Читать книгу Winning Back His Doctor Bride - Tina Beckett, Tina Beckett - Страница 8

CHAPTER ONE

Present day

BZZZZZZ...

No matter how many different ringtones James tried—and it seemed like he’d tried them all—he still hated receiving text messages. The flat sound of his current tone was no different. His pulse sped up and his throat went dry, even though he knew it wasn’t from Mila.

Losing the fun, sexy messages they’d used to exchange had been one of the hardest adjustments he’d had to make after calling off the wedding, and his no-texting rule was his way of trying to deal with that.

He shook himself from his stupor. Six years had changed nothing. No matter how right he’d been to break off their engagement, he couldn’t blot out the image of the horror in his ex-fiancée’s gorgeous hazel eyes when she’d realized it was over.

So were the intimate texts. All texts, in fact, since everyone around him was aware that he preferred actual phone calls to typed messages.

Besides, Mila had taken off to parts unknown soon after he’d skipped out on her, going back to Brazil, where she’d been doing relief work among indigenous people.

Until now.

He’d had a damned good reason for leaving her at the altar: a panicked phone call from a former girlfriend telling him she was pregnant. And an unexpected betrayal by his father.

It didn’t matter now that the whole thing had been a setup. That deception had turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Mila had been saved from being dragged into the reality that was his family, with its arguments and its never-ending scandals. His famous parents had been the darlings of the paparazzi for that very reason—even after their divorce years ago.

Mila might not have seen it at the time, but surely in the years since then she’d come to realize the narrow escape she’d had.

He’d never tried to contact her, even after he’d discovered what Cindy had done.

The phone sent him a reminder buzz.

He forced himself to look down at the screen as he exited his car along with the damned photographer the clinic had made him bring along to this meeting. The text was from Freya. The no-text rule had become a running joke with her. She would text him just because she knew how much he hated it. To try to provoke him to answer. It never worked. He always responded with a phone call. Or not at all.

It would seem she was still at it. And under the circumstances it was in extremely poor taste.

We saw you pull up. Waiting just inside.

We. That could only mean one thing. Freya wasn’t alone inside that tiny building. Although he’d known she wouldn’t be.

Hell. He’d hoped to have a moment or two to get his thoughts together, although he’d had plenty of time to prepare for this photo shoot. Over two months to plan his words down to the final punctuation mark.

Had he done that? No. He had not. Even during the twenty-minute drive out of the more secluded Hollywood Hills and into the city of Los Angeles itself he’d done no advance planning.

Morgan, the photographer the PR department had contracted, had been more than happy to keep up a steady stream of conversation. She might have been fishing, but James didn’t care. He was no longer biting. He was fresh out of yet another superficial relationship, which the paparazzi had followed with glee. He was definitely not ready to test the waters again. Especially not with this meeting with Mila hanging over his head.

He’d avoided thinking about that particular woman. He’d decided that if he kept his head in the sand long enough, this whole damned situation could have just dissolved into nothing.

It hadn’t.

And he knew exactly who’d be on the other side of the door once he walked through it.

Mila Brightman.

The woman who’d almost become his wife.

The woman who’d barely escaped that particular fate.

Thank God she had.

He didn’t bother to respond to his sister’s text. They both knew he was here, so there was no point. How, exactly, his sister had talked him into this arrangement he had no idea. The Hollywood Hills Clinic had been gliding along just fine without another addition to their efficient little family.

Except this was Freya. And Mila. Two women he’d always had trouble saying no to.

Sucking down a resigned breath and dragging a hand through his hair, he waited for Morgan and then he headed up the walk, stopping short when he spied a ragged square of cardboard taped to the outside of one of the clinic’s windows. He was so used to the pristine opulence of his own medical center that the squat building huddled on the corner of a busy street seemed as foreign as the relief work Mila had once done. But the sign painted at the top of the clinic was bright and cheery, a bevy of colorful handprints forming an imaginary sidewalk that led to an artist’s rendition of the building—only whoever’d painted it had had quite an imagination because although the edifice was the same shape, the painted version was a welcoming place. And there were no cardboard patches in sight.

The photographer raised her camera, aiming it right at the broken window. James wrapped his fingers around the woman’s, stopping her short. “No. Not that.”

Morgan frowned at him but lowered the camera. “So you only want the positive stuff?”

His eyes were still on the brown square in the window as they reached the front entrance. “That’s what we’re here for.”

Bright Hope Clinic. The painted lettering on the glass door matched the colors of the handprints on the sign. And the glass doors were spotlessly clean. His glance went back to the cardboard patch.

A sliver of unease worked its way through his gut. Not about Mila’s safety. Of course not. About the soundness of his decision to allow a branch of this clinic to open inside his own. Freya’s doing. Not his. But his damned board of directors had put him in charge of overseeing the opening of the facility. Which was why he was here, pricey photographer in tow.

The woman took a few shots of the sign and the door, dutifully avoiding the window. “We can go inside anytime you want.”

Before he could even reach for the door, however, it was flung open and Freya stood there. “Come on, James, what’s taking you so long?”

“What happened to the window?” He nodded toward the offending cardboard, not sure he even wanted to know the answer.

Although he couldn’t see Mila, she was just inside the dark entrance of the clinic. The growing pressure in his chest told him that. Schooling the rest of his body to mimic the bland mask he wore on his face, he made no move to go inside.

“Oh...um...” Freya glanced behind her. “It’s nothing. Probably just a stray baseball.”

James turned his attention to the busy street behind him. Cars clogged the asphalt as they waited for the light to change and allow them to head on their way. Baseball? He didn’t think so. Not on this road. He lowered his voice, to avoid Morgan hearing him. “Tell me you weren’t here when it happened.” His sister was seven months pregnant and did not need any stress at this point.

“No, it was sometime last week.” She waved off his concern, a frown appearing between her brows.

Biting back his next words, knowing his sister wouldn’t welcome any brotherly advice, he sighed, hoping she’d catch his drift.

“It’s perfectly safe, James.”

Safe? With Mila somewhere inside? He didn’t think so.

But he was here. And the sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could be on his way. The space they’d set aside in The Hollywood Hills Clinic was on the other side of the building from where his office was, so it wasn’t like he’d see her every day. And he was pretty sure she would split her time between this facility and the new one.

With that bracing thought, he motioned the photographer and Freya inside and then followed them.

The interior of the clinic was as cheerful as the sign. Bright colors were splashed on every available surface, as if a painter had opened his cans and tossed the contents onto the walls and countertops.

“Wow,” Morgan said, already snapping shots of the interior.

Wow was right. The place was so very...Mila that it made him smile.

His gaze came back, zeroing in on her at last with a swallow.

Her hair was much longer than it had been when they’d been together. Back then, it had been cropped into short waves above her ears, allowing the delicate bones of her face to shine forth. Not that they didn’t still. But unlike the easy-care locks of days past, the new Mila appeared cool and polished, the curls tamed into long sleek strands that ended just below her shoulder blades.

He swallowed again and extended his hand in a fake formality that would make the PR department proud. “Mila, nice to see you again. Thank you for letting the clinic do some publicity shots.”

Right on cue, the camera clicked multiple times, reminding him of how often he’d been caught unaware on the streets of LA. During his parents’ ugly divorce, he’d barely been able to go anywhere without some member of the paparazzi lying in wait, hoping to get him at the worst possible moment. He tensed, before forcing himself to relax his muscles.

He didn’t ask how Mila was doing, and for a split second he thought she’d refuse his greeting. Maybe it would have been better if he’d kept his hands in his pockets, but then she reached forward and curled her fingers around his.

Big mistake. The contact scattered images through his head that were every bit as vivid as the paint on the walls. Memories of Mila’s head nestled deep in his pillow as she’d slept, of making love into the early hours. Laughter. Late-night texts. And finally the tears.

Damn it.

As if plagued by the same thoughts, Mila snatched her hand free and turned away. “Nice to see you as well. And it’s fine about the publicity. You’re used to it by now. Besides, I’m sure your clinic wants to show off its newest investment. So how about a quick tour? I didn’t schedule any patients this morning, but you should be able to see—”

He touched her arm to slow the torrent of words. It worked. She swung around, but he noticed she took a step back, the distance just enough that he couldn’t touch her again.

“The window. What happened?”

Freya broke in. “James, it’s fine. Don’t go all protective big brother on us.”

Not very likely. The last thing he felt toward Mila was brotherly affection. But he did feel a niggle of worry.

He narrowed his eyes on his sister. “I think we have a right to know the risks involved in taking on this little venture.”

He glanced toward Morgan, but she was ignoring them, still exploring the waiting room, where brightly colored plastic chairs perched on top of acid-stained concrete that had been polished until it gleamed.

“Little venture?” If Mila’s voice had been cool before, it had now dropped to well below freezing. “Afraid you might lose some of your high-dollar clients if they spot a pair of humble flip-flops cruising down the fancy halls of your clinic?”

His jaw tightened. Not at her words but at the disdain in her tone. And the fact that she had hit a nerve. The board had discussed at length how to handle their newest addition.

The voting members had made a motion to add a separate entrance so that Bright Hope could be accessed directly from the parking lot, instead of its patients coming in through the huge double doors at the front of the clinic. The decision stuck in his craw because putting in another door made it seem a little too much like a service entrance for comfort.

He’d gone along with it only because if he hadn’t, the vote to allow the opening of the clinic might not have gone through—and Freya had her heart set on it. It had only passed by a slim margin as it was. And the financially challenged kids of LA did need access to what The Hollywood Hills Clinic could offer.

Telling Mila any of that, however, would not make her feel any better. If he knew her, she had only agreed to Freya’s idea because his sister had insisted.

Which meant Bright Hope was not doing as well financially as she had made it seem.

“Let’s just say we’d rather not have a gang war break out in one of our hallways.”

Mila’s eyes flitted sideways away from his.

Damn. He’d been joking about the gang war. Had that broken window been caused by a hail of bullets? “Do you have security?”

“Yes. There are cameras, and a security guard is here during business hours.”

But only during those hours. Did Mila come here when there was no one else around? The question tickled the back of his throat, but he ignored it. He didn’t want Morgan going back to the board with any tales that weren’t true. He took another tack instead.

“Did the police catch whoever broke your window?”

“Not yet, but I’ve turned the surveillance video over to them. Hopefully they’ll find the culprits.”

Culprits, plural. “Do you keep drugs on the premises?”

She threw him a stormy glare that he recognized all too well. “Of course not. Nothing stronger than over-the-counter pain medication. There’s a pharmacy around the corner, if we need something stronger.”

That was smart. “Was anything taken?”

“They didn’t try to gain entry.”

Strange. Maybe she was right. Maybe it had just been a stray ball from a kid.

And from her curt answer, that was all he was going to get out of her. “Well, then, let’s take that tour, so Morgan can shoot some pictures, and I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing.”

“So she does have a name.” His ex-fiancée leaned closer with an amused smile, one brow raised.

What was that supposed to mean?

Oh, hell. He’d seen the women shake hands but he’d forgotten to introduce them. Bad manners on his part, but he didn’t exactly think straight when Mila was around.

Well, even if she thought there was something going on between him and the photographer, who cared? She’d been dating Tyler, that brawny firefighter, until recently, hadn’t she?

With the same fixed smile, Mila indicated for them to follow her down a small hallway to an exam room.

This space was decorated in tropical island hues. Ocean-blue walls and sand-colored linoleum were a smart choice. As was the artist’s rendition of a palm tree painted in the corner. The same beige from the flooring flowed up onto the bottom half of the wall, meandering across it, giving the lone tree a place to root and thrive. Individual grains glimmered under the overhead lights, much as they would beneath the sun. A few painted conches dotted the surface of this imaginary beach.

All in all, it was a tropical paradise any child would love and not a cold, sterile exam room. This was a place of adventure, not of fear and pain. And as skillful as Morgan might be, there was no way she was going to capture the feel of this room.

He wandered over and ran a finger across the textured paint that made up one of the palm fronds. “This is pretty amazing, Mila.”

Maybe they should incorporate some of these designs in the new clinic to tie the two centers together. It would be a little different from the posh chrome and Italian marble in the rest of The Hollywood Hills Clinic, but maybe that would be a good thing. It might even give the board a reason to rethink having a separate entrance for Bright Hope. And it would make Mila feel more comfortable with her surroundings.

He knew firsthand she didn’t like over-the-top extravagance. She’d practically cringed every time she’d had to get into his car six years ago.

It highlighted one of the biggest differences between them. Orphaned as a child, when her parents had been killed during a home invasion, Mila had been left a huge inheritance by her famous Hollywood parents. But she didn’t live like it. In fact, she gave her money away whenever she got the chance. James, on the other hand, enjoyed the security that money could buy. Security he hadn’t felt during his childhood years, even though his parents had been just as wealthy as Mila’s, if not more so.

He gritted his teeth until his thoughts were back under control.

Surely by now even Mila could see that he’d done her a favor by breaking off their engagement. They’d been doomed, even without Cindy’s deceit.

“Can we get some pictures of the three of you in front of that mural?” Morgan asked.

Freya gave a horrified snort. “Oh, no. Not me, thank you very much. I’m about to pop, and I’d rather not do it in front of a camera.” She threw her brother a look. “You and Mila should be in it, since you represent what this partnership is all about. It would be good to have some publicity shots of you two, anyway.”

Why the hell hadn’t he thought of the possibility of having to cozy up to his ex in some of the pictures? Because he’d figured Freya would be in them as well.

Nothing to do but get it over with. He gestured for Mila to go ahead of him. She hesitated for several long seconds, then her shoulders dropped in resignation and she trudged over to the mural. James moved in as well, standing a good five feet away from her.

“Can you move closer?” Morgan waved her hand. “You’re blocking part of the tree.”

Was it his imagination, or did the photographer have a slightly “gotcha” smirk to her expression? Maybe he should have been a little less standoffish when she’d been flirting with him in the car because right now it looked like she was enjoying having him at her mercy.

He took a couple of steps to the left, trying to talk his way through his discomfort. “Who did your paint job? It might not be a bad idea to match this look in the new clinic.”

She didn’t get a chance to answer, because Freya grinned. “Mila did it. She painted the clinic signs as well. Aren’t they great?”

His sister’s pride was evident. As was the warning gleam in her eyes that told him not to say anything that would hurt Mila’s feelings. As if he would.

The photographer snapped a couple of pictures right as that news was relayed. Even he could feel the shock on his face. He hated to think what it would come across as on film.

He glanced back to get a closer look at the tree. It was good. Very good. Right down to the smooth green of the coconuts hanging from it. He could have sworn she’d had it done by a professional. But then again she had lived in the tropics of Brazil so it made sense that she would have had learned to improvise and do more than practice medicine. And she had always loved children.

A trait that seemed to be missing from his family tree.

Another area of incompatibility. If only he’d been looking at their relationship with a clinical eye six years ago, he would have seen it. It had taken a shock from an ex-girlfriend and an offer of payment from his dad to make him see the reality of what Mila would be subjected to if he married her.

Another flash of Morgan’s camera, but he was too busy with his thoughts to take much notice.

Mila had survived. Improvised.

Had she improvised with some Brazilian man after he’d broken things off with her?

A thought he had no business dwelling on.

“Can you both turn toward the front? I’d like a couple more in this room before we move on.”

They both swiveled on their heels and faced the photographer.

“So do you think you can replicate this over at my clinic?” he asked.

She threw him a glance, the brow from earlier edging back up. “Beaches and palm trees won’t exactly match the theme you have going on over there, would it? What do you call it, by the way? Moneyed Green? Or are you just hoping artwork like this will highlight the differences between your clinic and mine—your patients and mine?”

The camera went off again.

Damn the woman. A muscle in his jaw clenched. “I was trying to pay Bright Hope a compliment. Forget I asked.”

Fingers landed on his forearm, and her eyes closed for a second before reopening. “I’m sorry, James, that was inexcusable of me. Can we start over?”

It was far too late for that. But if cold indifference was the way she wanted to play this game, then she would find he could match her, ice chip for ice chip. Except she’d never been an ice queen. Far from it. In fact, he’d always liked Mila’s hot temperament. It had matched the places she’d been. Stoked his own internal fires.

But he’d better figure out how to extinguish that particular flamethrower. And soon. First, though, he had to get rid of that damned camera, which seemed to be recording their every expression.

* * *

She’d almost blown things. As Mila gave James and his photographer the grand tour, and it wasn’t much, with the tiny size of her clinic and the money crunch they’d been under for the last few months, she tried her best not to let her animosity toward him show any more than it already had. Six years after the fact, she should be over their breakup. But his comment about her decorating choices had made it fizz up like the head on a beer. And he hadn’t even meant it as a cut.

She drew in a deep breath. It was up to her to calm the waters.

Only how was she supposed to do that when the waters churning inside her were gray and choppy? And with that photographer giving him the eye for most of the visit?

She pushed open the door at the far end of the hall. “And this is our business office.”

The head of her young assistant, Avery Phelps, popped up from behind her rickety desk, her brown eyes widening. She backed out of the narrow space on her hands and knees and climbed to her feet, tugging the hem of her blouse down over her tanned midriff. “Hey, Mi. Sorry. I was just trying to get this stupid cord to stay in place for once.”

“The computer again?”

“Yes. And I lost an hour’s worth of work this time.”

Mila groaned as she glanced at the empty screen of the computer monitor. “I’m so sorry. I keep meaning to have someone come out and take a look.” It was still weird to her to have to rely on technology to keep up with things when she was used to taking patient notes on actual paper, with an actual writing instrument. She preferred jotting things down, it seemed more personal.

But she couldn’t ask Avery to do that when things in the US were all done via computer. The young woman had been with Mila from the very beginning, when she’d rushed into Bright Hope as the frantic single mom of a very ill three-year-old girl. It had turned out Sarah had type one diabetes. Once they’d gotten her blood-sugar level under control, Avery had wanted to give something back and had insisted on donating several hours a week to the clinic—after working her own full-time job. She’d been at Bright Hope ever since, eventually becoming an employee rather than just a volunteer, and Mila had no idea what she’d do without the woman.

“Do you want me to take a look at it?” James’s voice rumbled over their heads.

Yeah, it would have been pretty tempting to ask him to crawl around underneath that desk, but she was afraid her body would go haywire and send out pheromonal signals that could be detected for miles. “It’s just a loose power cord but every time the desk jiggles, the power blinks in and out, and Avery loses data.”

He gave the old machine a dubious look. “Not good for your system. Do you have any tape?”

“Tried that a couple of times.” She was proud of herself for being one step ahead of him. Although it was really Avery who had thought of that. And how embarrassing was it to have this exchange in front of a camera?

“How about surgical tape? Or even phlebotomy tubing?”

How was that supposed to work any better than what they’d already tried?

Before she could ask, Avery said, “I’ll get you some. Anything to keep the darned thing going.”

Mila made a mental note to get someone techy out to look at the machine. The last thing she wanted was for James to have to come out to fix things.

Like her practice itself? If Freya hadn’t gotten him to agree to pump some funds into Bright Hope and allow her to open a branch inside The Hollywood Hills Clinic, people like Avery would have very few options. Mila had gone through most of her inheritance in the years since her aunt had passed away. Not that she missed the money. She didn’t. But she missed what it could do.

Within a minute her assistant had come back with a roll of latex tube tourniquet and wide surgical tape. “Pick your poison.” Avery said it with a smile, but a shiver went over Mila. Maybe because her poison had been James once upon a time. And like a slow-acting toxin, he’d killed the part of her heart that she’d handed over to his care.

“Let’s try the tubing first.”

Freya, who’d been silently watching the exchange, smiled. “My brother the handyman. Always trying to fix what’s broken.”

Was her friend talking about the eating disorder she’d overcome years ago? Mila remembered James’s sometimes heavy-handed tactics when it came to his sister, but Freya said that things had mellowed between them over the last year or so. Especially now that she and Zack had fallen in love and gotten married. Their twins were weeks away from being born, and the pair was ecstatic. Mila had done her best to be happy for her friend, but it struck too close to home. That could have been her and James had he not decided that a wife whose passion was working with various relief organizations would cramp his Hollywood style.

That might not be exactly true, but something had given him cold feet. He knew she wasn’t interested in being a big earner, so she’d always assumed that had had something to do with it. Only James had never seen fit to tell her why he hadn’t wanted to marry her. Just that she was better off without him.

And she was.

Definitely.

And he could keep his reasons for breaking their engagement to himself. After all, she was used to being kept in the dark. Her aunt had loved her, but in trying to protect her she’d left Mila unprepared for the shocking reality of her parents’ deaths. They hadn’t died in a car accident, like her aunt had told her. In fact, her mother had lingered for days in a hospital after being shot. Ten-year-old Mila had never even had the chance say goodbye. It had taken her a long time to forgive her aunt for that once she’d discovered the truth.

The Mila of today did not believe in holding back information no matter how unpalatable or difficult it might be. To do so was to destroy her trust. So James’s refusal to level with her had made it easy for her to walk away and never look back.

His voice came from nowhere, jerking her back to the present.

“I’ll need some scissors.” He tested the flexibility of the tubing he’d been handed.

What was he going to do with it?

Avery grabbed a pair of sharp scissors from the desk and handed them over.

Somehow wedging his large body between the leg of the desk and the wall, he grunted a quick oath at something and then remained silent for several minutes.

And the view from where she was standing was exquisite.

A length of tubing appeared on one side of the computer. “Can you grab that, Mila?”

Conscious of the pencil skirt she’d donned for the photo shoot, and praying the photographer didn’t catch a wardrobe malfunction, she knelt down and took hold of the tubing that he’d pushed beside the computer. Only it now had a dark stain on it. Red. Wet.

“Are you bleeding?”

She glanced up at Avery, who read her wordless request. Within a second or two she handed Mila a bottle of hand sanitizer and some gauze. She quickly wiped down the tubing and lobbed another question toward James. “What’s going on back there?”

“Tie it at the front of the computer.”

She frowned. How was this supposed to fix anything? “How tight do you want it?”

“Pull it taut and then start the computer up.”

Mila tied the two ends together and made a quick knot in the rubber. “Okay, let’s see if that did it.”

Pushing the start button, the screen leapt to life, along with a warning that the computer hadn’t shut down correctly.

“No kidding,” her assistant muttered, staring at the monitor.

“It’s going, James. Thank you.”

A few seconds later the man edged backward and climbed to his feet. The fingers of his right hand were pressed tightly against the sleeve of his dress shirt, where another stain had formed. “Oh, my God, what did you do?”

A series of clicks went off behind them. Mila ignored the sound.

“It’s nothing. Just found some old tack strip along the wall.”

Oh, no. The building had been carpeted when they’d first moved in. Mila had immediately gone to work removing it and then prying up the tack strip. By the end of the process she’d been dog tired, and since the office desk had always been there, she’d left the lone strip where it was. She’d forgotten all about it until now. It was a wonder Avery hadn’t cut herself on it. She threw the woman a look. “I’m sorry, I totally forgot about it.”

Her assistant gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “It’s fine. I’ve never had any problems avoiding it.”

Avery was a lot smaller than James, so that was probably true. Still, it didn’t make her feel any better.

“Let me see.” She held her hand toward him. He eyed her for a second and then shook his head.

“It’s nothing. Just a scratch.”

“Then you won’t mind if I look at it.”

His jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue with her again. He let her take his hand. The second his skin touched hers, a frisson of awareness trickled up her arm and circled her chest. She did her best to beat it back, turning his hand over to get a better look at it.

The flash of a camera went off in the background, making her suddenly aware that Morgan had been snapping away as nobody had told her not to. The last thing Mila wanted was a shot with her and James holding hands. But if she said something, he would know, so instead she found the spot where he’d cut himself. Long jagged lines ran parallel to his little finger, going up the side of his hand. Nasty looking but not deep enough to need stitches. “Have you had a tetanus shot recently?”

James’s brows went up. “Yes.”

Of course he had. He was a doctor. Her face burned, but she forced her voice to remain steady. “Avery, would you mind getting me some more gauze, please? And some alcohol from the cabinet in the exam room?”

The photographer slid sideways, her camera still up to her eye as she snapped shot after shot.

Evidently James had had enough. “I think you’ve taken enough pictures, Morgan, don’t you?”

Whether he didn’t want their picture to pop up in the society pages with speculation about them rekindling their past romance or something else, his low words had their desired effect. The woman murmured something that might have been either thanks or an apology and put her camera back around her neck. She then glanced at her watch. “Oops. I’m late for my next appointment. I’ll just grab a taxi, if you don’t mind. Thank you, though, for letting me hitch a ride to the clinic.”

James nodded, but said nothing. Freya offered to see her out.

The pair left, leaving Mila alone with her ex.

“Nice touch,” he said, indicating the hand she still held.

“Excuse me?”

“The clinic has been trying to improve my image. Evidently my bedside manner isn’t always as soft and cuddly as the board would like it to be.”

A thought came to her. “Did you cut yourself on purpose?”

“No.” He nodded at their joined hands. “Did you do that on purpose?”

She released him. “Of course not. I was just trying to help.”

His gaze came up to spear hers. “And so was I.”

There was something about the way he said that that made her... No. It had nothing to do with their past.

She squared her shoulders. “And you are. Thank you.” She gestured toward the computer. “For that, and for convincing The Hollywood Hills Clinic to take on Bright Hope.”

“It’ll be good for our image.”

All of the warm feelings that had bubbled up a few moments earlier popped, leaving her feeling oddly flat. “I’m sure it will.”

“Hey.” He slid the fingers of his uninjured hand beneath her chin. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant it would be good for my clinic’s image...and for yours. Your patients will know they’re going to get quality care.”

He cut off the words before she could say them. “Not that they wouldn’t be getting that at this location, but we will lend you instant credibility. You might not like what that brings with it, though. Prepare to be inundated.”

If he was trying to scare her, it wasn’t working. She’d been swamped with patients plenty of times. In fact, the more she worked, the less she thought of her sad lack of a personal life, and how poor Tyler had pressed and pressed for a decision about taking their relationship to the next level, to the point she’d finally had to break things off with him. She couldn’t do to him what had been done to her. And she’d at least had the guts to hand him the truth rather than dish up a halfhearted fabrication.

Like her aunt had about her parents’ deaths? Or was she thinking of James and the way he’d ended things?

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can handle just about anything.”

Avery came back into the room with the items she’d asked for, and Mila hurriedly cleaned up James’s hand with the alcohol, although he waved aside the need for any kind of bandage. “It would just get in my way.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He glanced at her face. “I’ll let you know when the photos come back so you can look through them.”

Good. That way she could weed out the ones that made her and James look a little too friendly toward each other.

Because things between them were anything but friendly.

And if she was smart, she would keep it that way. Despite the fact that they were going to be seeing a lot more of each other in the future, she would have to protect her heart. Because James had already hurt her once. She had to make sure he never got the chance to do so again.