by Melinda Minx
I throw up my hands. “Your career isn’t over; just start something new—”
He laughs. “So easy for you to say! You’ve got everything, I have nothing.”
“Why didn’t Rose tell me about meeting you?” I ask, suddenly suspicious. “She wouldn’t have kept that from me.”
“Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think,” he says. “Maybe she’s lying to you about more than this. Did you ever think of that?”
“No, I don’t think that’s it,” I say. “Maybe you scared her, and she thought I’d come after you if she told me about it.”
I see him back away a bit, and I start to wonder if I’m right.
“Here’s what I’m going to do, Dr. Meiner,” I say, leaning into him until he slithers back against the door. “I’m going to ask Rose exactly what happened, and if I find out you so much as touched her, I’m going to fucking scalp you. And I’m a brain surgeon; so I’m very good at scalping. Understood?”
He pulls open the car door and scurries out into the parking lot. He jabs a finger in my direction. “You had better come clean, or you’ll be sorry!”
I slam my door shut and watch him hurry away, pulling his hat back down. Like he really thinks Dr. Bell has a five-man security detail searching for him at all hours.
I wait in the car until I’ve calmed down. I’m angry at Rose for not telling me what happened. Even if she had a good reason, she shouldn’t keep burdens like that to herself.
16
Rose
When I get home, Dylan is busy in the kitchen making lunch. I had lounged around Kaden’s place a while longer, enjoying the view. Dylan’s place feels like a closet by comparison, but I shouldn't get used to such crazy luxury—not when I don’t even have a minimum wage job lined up yet.
“Hey,” he says. “You hungry?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I just lost my virginity, of course I’m starving.”
Dylan’s left eye twitches, and then his whole body shudders.
“God, Rose,” he says, cringing. “What did I tell you about no details? You just gave me two very specific details that I had no interest in knowing—”
“Sorry!” I retort. “I just...I had to get it off my chest! Didn’t you feel the same way when you lost yours?”
I see him staring down at the frying pan, as if he’s hoping it will give him some sort of brilliant idea of what to say next. I can tell he’s trying to decide if he actually wants to go there with me. I realize it’s kind of awkward to talk to him about this since he’s my brother, but he’s the only family I’ve got left.
“Sorry—” I start, but he cuts me off.
“Rose,” he says. “I wasn’t twenty-five, but I was like twenty-one, which for a guy is nothing to brag about. I couldn’t tell any of my friends because I’d been lying to them for like three years that I’d already done it.”
“Oh,” I say, frowning. “Sorry.”
Okay, so now I understand why he didn’t want to talk about this. I suddenly feel awkward, and—
“I actually did tell you,” he says, laughing.
“What?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I couldn’t tell anyone else, so I visited you in the hospital and told you. I was actually counting on you not being able to hear me, just so I could say it to someone without having to feel embarrassed about it.”
I laugh. “How’d that work out?”
“Not so well,” he says. “I had my back to the door, and I was talking to you in a low voice. I said, ‘Rose, I finally did it. I know this is gross and you don’t really care, but I finally fucked a girl.’”
I laugh again. “You phrased it like that?”
“I thought it made me sound more tough,” he says, grinning. “I didn’t feel so tough when I heard a nurse cough right behind me, and I turned to look up at her only to see her face burning red. She was really attractive, too, which made things a lot worse. She ran out before I could say anything, to save us both the embarrassment, I guess. I didn’t go back to the hospital for months, and when I did, I tried to make sure she wasn’t working.”
I laugh so hard that I can’t breathe. It feels good to know that Dylan was still sharing stuff with me—that he hadn’t given up hope on me. Even if it was about incredibly awkward and embarrassing stuff.
I finally catch my breath and ask, “You’re single now, though, right?”
He shrugs. “The older you get, the less acceptable being a barista becomes. I’m hoping that once I start school, it will help my odds.”
I smile. “I’m sure it will. I need to figure out something to do with my life, too...Kaden isn’t going to want to keep me around if I’m just a lazy and useless lump.”
“You’ll figure something out,” he says. “Imagine how good your college application essays will sound when you drop your one-in-a-million personal story.”
I smile. “Yeah, but how will it look on my resume? Do I put ‘High school, 2010 to 2017,’ or maybe ‘2010-2017: Sleeping’ sounds better?”
“I think ‘2006-2017: Fought and survived rare illness’ sounds better than ‘2012-2017: Starbucks.’”
“At least it’s not a gap in your employment,” I say. “You can put on your resume, maybe somewhere near the bottom, that you selflessly sacrificed everything to look over your sick sister. I won’t be mad at you if you milk my illness to land a good job.”
He laughs. “Maybe I’ll do that, or at least I’ll drop mention of it during an interview.”
“You’ve gotta shove it on the resume, front and center, so that way they will actually interview you.”
“Ah,” he says. “Good call.”
He finishes cooking, and we eat together. I feel a lot better after talking to Dylan—not that I felt bad before. If anything, I’m still glowing from last night. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine losing my virginity would be such an incredible experience. I’d always thought of it as a thing to get out of the way—a cost of entry to have a lot of bad sex for a while—and finally, after figuring out what kind of guy I really want, some day having good sex.
Instead, I got it all right away. I got mind-blowing, toe-curling sex with a billionaire doctor with a perfect body. Maybe the universe owed it to me after taking seven years of my life from me. Yeah, that must be it.
After we finish eating, I pick up the plates and head to the sink to clean them off—since Dylan cooked—and then I decide to go back into my room.
I’m still wearing the dress from last night, and it feels very out of place at eleven-thirty in the morning.
I throw my purse onto the desk and pull on a pair of jeans and a tank top.
I hear my phone vibrate, and I go to grab it, looking forward to receiving a text from Kaden.
But when I look at the screen, it’s not from him. It’s from an unknown number, and the cryptic text just reads, “You promised me, and you broke your promise. I’m so disappointed.”
I feel my chest burn with fear, and my stomach drops. I sit down on the bed and stare at the screen. My God, it’s from Dr. Meiner.
I’d almost forgotten about him. As if telling myself he was crazy was a way to just ignore him. If he’s really crazy, though, then isn’t that all the more reason to be afraid?
I should have told Kaden about my meeting with him. If I tell him now, I’ll have to admit that I lied. Well, I didn’t technically lie, I just chose not to tell him anything about it. So yeah, it’s a lie more or less. What should I do? I definitely need to tell him. If I call or text him now, I’m worried he’ll go straight after Dr. Meiner, which could be really bad.
I could—
There’s a pounding at the door.
My blood goes cold. It might be Dr. Meiner. Why would he text me, though, if he was going to come here in person?
“Don’t open the door!” I shout.
I rush out of my bedroom, and I see Dylan looking through the peephole. He looks back at me, a confused expression on his face. “It’s Dr. Prince. You don’t
want me to let him in?”
Oh. It’s Kaden. He’s supposed to be at work. I wanted to have more time to think over how I was going to explain the situation, but since he’s here…
“Let him in.”
Dylan unfastens the deadbolt and opens the door.
Kaden gives a fake smile to Dylan and shakes his hand. “Hey, Dylan, you mind if I talk to Rose for a bit?”
Dylan nods. “I assume that means in private. I’ll get out of the way.”
“Thanks, Dylan,” I say.
I go to kiss Kaden, but he pulls away from me. This can’t be good.
I sigh and gesture for him to follow me. I lead him into my bedroom and shut the door behind us.
The moment the door closes, Kaden’s face flushes with anger. “When were you planning to tell me about Dr. Meiner?”
How did he find out?
“I—”
“I shouldn’t have told you to go see him. I let my guilt get the better of me and put you in danger. Fucking stupid.”
“Kaden,” I say. “How did you know I went to see Dr. Meiner?”
“You mean how did I figure it out despite you not bothering to tell me?” he snaps.
I bite my lip. “You had too much to worry about, and he threatened me—well, threatened you—and I was worried you’d throw your career in the line of fire to protect me—”
“Of fucking course I would!” he bellows. “Like I didn’t do that exact thing once already—”
“Exactly!” I shout back. “I knew you would, and that’s exactly why I didn’t tell you. I was asleep and defenseless! I needed you to protect me then. I’m awake now, and I can take care of myself!
“Oh yeah?” he asks. “So what is your plan? How were you going to deal with this entire thing completely alone?”
I go silent. I actually didn’t have a plan. I was just pretending it never happened, and assuming it was an empty threat.
“Right,” he says. “That’s what I thought. I don’t need to do everything for you, Rose, that’s not what I mean. But in a situation like this—a situation I started and that involves me—you have to at least tell me that there is a situation in the first place. I value your input here, but it’s not something you can handle alone, do you understand?”
I nod, feeling my eyes tearing up. “I’m sorry, Kaden, I just...Everything else was going so well, and I just didn’t want to deal with it.”
He wraps his arms around me then and pulls me close. I bury my face in his big, strong chest and let the tears flow.
“You don’t have to deal with anything alone, Rose, ever again. I’m here for you.”
I wipe my tears on his shirt, and then I pull away from his chest and lock eyes with him. Our lips come together, and I drink in his warmth as his masculine scent overwhelms me. The kiss feels different somehow after last night. More intimate, more meaningful.
Finally he pulls away, disconnecting us, and I smile. “Sorry for being dumb, Kaden.”
“You’re not dumb,” he says. “You just have a big heart.”
“That’s a nice way of calling me dumb.”
“I have a big heart, too,” he says, grinning.
I shove him playfully.
“Wait,” I say. “You never told me how you found out about Dr. Meiner…”
He clenches his jaw.
“Kaden, tell me. You said—”
“He approached my car,” he says. “When I was parking. He said he’d make a scene if I didn’t let him get in my car to talk. He repeated the threat he made to you.”
I get my phone and show it to him.
I see the veins start protruding from his neck as he reads the message. “I should go get him…”
“And do what?” I ask. “Beat the shit out of him?”
“Something like that,” Kaden says.
“That won’t solve anything,” I say. “You’ll get arrested, fired, and Meiner will still be out there.”
“Maybe I need to kill him then—”
“Kaden,” I say, pulling his strong jaw between my hands. “Think this through. None of it makes sense.”
“What does make sense then?”
“Show the police what we have, and—”
“No,” Kaden says, shaking his head. “I have to give into his threat, don’t I? Going to the police will reveal everything anyway, but if they don’t take what we have to tell them seriously, it will set him off. Who knows what he might do? If I just do what he wants, he’ll leave us alone.”
“But you’ll lose your job,” I say. “Maybe worse.”
“Maybe,” Kaden says. “But I have to really consider it. And until I do, you need to stay with me. At all times. Not one second out of my sight.”
“So we go back to your place?” I ask. “Or do you want to stay here?”
“I have to perform brain surgery in an hour,” he says, smiling.
I have to wear full scrubs, goggles, and a facemask.
Thankfully they don’t let me get too close, but I can still see the white of the patient’s skull when they pull back the scalp. I reach up and touch the scar tissue on my own head, and I nearly pass out.
Kaden insisted I stay in the room with him. Being just outside the door wasn’t enough, because he couldn’t tell the hospital what was going on and arrange for security to stay with me. I had to pretend I was interested in observing the surgery so I could get a better idea of what happened to me.
As if. I like to pretend that the device implanted in my head was just magically beamed there—that my brain hadn’t been exposed to the air. That my skull hadn’t been cut open.
Dr. Bell agreed to the crazy request—how could she say ‘no’ to Pittsburgh Memorial’s Sleeping Beauty?
Lucky me.
I try not to watch, but every once in a while I peek over at the procedure. Kaden is laser-focused. He’s doing what he does best.
He’s taken full command of the team of six people. Every time he points or gives an order, his team immediately obeys.
He reminds me of the conductor of a symphony, holding a scalpel instead of a little black stick. And rather than making music, his team is...fixing someone’s brain. Okay, so I’m not the best with metaphors, but seeing Kaden in control and doing what he excels at is almost worth having to see someone’s brain getting poked at. Almost.
I notice that members of his team are allowed to take breaks, but Kaden has to stay completely engaged the whole time. He’s the leader, and he can’t afford to step away.
One of the other surgeons wipes the sweat off her brow and comes over to me.
“Dr. Prince is the best surgeon I’ve ever seen,” she says. “Normally, surgery isn’t an option to diffuse this type of build-up.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Because most brain surgeons have less than a fifty percent success rate,” she says.
“Fifty percent is still pretty good,” I say.
“Not when failure means the patient dies on the table,” she says.
My eyes widen. “What is Kaden’s success rate?”
“Ninety percent,” she says. “And when a patient has this level of blockage, not performing surgery is usually a guaranteed death sentence. You can medicate to buy some time, but an aneurysm will happen sooner or later. Normally a patient is stuck deciding if they want to take the coin flip, or if they want to have a few good years left. Dr. Prince changes all of that.”
There’s a loud beep from the EKG, and the surgeon whips around. She starts rushing back toward the patient.
Everyone looks shaken and panicked, but Kaden is cool as ice. “She’s hemorrhaging,” he says. “We need to stem the flow from the left PCA. We have twenty seconds before there’s permanent damage. Jenkins, suture tray!”
I see one of the surgeons holding out a tray of tools, and without looking up, Kaden says, “Willis, suction the excess blood, I’m cauterizing in five.”
I see Kaden grab a tool that lights up. I realize I’ve stepped closer. I
didn’t want to see, but my heart is pounding, and I’m looking now at everything as it’s happening. It’s like a car accident, and I can’t convince myself to look away.
One of the surgeons uses some tool that sucks up the excess blood, and Kaden angles his lit-up tool gently in toward the brain tissue. The end of the tool is incredibly thin, and I watch as his skilled hands guide it with micrometer precision toward something on the brain that I can’t even see. He has a magnifying lens on his eye, and he must be using it to press the tool into an incredibly small space. I realize why most surgeons have only a fifty percent success rate. I’m guessing that if Kaden presses that tool into the wrong spot, he might fry the patient’s brain instead of stopping the bleeding.
I see a small fizzle of smoke rise up from where the tool touches the brain, and an acrid smell hits my nose. He moves the tool away, and he barks out a few orders that I don’t understand.
Moments later, the whole team—all twelve hands—are moving in a practiced and expert symphony. I can’t even tell what’s happening, but each surgeon grabs a tool or a tray, and they are all handing each other various cloths, instruments, and tubes—until finally they back up all at once, and the beep of the EKG starts to slow down.
“Stable,” Kaden says.
Everyone starts sighing in relief, but he says in a low voice—one that is still full of authority and command—”No time to celebrate. Back to work.”
They all step forward reluctantly, once again following his lead.
I sit down in a chair after a few more hours, as I’m unable to stand any longer. Kaden isn’t just standing, but he’s doing freaking brain surgery with no sign of being tired. I can’t imagine doing something like that even when I didn’t have to. He could retire with his billions, but he does this voluntarily.
Kaden wakes me up when he’s finished. I’m asleep in the chair. How can he not be totally exhausted? I was exhausted just from watching.
“Did you, did you—”
“It was successful,” he says.
