,” I say, pointing under the cabinet.
“Oh, Blanky!” she coos, crouching down. “Come on out. Give it back.” She tugs at the cushion, but the mutt retreats deeper.
“Leave him,” I say with a sigh. “Sit down.”
She drops into the chair opposite me.
“You don’t strike me as dumb,” I say. “You do know the difference between a human doctor and a vet, right?”
“I know the difference between a phony doctor and a real one.”
“What exactly do you want from me?”
“I need you to fix my dog. If you’re as good as you claim, you can handle this. Medicine is supposed to be about compassion, isn’t it? Doesn’t matter the subject?”
“Compassion doesn’t change anatomy,” I say. And the tightening around her eyes admits she realizes how flimsy that sounded. I humor her anyway. “A human femur and a canine hind leg aren’t exactly interchangeable. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you don’t have some hidden motive.”
Her glare sharpens. “Don’t patronize me.”
“Pretty faces and pitiful dogs don’t lower my guard.”
“Seriously? You’ve dealt with so many pretty faces that this,” she gestures at herself, “makes me the villain in your head?”
If I were in a confessional, I’d admit the truth.
I’ve seen more beautiful faces than most men can name, but hers carries a presence you can’t engineer, with sunlit skin, smooth and untroubled, and her hair falling in loose waves that frame her face without trying.
Her almond eyes carry something unbowed, one lid settling a touch lower and turning a small asymmetry into a lure.
Her skin is taut, her youth still holding fast.
“I’m protecting myself,” I say.
She clamps her mouth shut, holding her rage in check. Even then, there’s no hiding how generous her lips are, lips built to undo a man’s discipline. And if I let myself imagine her smiling, it wouldn’t soften her. It would end me.
I continue, “If you’re here to pull a stunt or smear my name, I’ll say it outright.” I nod toward the mutt. “That’s animal cruelty. I could have you jailed.”
“Hey! I brought him here so he could be treated. Don’t twist that into a threat.”
“That wound has been neglected. His skin and coat…even longer.”
Her shoulders sag. “Fine. He’s not mine. He’s a stray. But once, we bonded.”
She sounds sincere.
“Even so, I can’t help you.”
Her expression hardens. “So when the cameras stop rolling, your heroics vanish, Doc?”
“I really can’t help your dog,” I counter, scribbling an address, “but I’ll tell you who can. Dr. Liam Hunt. You take him there, and by the time you arrive, Liam will know everything.”
She snatches the paper. “What? I just turn up? Sounds fancy.”
“You’ll be fine. Now, collect your dog.”
She crouches, coaxing the mutt out from under the cabinet. He doesn’t budge.
I clap my hands. “Blanket. Here.”
To my surprise, he crawls straight to me.
The woman blinks. “Shit…how did you do that?”
Blanket stands there, the cushion clamped in his teeth like a trophy. She tugs at it, and he tugs back.
“Let him keep it,” I say.
Her brows shoot up. “Really?”
“Yeah. Go on. Dr. Hunt is waiting for you.”
It’s my favorite cushion, and I’ve just surrendered it to a stray. Somehow, he’s earned it.
She frowns at the slip of paper in her hand. “Well, Dr. Hunt is upstate. How am I supposed to get there?”
I frown. “You’re not driving?”
“You mean I don’t have a Bugatti lying around?”
I shake my head. “Wait here.”
Out in the corridor, I dial Liam. “Brother, I need a favor.”
“Make it quick. The ferret’s back. I’m in surgery.”
“I’m sending you a patient. White retriever cross. Severe mange and a hind leg wound—infected, necrotic tissue along the distal tibia. His name’s Blanket.”
“Blanket?” Liam chuckles. “All right. Whose dog?”
“You’ll meet her soon,” I reply.
“Her. Uh-huh, fine. Send them.”
I hang up and call my chauffeur next. “Back door. Cover the seat.”
When I get back, Blanket hasn’t moved an inch. He has dug in on the cushion, and his human looks one apology away from giving up. I crouch and lift him. He fixes those eyes of his on me, panting like he’s making sure I understand I’ve been drafted.
I’ve never kept a dog. My mother’s allergies ruled them out, and I never trusted myself to be responsible for one. But this mutt? He looks like a chupacabra dragged through hell. And still…those eyes.
Dammit.
He watches me with this unnerving, all-knowing stare, like he’s picked up on a secret I haven’t admitted. I tell myself this is about the injury, the triage, or maybe the dog’s just smart enough to recognize who’s helping him, unlike his human, who’s still guarding herself behind that scowl.
But Blanket keeps watching.
And it feels like he knows better.
“Follow me,” I say, leading the woman out through the back exit, where we wait.
Blanket noses up, about to lick me.
“Oh no, not now, buddy.” I turn my cheek, stretching my neck away.
The driveway is lined with hedges and slim ornamental trees.
Nothing is native to Chelsea, but it is all planted tightly and tall enough to make you think they belong to the building next door.
That’s the trick. In a neighborhood where every square foot is commercial real estate, privacy has to be constructed and maintained like a second business.
Within moments, my Bentley turns in, the chauffeur easing it to a stop.
She gapes. “You…you’re giving me your Bentley?”
“Part of the service,” I say smoothly.
As instructed, a blanket is spread across the back seat. I set Blanket down, and he immediately rolls over it, still clutching the stolen cushion.
“Well, would you look at that. He doesn’t mind the car,” the woman says.
Mind the car? The dog knows hand-finished silk from the factory kind. A Bentley surely isn’t lost on him. But that’s not what she means. It seems that whatever she’d been bracing for isn’t happening.
Then Blanket rolls again, wrapping himself into a burrito.
She groans at him. “Don’t tell me you want to keep the blanket too!”
“He can keep it if he wishes.” The words just slip out, foreign to me. That stray has turned me into…what, exactly?
She’s too busy wrestling with Blanket for space in the backseat to meet my eye. But once settled, she says, “Thank you, Dr. Lockwood,” and pulls the door shut.
It’s a simple, sincere thank you, no sentiment attached. She’s not warming up to me. She’s not doing anything except leaving.
But something in me…alters. It’s like I’ve fixed more than a problem. Like something in me just aligned without my permission.
The car drives away, but I stay exactly where she left me, watching the taillights shrink.
I chuckle to myself, trying to place the moment, the feeling, and the sudden lightness creeping in.
It’s as if I’ve stepped out of anesthesia a few seconds too early.
Everything looks the same, but it feels sharper, almost bright.
It’s been years since anything caught me off guard like this.
Not since the day I realized I could walk without a crutch, a memory that belongs to another lifetime, and one that was anything but small.
Back in my office, I phone Sabine, who’s out escorting a VIP from London.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“JFK.”
“I need the clinic cleaned,” I tell her.
“Another rat?” she asks.
I close my eyes. Of all the moments. Of all the guests.
“I’m alone,” she adds, already entertained. “Perry’s shopping for souvenirs. So, what did you break?”
“Nothing. Just an unusually untidy patient.”
“Say no more,” she says. “I’ll send in the cavalry.”
Then comes a knock, and my receptionist peeks in. “Dr. Lockwood, what should I do with Mrs. Milano?”
I look down at my coat, peppered with Blanket’s fur. “Call Dumas’ office. Tell them I need a seat held for Mrs. Milano at the Hermès ready-to-wear press viewing, Madison Avenue. I’ll speak with her after I get out of…this.”
I cross into my private suite and shut the door. The shower hisses on. I brace a hand against the tile, water running down.
Damn it.
Decades of consulting women on beauty, decades of playing the gentleman at the Game, and I blew the simplest part. I didn’t even ask her name.