“I … what?” She blinked owlishly behind those frames.
“The hospital won’t lose a dime. I’ll cover it. I’ll come down each week and pay the bill in person.”
The wordsin persondid something to her pupils. She turned to her screen, clicking through menus. “We could just zero it out …”
“No. She’d notice that. Same with round numbers. Trust me, 1.64% is specific enough to make her think it might be legit.”
“But won’t she still?—”
“If she calls to question it? Feed her something about income brackets or insurance adjustments. Pull it off, and there’s a bonus in it for you.”
The look she gave me was downright predatory. Christ. Maybe I should’ve specified cash bonus.
“We’ll make it work, Dr. Morrison.” She practically purred my name.
I straightened, already heading for the door. “Perfect. And, Stacy? This conversation never happened.”
Now it was time to run more tests and figure out what was wrong with Tessa.
22
TESSA
“This really wasn’t necessary,” I mumbled, sinking deeper into Blake’s Mercedes-Benz E-Class, trying to ignore how the buttery-soft leather seemed to embrace me like a lover’s arms.
The contrast to my own car’s torn vinyl seats felt like a metaphor for everything in my life right now: held together with determination and duct tape. In contrast, everything about his vehicle breathed success. From the hand-stitched leather that probably cost more than my monthly rent to the gleaming wood trim that caught the fading sunlight like liquid amber.
The ambient lighting only made the differences between our lifestyles more pronounced. While my car offered two settings—serial killer shadows or police interrogation—Blake’s Mercedes painted the world in whatever shade of luxury he desired. The soft glow caught the sharp line of his jaw, turned his dark eyes to midnight pools, and made everything, and everyone, look like they belonged in a world where people didn’t have to choose between paying rent and fixing their transmission.
“We’ve been over this.” Blake’s fingers flexed on the steering wheel, the movement drawing my traitorous gaze to his forearms. Now wearing fitted black pants and a long-sleeved shirt that clung to every hard-earned muscle, he looked like he’dstepped out of a luxury-car commercial. “My shift ended, and you didn’t have a car at the hospital. End of discussion.”
“Oh, is it the end?”
He glared at me.
I forced my voice to lose its bite. Not easy, considering the argument we’d gotten into over said ride situation. I called an Uber. He canceled it. I flagged down a taxi. He waved him off.
“You’re helping me,” I started. “A lot. An important fact that I’m going to take into consideration with the tone of my response.”
“Here we go.” The corner of his mouth twitched in amusement.
“I appreciate everything you’re doing for me. I really do. Major brownie points for taking eighty percent of my blood and passing it around to all your doctor friends to try and identify the defect in my body.”
“But?”
“But I want to be very clear where that line ends. You are helping me with mymedicalissues. Not my driving issues. Not my work issues. Medical only. Okay? So, please, don’t slip back into your bossy self.”
“I’mbossy?” His eyebrows tried to high-five his hairline.
“Infuriatingly.”
“This from the woman who used to barricade the kitchen and declare martial law whenever you were baking?”
“You and Ryker used to eat all the cookie dough!”
“And threatening my life with a wooden spoon. How’d that work out for you?”
Heat flashed through my body at the memory. He’d grabbed that spoon with a devilish smirk, but I didn’t release it, so we locked in a silent battle of wills, our chests nearly touching. With flour dusting his black T-shirt (he knew exactly what that shirt did to me, damn him) and desire making my fingers itch,something shifted between us and the playful banter evaporated into something raw and primal. Blake’s gaze dropped to my mouth, and when he stepped forward, the air crackled with possibility. I wanted that kiss with an intensity that scared me.
