by Kira Ward
“Sophie Allred.”
The nurse moved as slowly as was humanly possible, staring at the computer screen until Emma wanted to scream. When she finally looked up, her first words were not where Emma could find Sophie, but, “Are you a relative?”
“Her sister.”
“Do you have insurance information for the patient?”
Emma groaned. “It should be on file. We’ve been here before.”
The nurse just stared at Emma as though she was speaking a foreign language. Emma wanted to rage, but she reached into her bag and pulled out her wallet, tossing the insurance card across the desk to the nurse.
“Can I see her? Or talk to someone who knows how she’s doing?”
“As soon as I enter this information into the computer.”
Emma was pretty sure her head was about to explode. She opened her mouth, a few choice words on the tip of her tongue, but then a heavy hand landed on her shoulder.
“Why don’t you tell the young lady where her friend is, and I’ll help you with the insurance.”
“I don’t think…” The nurse stopped, mid-thought when she looked up and saw Dante. Then, she inclined her head slightly.
“She’s in exam room 6. You can go back through those doors,” she said, pointing over her shoulder without taking her eyes from the handsome suit.
Emma rushed away before the nurse could change her mind. It took her a second to navigate the maze of the emergency room, but she finally found the curtained off cubicle that was marked with a large 6.
“Sophie?”
Emma burst through the curtains, stumbling to her sister’s side, only vaguely aware of Jill standing on the other side of the gurney. Sophie was asleep, her face so pale that it hurt to look at her. There was an IV in her arm and a thin sheet pulled up over a hospital gown. Emma touched her face, reassuring herself that she was still warm. Then she lifted the sheet, searching for her pump.
“They took it out,” Jill said, handing the device to Emma. “They said that the tube was clogged.”
Emma ran through the menu on the pump and discovered that the no delivery alarm had gone off at ten that morning. Sophie had been without insulin for nearly seven hours. And, if Emma knew her sister, she’d eaten at least one full meal and possibly a few little snacks over that amount of time.
She’d told her…
“Ms. Allred?”
Emma turned to find a young, handsome man in scrubs standing just inside the curtain.
“I’m Dr. Nemic. I’ve been treating your sister.”
“How is she? Is her sugar coming down?”
“Yes. She was just over seven fifty when she came in, but it’s down to three twenty. She’s responding well to the insulin we’ve administered, but I’d like to watch her overnight. She’s lost a lot of fluid and she was still vomiting up until a few minutes ago, so I’d prefer not to let her go until we’ve got her electrolytes rebalanced.”
Emma nodded. “But she’s going to be alright?”
“Ketoacidosis is a serious condition. But her friend,” he said, gesturing toward Jill, “acted quickly and that might have made all the difference.”
Jill blushed, but the smile she quickly hid with a tilt of her head suggested it wasn’t just embarrassment that inspired that particular blush.
“We’ll move her upstairs as soon as her room is ready.”
Emma thanked the doctor and watched him leave before she turned to Jill.
“You called the ambulance?”
Jill shook her head. “Sophie started to feel sick after lunch. I told her to go to the nurse, but she wouldn’t. And then, right before Spanish club, she started getting sick in the bathroom. She told me not to tell anyone. She said you’d get mad. But she wouldn’t stop even after there was nothing left in her stomach, so I went and got Mr. Sanchez. He called the ambulance.”
“Thank you,” Emma said, touching her arm. “You did the right thing.”
“It was kind of scary, how sick she was.”
Emma nodded, glancing over at Sophie. “I’m sure it was.”
***
Jill left with her mother a few minutes later. Emma sat beside the gurney and held Sophie’s hand, thinking of all the things she was going to say to her after she woke. But when she woke, the only thing Emma could do was kiss her all over her face and tell her how much she loved her.
“I’m sorry, Emma,” Sophie said, her voice hoarse from all she’d been through.
“It’s a hard way to learn a lesson.”
Sophie nodded, tears flooding her eyes. “I saw the alarm, but I thought it would wait until I got home. I didn’t have another infusion set with me.”
“I’ve told you a dozen times to carry one, Sophie.”
“I know.”
“You can’t always wait for me to change them out, either. You have to learn how to do these things yourself.”
“I know. I just…” Sophie closed her eyes, the tears making their way down her cheeks.
Emma wiped the tears away and picked up Sophie’s hand, pressing a kiss to her palm.
“We’re going to be okay, Sophie,” she whispered, hoping that it wasn’t a lie.
Chapter 2
Emma was helping a customer at the department store where she’d worked ever since Dante—Dante Caito, the CEO of DJC, Inc.,—bought the diner where she worked in retaliation for Emma throwing a cup of coffee in his face. He brought it on himself, really, acting as rude as he had. He complained about everything she brought him and then told her he could buy and sell her if he wanted. But it wasn’t the words that pushed her over the edge. It was the way he grabbed her, as though he intended to hit her. Emma was no stranger to violence and she was not about to be a victim. She was only defending herself. But Dante didn’t see it that way.
He bought the diner, giving the owner, Martha, a much needed influx of money. Emma couldn’t really fault Martha for taking it. She and her family had been struggling for a long time. It was nice to see them get a good break for once, but Dante didn’t stop there. He bought Emma’s apartment building and served her—and all the other tenants—with an eviction notice. It took her only a little while to figure out what was going on. And when she did, she did the only thing she could do to get hers back on him. She embarrassed him at a tech convention where he was supposed to announce his company’s next big thing. Instead, he spent most of the time answering questions about the banner her friends set to unfurl behind him during his speech that announced what he was doing with the apartment building. It was a satisfying piece of revenge even though she knew it would unlikely have as lasting an impact on him as what he’d done to her would.
But then he got his revenge. Again.
Emma unconsciously reached up to touch the fading bruises on her throat as she removed hangers from her customer’s purchases. It should have been a moment of pure panic, the moment he grabbed her throat. Instead, it turned into a moment of passion like nothing she’d ever felt before. And now…she couldn’t stop thinking about it. About him. His revenge was diabolical, just like his name. He didn’t hurt her. He made her want him.
She had so many other things she should be thinking about. Final exams were coming up in a little more than a month. Their lease was up in six weeks and she still hadn’t found a new place to live. She hadn’t even started looking. And then there was Sophie.
She got out of the hospital the day after her ordeal, weak and well chastised, but better. The doctor made her show him that she could insert an infusion set and that she knew what each of the alarms on the pump meant. And then he lectured her about the importance of checking her sugars at least five times a day, even when she was wearing her continuous glucose monitor—which she hadn’t worn that day because she hadn’t felt like inserting a new sensor before school, another thing both the doctor and Emma lectured her about. She’d been good about everything in the five days since, making a show of doing the checks in front of Emma. It was actually driving her nuts, b
ut she couldn’t tell Sophie that. She was glad that Sophie seemed to finally be taking her diabetes care seriously.
Now that the ordeal was over, Emma was afraid to check the mail every day, wondering just how much the hospital bills were going to be. Their insurance was minimal—if it was still in effect. Martha told her that the insurance she’d had through her job at the diner was good until the end of the month, but so many things had gone wrong these last few weeks, she was afraid that maybe she’d been wrong. Or maybe Dante somehow messed that up, too.
They couldn’t afford a hospital stay. They couldn’t afford all of Sophie’s insulin and infusion sets and sensors and everything else that came with her condition, but she couldn’t survive without them. They couldn’t afford for Emma to go to school, but their future depended on it. And they couldn’t afford to move.
Emma handed her customer her change with a weak, distracted smile. She could feel her supervisor watching her, so she tried a little harder, but her forced smile just seemed to creep the customer out. Another customer stepped up and plopped a stack of blouses on the counter. Emma was picking through them, removing hangers and folding them to place them in a bag when her supervisor called to someone.
“Sir, I can help you over here.”
“No, thanks. I’ll wait for Miss Allred.”
Emma didn’t have to look up to know who was willing to wait for her. It was Dante. She should have known. The air around her had gotten hotter over the last few minutes.
She slowed her movements, deliberately taking her time so that he would have to wait. She got the impression that Dante wasn’t the kind of guy who ever waited for much of anything. But, much to his credit, he stood quite patiently behind the customer she was helping even though Emma’s supervisor offered to help him twice more.
“You’re quite efficient,” Dante said as her customer finally took her purchases and left.
“Just trying to do a good job.”
“I’m sure you have quite the work ethic.” He pulled a thin plastic card out of an inside pocket of his suit jacket. “You left your insurance card with the nurse the other day. I promised I would return it to you.”
She reached to take it out of his hand, but he pulled back.
“We need to talk. Are you due for a break soon?”
“You’re going to keep my card hostage until I talk to you?” She shook her head. “Keep it. My coverage expires at the end of the month thanks to someone buying out my employer.”
He set the card on the counter and pushed it toward her. “I would really like to talk to you, Emma. We can do it here, but I don’t imagine you want your new boss—“ he jerked his chin sideways to indicate Emma’s supervisor—“to hear some of the things I have to say.”
Emma stared him down, not really in the mood to let him win the upper hand again. But, afraid she knew to what he was referring, she relented.
“Donna, do you mind if I go on break a few minutes early?”
Her supervisor glanced between Emma and Dante, making an assumption Emma wasn’t sure she wanted her to make and nodded. Emma grabbed her wallet out of her backpack and walked around the counter, gesturing for Dante to lead the way.
The mall was busy—everyone hitting the stores after spending their requisite few hours in a church pew—making conversation impossible as they walked to the equally crowded food court. Emma grabbed an empty table as Dante looked around, clearly uncomfortable in that environment. It probably wasn’t often that he spent time in a normal place among the common man. He was probably more comfortable in restaurants that’d earned Michelin stars than in a place like this.
“What’s your poison?” she asked.
He looked at her as though he thought she really meant to poison him. She laughed, unable to resist the confusion in those perfect green eyes.
“How about corn dogs? They’re not too bad.”
He sat down—after making a big show of dusting off the seat of his chair—and gave the place one last look before he clearly dismissed it, his gaze falling on her with an intensity that made her feel like an ant under some sadistic kid’s magnifying glass.
“I didn’t realize your roommate was your sister.”
“Your investigators are pretty bad at their job, then.”
He inclined his head slightly, accepting her criticism. “I also didn’t realize she had a chronic health condition.”
“Does it make you feel guilty?”
“Guilt is a waste of time.”
“There’s the Dante we all know and love.”
Emma laughed when his eyes widened slightly, another look of confusion washing over his expression. The man really was out of his element.
“Look,” he said, reaching across the table to grab her hand. She pulled away before he could touch her, clutching her hands in her lap. He hesitated a second, then continued. “I’ve been thinking about what I did to you. And I’m willing to concede that I might have gone a little overboard.”
“Oh, just a little?” Emma shook her head. “You took away my job—the source of my income and the health insurance that pays for my sister’s medications. I’m not going to get half the coverage here that I had there, and that wasn’t adequate. And now we have to move, too.”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about. I’m willing to make some adjustments to my plans for the apartment building.”
“Adjustments?”
Dante sat back, feeling a little more comfortable with his environment—or maybe just the tone of the conversation. He brushed a hand over his leg, wiping away invisible lint as he gathered his thoughts.
“My engineers have informed me that the building is in pretty bad shape. The repairs necessary to get it up to code aren’t really worth the income the building is currently generating, which is probably why the previous owners never bothered.”
“I know this. You told me.”
“What I didn’t tell you was that I have another building, not far from this one, that is up to code. And, for the moment, it’s empty.”
“Good for you.”
He leaned forward just slightly, enough to raise the intimidation level of his stare a few notches. “You don’t make these things easy, you know?”
Emma leaned forward, too, resting her hands on the edge of the table for a little balance. “Why should I make anything easy on you? You’ve made my life a living hell since the moment I met you.”
“Not every minute of your life. I’m pretty sure you enjoyed a few of them.”
Emma blushed, only too aware of which minutes he was referring to. She sat back again, crossing her arms over her chest in a gesture meant to seem intimidating, but it was more of a self-protection gesture. And he knew it.
He looked down at his hands, but not before she saw the smile slip across those full, luscious lips of his.
“What’s your point?” she asked.
“I can’t do much to save the building you’re currently living in. But I’d be willing to have you, and the other tenants, move into comparable apartments in the other building with new, two year leases.”
“At what cost?”
“The same you’re paying now.”
Emma stared at him, unable to wrap her mind around what he was saying. “Why?” she finally asked, afraid that he would say it was because of what happened between them. Or it was a pity move, to assuage the guilt he insisted he didn’t feel about her sister.
He studied her face for a long time, not really moving, not really acting as though he was searching for words. It was more like he was waiting to see if she would get annoyed and demand he explain himself. The man was more than irritating in just about everything he did.
“You were right when you said that I shouldn’t have taken my vendetta with you out on those other people.”
“Wow. That must have been difficult for you to admit.”
Again, that soft smile touched his lips. She could almost imagine what it would be like to have that smile bestowed
on her in better circumstances. When he smiled like that, she could see that there was a lighter side to his personality, that he was capable of amusement that didn’t come at the cost of someone’s livelihood. He might even be a nice guy, under different circumstances. But she couldn’t imagine that he would ever be that nice around her.
“What do I have to do for this to happen?” she asked.
“What makes you think there’s a catch?”
Emma tilted her head slightly, letting her eyes move slowly over the length of him. “Because I’ve met you before.”
All his emotions were so visible in those eyes. They darkened when he was angry or when he was aroused, lightening when he was amused. He was not amused right now.
“You really screwed things up for me and my company with your little stunt at that tech expo.”
“Did I?”
“We worked nearly four years on that project and my speech at the expo was supposed to be this huge celebration. Instead, it turned into a publicity nightmare that we’re scrambling to fix.”
It was Emma’s turn to smile. She hadn’t been sure that what she did would have that big an impact. She really only wanted to get his attention, to let him know that she wasn’t just going to sit around and let him destroy everything she’d been working for these last few years. He was working on a product these last four years, she worked to put her life back together and to save her little sister. Somehow, it just didn’t seem all that comparable.
“What does that have to do with the tenants at my apartment building?”
“I need you to help me fix this.”
“And how am I going to do that?”
“We’ve invited a group of reporters, investors, and stock holders to Bristol, Maine for the weekend. We’re going to wine and dine them and convince them that this new smartphone will be better than the iPhone.”
“And what does that have to do with me?”
“I want you to be there. I want you tell anyone who will listen that it was all a prank that went bad.”
Emma shoved a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she stared down at the table, thinking about what he’d said. It made very little sense to her. The gossip died down almost as soon as the banner was removed from the stage where he made his speech. Their announcement was a little less dramatic than he had hoped, but the public seemed to like the designs they were releasing, piece by piece. It was all over Sophie’s twitter feed, gossip about the phone. And she saw it on the news more often than not.
