She nodded, as if taking everything in slowly. “So, you’re discharging me.”
“Yes.”
“We’re no longer doctor-patient.” It wasn’t so much a question as it was an establishment of the new parameters that existed between them.
He allowed himself a slight smile. “Well, I’m still a doctor, just not yours.” He decided to qualify that. “Unless you need me.”
She took it one step further. “What if I need you, but not as a doctor?”
Saying nothing, he waited for her to elaborate.
“What if I need someone to talk to? Someone who isn’t part of my usual insane existence.” She wasn’t sure why, but for some reason she didn’t completely fathom, she found herself trusting this man, knowing that at least when it came to keeping confidences, she could rely on him. As for the rest, well, she wasn’t going to think about that. She wasn’t looking for anything permanent anyway. Quite the opposite. “Could I pick up the phone and call you?” she pressed. “Just to talk?”
He was desperately trying to continue thinking like a doctor, but she was making it very hard for him to maintain his boundaries. But then, he was discharging her from his care.
He made one last notation on her chart and closed it with finality before looking at her. “If you can reach me.”
“I thought doctors could always be reached.” She looked significantly at the pager at his waist, then raised her eyes again to his.
There was no doubt about it, the man definitely intrigued her. She’d given him every possible opening, and he hadn’t attempted to pursue her, hadn’t even remotely attempted to take advantage of the situation, even at the hospital when she had all but poured herself against his side when he’d taken her for a walk down the hallway. Granted she’d been weak, but that didn’t change the fact that he hadn’t even tried to press her closer to his side. The man was chivalry personified.
Men had always come on to her, ever since she’d reached puberty and suddenly transformed from a mildly pretty little girl into a child-woman in possession of a woman’s body. She’d always had more attention than she’d wanted.
Yet this man was restrained by things like ethics and integrity even while he attracted her with such force that she found her teeth being jarred.
Breaking down his reserves seemed like the perfect challenge to her.
“We can,” he agreed. “For medical reasons.”
Without making a move, she seemed to draw closer to him as she asked, “How about for other reasons?”
He laughed, shaking his head. The woman was definitely one of a kind. “Have you always been a shrinking violet?”
London tossed her hair over her shoulder, her manner just the slightest bit defensive, even though she told herself there was no need to be. She was what she was. “Shrinking violets get stepped on, Dr. Bendenetti. I don’t intend to be stepped on.”
He wondered if anyone actually had, once upon a time, stepped on her, and that was why she came across as she did. “I think, under the circumstances, you can start calling me Reese now.”
He watched the smile unfold in her eyes first, slipping down to her lips, curving them appealingly. “Does this mean I made the cut?”
She’d lost him. “Excuse me?”
Very slowly she slipped off the table in one long, languid movement, never taking her eyes off his. “From patient to friend?”
He looked at her for a long moment. He knew only one way of dealing with people, be they patients or just the people he came in contact with, and that was honestly. “I don’t toss the term around loosely. Being friends means something to me.”
He meant that, she realized. Her smile this time was not for show. It came from somewhere deep within. “I certainly hope so.”
She used her looks to attract, her humor as a defense, he noted, and found himself being intrigued by her as much as he was attracted to her.
That caused him to step out on the limb he’d known all along was waiting for him.
“Would you like to go out to dinner tonight?” He tried to recall his appointments. There were only two patients to see at Blair Memorial. “My rounds at the hospital shouldn’t take me too long.”
From out of nowhere a little voice exclaimed, Yes! as she did her best to remain casual. “Would you like to pick me up at my place, or would you rather that I met you somewhere?”
A thoroughly modern woman, Reese thought. Although he admired that, there was a part of him that still enjoyed the old-fashioned roles that had once been assigned to men and women.
“I’ll pick you up.” Taking her folder with him, he began to cross to the door. There was another patient waiting for him in the next room. “Eight o’clock all right?”
Her eyes crinkled as anticipation took another pass through her. She marveled at the new sensation. “Eight is perfect.”
He hesitated at the door, remembering her hulking shadow. Would Grant be coming along with them, or content to post himself outside the restaurant?
“By the way, should I make the reservation for two or three?”
London laughed, understanding perfectly. “Wallace is about to get the night off.”
There was no room for argument in her tone, but Reese still had his doubts. The other man seemed to take his job exceedingly seriously. “Can you dismiss him that easily?”
If either Andrews or Kelly were scheduled to be on duty, London knew she wouldn’t have to think twice about her answer. The other two bodyguards took their orders from Wallace, but she had discovered that she could twist them around her finger when she needed to. However, Wallace was the one on evening duty and twisting him was another matter.
He wasn’t as easily led around as the other two. But, on the plus side, there hadn’t been any flowers on her doorstep or notes in the mail since the ones that arrived the day she’d returned from the hospital. With any luck Wallace was beginning to relax and could be convinced to see things her way at least for a few hours. She wanted to spend the evening with the good doctor without the sensation that someone was looking over her shoulder, observing her every move.
“I can appeal to his sense of fair play.” If she really put her heart into it, she felt certain she could get Wallace to listen to her. After all, it was only for one evening and it wasn’t as if she and Reese were going to a deserted beach. “You look like you can take care of yourself,” she observed. “I can tell him that I’ll have you to protect me from being whisked off by third-world terrorists or ninja warriors.”
Her flippant choice of culprits aroused his curiosity. Was the truth in there somewhere? “Is that who kidnapped the Chilean ambassador’s daughter?”
The question caught her off guard. But only for a moment. “So, you know about that. Who told you? Wallace?”
“Your father.”
That shouldn’t have surprised her. It was her father’s method of getting his way. She’d heard that there’d been a power struggle between the two men as to whether the entourage would remain on the hospital floor.
She nodded. “Terrorist, they think. But there haven’t been any incidents or kidnapping threats in eighteen months.”
If that was the case, then why was the ambassador spending good money to keep three bodyguards looking after her around the clock? “So why keep the detail in place?”
She shrugged. “He’s being overly cautious.” More than that, it was a power thing. “And it’s a way to keep me in place. So he thinks,” she added with a wink. Straightening her shirt, which had hiked up slightly during her descent from the table, she slipped the chain strap of her purse onto her shoulder. “So, I’ll see you at eight?”
“Eight.” This time, to assure his exit, he opened the door.
“You have the address?”
“It’s in your file,” he reminded her, indicating the folder in his hand.
“This is smaller.” She opened her purse, took out a card and handed it to him.
There were several numbers on t
he card, covering home, office, cell phone and fax, plus the word “Fund-raiser” beneath her embossed name. He looked at her in mild surprise. Up to now, he’d thought of her only as the ambassador’s daughter. It never occurred to him that she was anything beyond that. That probably would have irked her, he realized.
“You’re a fund-raiser?”
“It’s a good excuse for throwing parties.” She wiggled past him, making her way out of the room first. “I like to party.”
He didn’t doubt it for a moment, he thought as he watched his ex-patient walk down the hall to the reception desk. The saunter she added to her step was for his benefit, and he enjoyed it as such.
She knew he was looking and he knew that she knew. He figured that put them on an equal footing.
For the first time in a long time, he found himself looking forward to the evening for reasons that went beyond his just crashing on his bed and getting some well-deserved sleep.
Chapter 9
Reese found himself wrestling with conflicting desires all afternoon.
The temptation to pick up the telephone and cancel their dinner date was great. The temptation to see London again was greater.
Which worried him.
Seeing London again shouldn’t have mattered. Not in the way that it did. It should have been one of those things he could take in stride routinely. But going out with beautiful women could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered as part of his routine. When he saw women at all, they were not at their best: distraught before surgery, pale and recovering afterward. And he’d never gone out with any of his patients, not even after he’d signed off on their care.
This was different. It felt different and if pressed, he couldn’t say whether or not he was happy about that.
After leaving the hospital, Reese went home to get dressed. Once he was ready, there was nothing left to do but pick London up at her apartment.
Reese glanced at the pager on his belt and waited for the Fates to intervene. The Fates were sleeping or on vacation. The pager remained silent.
It was either an omen or not. In either case, there was a lovely woman waiting for him on the upscale side of town.
Reese got into his car and drove.
“But I’m giving you the night off, Wallace. Go, have a life.”
London had left this clash of wills to the very end, after she’d gotten dressed for the evening. She looked at the man who was giving her such a hard time over her minor request and wondered why she couldn’t have been born to someone less ambitious in life. Someone who ran the corner bakery, or worked in insurance. Someone whose life would not have dragged her into the limelight.
Wallace returned her pugnacious look with a patient one. She was dressed simply but elegantly. The lady had style, and it was, he thought, in all likelihood wasted on the man she intended to spend the evening with.
“No disrespect, Ms. London, but I don’t answer to you, I answer to the ambassador.”
She made a vain attempt to usurp her father’s power, knowing she was doomed to fail but bound to try. “There were times at the embassy when I spoke for ‘the ambassador.’”
Wallace smiled, seeing right through her. In the eighteen months that he had been head of the detail, he’d gotten to know the way her mind worked pretty well. It was one of his talents. It was what allowed him, at times, to remain ahead of the game.
“We’re not talking about choosing a tablecloth or what kind of silverware to use for a reception, we’re talking about your life, Ms. London.”
She seized the words and tossed them back at him. “Yes, that’s exactly it—my life. And, Wallace, once in a while, I’d like to live it.”
He wouldn’t be budged on this. Not with all the dynamite or perturbed looks in the world.
“That’s my whole point, Ms. London. I’m here to make sure you have a life and that some jerk doesn’t steal it away from you.” He smiled reassuringly at her. “I won’t get in the way. You won’t even know I’m there.” She should know this by now, he thought. He might be heavyset, but he was very good at disappearing, at blending in.
She threw up her hands. “How can I not know? You’ll be watching.” The thought left her unsettled. She liked Wallace, but she didn’t like the thought of his watching her every move. Bodyguard or not, there was something creepy about that.
“Not you,” he reminded her patiently. They’d been through this before. “Everyone else. At a discreet distance,” he added though he didn’t think, by now, he should have to.
London blew out an exasperated breath, defeat closing in. There was no way around this. Wallace couldn’t be cajoled into relenting. The best she could hope for was a compromise. “A discreet distance?”
Wallace raised his hand as if taking a solemn oath. “Yes.”
“At all times?” She didn’t want to be eating dessert and suddenly look up to see him standing there.
He made no attempt to drop his hand. “Yes.”
She cocked her head, watching his eyes. When he tried to hide things, he looked away. “And if he brings me back to my apartment, where will you be?”
His eyes never left hers. He knew what she was doing and was, again, ahead of the game. It was his job. “Outside the building, in my car, same place Kelly is every night.”
It was Kelly who was supposed to be on the night shift, but Wallace knew better than to trust the younger man. All London had to do was look at the man and he gave in to her. But for the time being, Kelly suited his purposes, and he wasn’t about to terminate him.
London swallowed a sigh. She supposed she couldn’t ask for more, not without having Wallace violate some kind of client-employee trust he had going with her father. “Oh, all right, I give up. But if I see any sign of that crewcut of yours—”
He grinned his small-boy grin at her. “You can have me replaced.”
She knew the man actually meant what he said. And that he only had her well-being in mind. London put out her hand. “Deal.”
His large hand swallowed hers up. His handshake was firm, binding. “Deal.”
At exactly eight o’clock London heard the doorbell ring. Habit had her looking at her watch. The man was incredibly punctual, she thought, smoothing down a dress that needed no smoothing.
A seasoned traveler, able to converse and be amusing in no less than three languages beyond her own native tongue, and part of the international scene since before she could remember, London still felt as if several single-engine planes were taking off in her stomach as the sound of the chimes died away.
This was silly. There was no reason to feel unsettled. It had to be some residual posttraumatic stress because of the accident, London told herself.
But there was no denying that her pulse had kicked up a notch as she opened the door.
Reese was wearing a navy-blue sports jacket over a light-blue shirt. He had on gray slacks and looked very much as if he belonged on the cover of Heart-throb Monthly. It was the first time she’d seen him without a white lab coat draped over him.
Her eyes smiled as she greeted him. “You clean up nice.”
She was wearing a simple black dress. It looked perfect on her.
Funny, he’d never pictured London wearing something as somber as black. But on her, black wasn’t somber. She managed to bring life and color to it.
Reese inclined his head. “I could say the same to you.”
She batted her lashes at him in an exaggerated fashion. Teasing or not, he still felt a knot forming in his stomach. The kind that would take hours to undo. “Flatterer.”
Slipping his hands into his pockets, Reese waited as she picked up her purse. He glanced around the immediate area. There was no one around. Despite her promise, he’d expected to see the bodyguard right behind her.
“Where’s your shadow? Don’t tell me that you managed to get rid of him.” The man didn’t strike him as being easily set aside. The lady had to take after her father when it came to a silver tongue.
Draping a silver-fringed shawl about her shoulders, she looked up at Reese. “I’d like to tell you that, but I don’t believe in lying on first dates.”
The word stood out before him in huge neon lights. Until she’d said it, he hadn’t really labeled this evening as such. But that’s what it was. A date. A bona fide date. He’d absently thought the term and the custom had gone out of fashion, that men and women were now somehow just thrown together by happenstance.
He thought back to London’s accident and decided that maybe he wasn’t that far from being right.
Reese assumed her answer meant that the man was coming with them. He looked around again. “Then, where is he? Is he going to jump out from behind a door? Or from the elevator when it opens?”
She walked out of her apartment, locking the door behind her. Turning, she threaded her arm through Reese’s. “Wallace promised to behave himself and keep a ‘discreet distance’ away from us at all times so he doesn’t spoil the evening.”
As long as she was in it, Reese doubted that anything could really spoil the evening.
Pressing for the elevator, Reese thought of telling her that, but then didn’t. There was no doubt in his mind that she had enough people flattering her, enough people telling her things she knew they thought she would want to hear, and he didn’t want to be lumped in with a crowd like that.
Didn’t want to be lumped in with anyone else at all when it came to London. Although he kept telling himself it really shouldn’t matter.
It did.
The elevator arrived and they stepped inside. They had it entirely to themselves.
“So, where are we going?” London wanted to know.
He’d debated over that, as well. There were places in and around Bedford that boasted excellent cuisine, fancy decor and fancier prices, places created for the discerning diner. But unless he missed his guess, she’d been to many places like that, taken there by men who wanted to impress her.
Given that her past dinner companions were probably all in a class he didn’t belong to, there was no point in trying to compete with them. He might as well take her to a place where he was comfortable.
M.D. Most Wanted Page 10
