Читать книгу Dark Nights: Mistress of the Underground / The Vampire Affair - Lisa Childs, Livia Reasoner - Страница 17

Ringing echoed in Ben’s ear until, finally, the answering machine picked up his call home. Not Paige. Had she left already?

God, if it had been any other patient needing him…

Hell, he still would have left. He’d taken an oath, but despite that, this patient was special. As her lashes fluttered open, he shut his cell. “Hey, there, sweetheart, how are you feeling?”

Weak. Even if he didn’t know how thready her pulse and how low her oxygen levels, he would have recognized the weakness in the way the little girl could barely lift her lids or the corners of her usually smiling mouth.

Her blue eyes brightened as she recognized him, and she forced a smile and murmured, “G-g-good…”

“Liar,” he gently accused her as he chucked her chin. His heart ached as he realized how fragile the child was. With her delicate build, she appeared younger than her nine-and-a-half years. But with all the surgeries she’d had to repair the birth defects to her heart, Adelaide Plumb had been through much more than people many years older than she was. “Where’s your mother?”

“W-work…” But the child couldn’t hold his gaze as she answered him, and he suspected she was lying again. Her single mother was rarely around, often not showing up until after visiting hours were over. Because of work or something else?

Ben suspected something else, but then, because of the secrets he’d learned and the way he’d grown up, he trusted no one.

“I’ll catch up with your mother tonight,” he said. “You need your rest, so you can recover from this last surgery.” The one in which he’d repaired the hole in her heart. He resisted the urge, barely, to lean over and kiss her forehead as her eyes drifted closed again.

With her blond curls and pale skin, she reminded him of Paige. After leaving her room, he took the elevator down to the office level and unlocked the door that opened directly into his office, bypassing the reception area.

Groaning at the ache in his ribs, he dropped into the chair behind his desk and clicked the redial button on his cell. The phone rang and rang before the machine answered again.

“Paige, if you’re there, pick up,” he said, then grimaced as he realized he was ordering her, just as he had ordered her to stay. Paige never responded well to being told what to do or not to do.

She had probably already ignored his order for her to stay away from the club, too. But he needed to convince her that for her own safety, she could have nothing to do with Club Underground. At least with the sun shining brightly, streaking through the blinds at the office windows, he wasn’t too worried about her being out alone. But he hoped like hell she was lying in that bed, waiting for him and listening to his voice on the machine.