Forever Perfect: Billionaire Medical Romance (A Chance at Forever Series Book 1)

by Lexy Timms

  “And in exchange?” Brant prompted.

  “In exchange,” Mel interrupted from behind him, “every time one of their pampered prima-donna guests has a hangnail, we have to drop what we’re doing and go give them a manicure.”

  “Dr. Bell,” Tina chided gently. “One of the guests reported becoming ill, and they need someone to check her out.”

  “What kind of illness?” he asked Tina this time, as Mel seemed combative and he wasn’t in any mood to start World War III.

  Tina shrugged. “I don’t know, Doctor. Usually it’s a reaction to the local food, but sometimes it’s the heat.”

  “Then what’s with taking my wallet?” This question he shot at Mel, despite the glare that warned conversation might not be the best idea.

  “You can get new shoes there,” she said with a shrug. “Nothing fancy, but workable and made for the climate.” She indicated the disintegrating leather on his feet.

  Brant looked down at her, meeting eyes that seemed carved of ice. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said stiffly, matching her tone for tone.

  “You’re welcome, Doctor,” she said, and turned on one heel and walked out of the clinic.

  “They have phones, too, Dr. Layton,” Tina added quietly, as soon as Mel was safely out of range.

  Brant nodded, but his gaze was on the door Mel had just gone through.

  Chapter 12

  That was too easy.

  Yeah, she’d been a bit gruff, but he didn’t have to run out to the resort like he’d found an open gate, racing for the hills before he got caught. Again. He’d barely taken the time to run to his room before throwing up a plume of gravel and mud, heading for the promised land.

  At least he couldn’t get lost, as the road only led to the resort. That is, if he could keep it on the road. A part of her twisted at the thought. There was a sheer drop-off on the way there, where the bus had overturned. He could—

  “STOP!” Mel ordered herself in the stillness of the office. She reached for another cup of coffee, found the carafe empty, and debated making another. The heat of the day was about to swell and the little window air conditioner was chugging away with all it had, gamely trying to fight back the inevitable. She set the carafe back and turned off the pot. She didn’t need the coffee. After rounds and discharging the bus occupants, who were all fine now, the clinic just about closed down in the afternoon. No one came out during siesta time unless it was an absolute emergency, and the staff would find her if she was needed.

  Yeah, as if anyone would dare to today.

  She hadn’t missed the way Joseph had taken off at the first opportunity. The way the nurses had suddenly gotten busy anywhere she hadn’t been. She’d been terrible all day, thanks to a good-sized dose of morning-after regrets and second-guesses.

  Last night after Brant left, she sat naked on the edge of the hammock, knowing even then that she was being unfair. It wasn’t so superficial as being self-conscious about her appearance; Mel wanted to believe that she wasn’t that vain. The scar wasn’t pretty, but she’d learned to live with it. That wasn’t the problem, really. They hadn’t talked about the reason for the scars, the story of how she’d been hurt.

  That was what she’d wanted to avoid.

  The throes of passion had taken her, that was undeniable, and she’d succumbed, losing herself in the heat of the moment. Well, moments. She nearly grinned. She’d had sex with him twice, walked naked through the clearing of the clinic, brought him into her home, her bed, all in that moment. That extended moment.

  And then the moment passed.

  Shit! She hit the desk with her fist, hating that her body was still reacting to what he had done to her. It had been wonderful to lie in a man’s arms, her head on his chest. The fact that the hot man in question was smart, and a doctor, and damn handsome didn’t hurt a bit. But the moment passed, and all that was left were two people trying to figure out what they have in common, as if desperate to justify the animal passion on some rational level.

  She hadn’t been ready to talk about herself, or the scars that marked her, marked a day in her life that should never have been. The scars on her skin were nothing in comparison to the scars in her memory—even in the blank spots where her memory should be.

  She groaned and shifted, her body aching from the sex. A good kind of soreness. One she wanted to feel again. STOP IT!

  How could she deny that making love to him was amazing? She wanted to just call it sex. They fucked. No big deal. Except, he thought she was beautiful. It was a balm after the men who tried to not make a face, who mauled the right breast, but never seemed to remember that there was still one over on the left.

  It had been a healing salve on the open wound. Michael had dug into her ego, and then left her to die.

  “Beautiful” Brant had believed it, too. He thought she was beautiful; the man cut and sewed women to create a standard of beauty, but he thought her scars were beautiful.

  Maybe he can go back to the States and carve scars on women’s breasts if he thinks it’s so damn beautiful.

  She sighed, and her head fell into her hands. Why did she always have to make things so damn complicated? “If you’re going jump him, do it on the last night so you don’t have to face him the next day!” she scolded herself. It was the first time she’d tried to seduce a coworker since coming here. She snorted as she thought of Dr. Martin. He was pleasant enough but he was probably overdue for retirement, and his interest in her was limited to poker and backgammon.

  It wasn’t a stupid idea to bed people who worked for you. At that, only Joseph would have been in the running, but that would have been like sleeping with an older brother. Tom, the pilot at the resort, had a girlfriend. And a wife.

  She had to admit, if even just to herself, she’d come into the jungle to hide. Up until now, it was an effective strategy.

  She rose and returned to her quarters, crossing the courtyard quicker than normal. Fleeing from…what exactly? Her own thoughts? Her own cabin felt cool back under the trees. And a shower sounded wonderful. In the sweltering heat of the jungle, even marginally cold water was a welcome relief, even though it never actually reached temperatures that could be defined as more than lukewarm. Today, the cold water was a double blessing, and she stayed under the spray, shamelessly wasting water.

  Besides, no one would see her crying in there.

  Strangely enough, she never quite found the tears. Instead, a settling numbness crept into her skin with the lukewarm shower and settled into her soul.

  Mel fell into her hammock afterwards. She’d barely slept the night before, and her body was telling her that sex on the heels of a crisis required a certain amount of rest. Sleep, when it came, was deep and dreamless.

  When the late afternoon light broke through the screens, it scattered the shadows of the small building. She lay there, wondering if it was worthwhile to return to her desk, staring at the light through the tattered netting, remembering again the night before and dreading whatever was going to come next.

  What if he was there? She pictured him in the clinic, in his borrowed scrubs, laughing, talking to Maria. He might even be bragging about last night, telling everyone how he’d seduced…She stopped that train of thought as being unworthy. For all his myriad faults, at least he was no frat boy to hoot and holler about who he’d screwed, challenging every woman in the place to be his next conquest.

  Well, maybe not Carmen. Mel smiled at the thought of any man facing down that basilisk stare and trying to maintain an erection. That women was eloquent with an eyebrow and could melt steel with a glance.

  Enough! She took a deep breath and dressed quickly, heading to the office and the promise of a fresh pot of coffee, and maybe something mindless like paperwork until it was safe to end out the day.

  She was barely halfway across the courtyard when she was flagged down.

  “Doctor,” Tina called from the door. Mel hurried the remaining steps and found that the nurse was escorting a young woman
holding an infant. The child’s face was hidden under a blanket, a sign that something was sure to be wrong. Who covered a child in this heat? Her stomach clenched in anticipation of some new emergency.

  “Sorry, Doctor, but I thought you needed to hear this,” Tina, said and spoke to the woman in rapid-fire Spanish.

  Even with Mel’s proficiency, she became lost somewhere in the exchange. Finally, they both seemed to remember she was there.

  It was the woman who spoke, lifting the child as she did, explaining how she had been walking and hitch-hiking yesterday, and only just arrived because she’d heard of the new doctor at the clinic who fixes people who aren’t sick.

  Mel smiled at the description and notated it for future use. She’d told Brant he could leave; how was she going to explain that to this woman? But then the blanket was pulled away, exposing the small child who lay curled in the woman’s arms. A child with a severe cleft palate, bad enough to prevent normal growth, bad enough to prevent being able to eat, bad enough to need a plastic surgeon.

  Mel pressed her lips together. Apparently, Dr. Layton wasn’t going to be leaving.

  He was going to be impossible to live with after this.

  Not that it mattered to her. She wasn’t really that into him.

  She repeated that in her head.

  Maybe she’d start to believe it if she said it enough.

  Chapter 13

  Brant sprinted to the Jeep like he was an Olympic 100m gold medalist. The prospect of clean clothing that wasn’t brightly colored scrubs and shoes that kept the mud away from his socks lent wings to his feet. And deodorant! Joseph had told him that the patrons of the resort often required jungle-appropriate wear, so they had an extensive outlet for clothing and supplies. Brant couldn’t grasp why he was so excited to go shopping. However, clothes meant he wasn’t going anywhere. At least, not for a while. And why would he be excited about that? Didn’t he want to head back to L.A.? Hadn’t the woman he’d just had incredible sex with given him the cold shoulder? He’d never been shot down by a woman before…was that why he was determined to stick around? Or did he actually want to do something positive while he was here? Or was it a bit of both? Damn it! He didn’t know.

  It positively boggled his mind.

  What he did know was that he wanted attire that worked for him. That was enough—for now. He jumped behind the wheel and turned the key. Nothing. He looked around, trying to figure out what he was missing, and found instead something extra. Three pedals. He stole a glance at the shifter. Instead of the comforting display of P RND12, the top of the shifter was emblazoned with the deceptive promise of 12345 and an isolated R, as though a letter was not allowed to comingle with such prestigious numbers.

  He groaned. Halfway around the world, a few precious miles from civilization, clean clothes and shoes, and he gets a stick? Who the hell drives a stick that isn’t a sports car? He slammed the offending third pedal into the floor in a fit, and the jeep roared to life.

  He glanced around like a car thief making sure he wasn’t being watched and then popped the clutch. The jeep lunged forward with a grinding of gears, and immediately stopped like a dog reaching the end of his leash going after a cat. Brant nearly tumbled over the hood.

  “Okay,” he muttered, straightening up for another go. “At least I figured out how to start the damn thing.” He hadn’t driven stick since he was sixteen. Fuck it! I can do this. Putting actions to his words, he fired it back up and let the clutch off slowly. Getting out of the drive was a sequence of whiplash starts and stops, and an engine that alternately sounded like it was about to take flight and was about to drown under some unseen body of water, but he did get out of the drive.

  There was a single road and a single way to turn. The road went to a single destination: the resort. There was no way to get lost, but the cliff on the right and the jungle growth on the left made for a harrowing drive when control over the vehicle was uncertain at best.

  What followed became a harrowing hour of creeping through the undergrowth and flying around curves on a road that at times was more there than not. He’d seen deer tracks up in the mountains while hiking that were clearer marked.

  Rounding the final pathway nearly twenty minutes later—it had taken Mel a fraction of that time—he spotted the runway with the resting plane parked at the end. He chugged along, casting the aircraft longing glances as he bounced back and forth on the uneven roadway as his left foot tried to get used to the idea of being involved in driving again.

  I could leave. I could just…go. Let them sue me, let them say what they will, at least I would be home, clean, snakeless. I could watch TV, I could order pizza, I could soak in a tub…

  The Jeep bucked and kicked, and he spun the wheel to avoid a hole in the road the size of the vehicle itself. The maneuver was only partially successful. The rear tire fell in and slammed the frame against the edge of the hole.

  “Damn it!” he hissed out loud. “That makes me miss L.A.” He pulled up to the front of the resort and stopped at a sign that said VALET. He stared at it for a long time before getting out, noting that no one had yet arrived to park the Jeep on his behalf. Judging from the way the uniformed staff was napping at their posts, it wasn’t likely that anyone would anytime soon.

  The resort was a massive complex of money and foolishness. In the heat of the jungle, sensible people used large open windows, open floor plans, even stilts to let the air flow. This was a building of brick and mortar and double-paned windows. It could have easily been a misplaced ski lodge, haughty in defiance of the encroaching jungle. No matter that it had to be beaten back daily, the foliage would win in the end.

  The front doors swished open upon his arrival like they bowed to a monarch’s approach. The lobby ran canned music; leather chairs were festooned around fireplaces with a large granite counter that ran across the far end. A lone woman in a blazer smiled at him, though the smile was strained. She had a good look at his choice of clothing, and was attempting to determine his fitness to be seen in her lobby.

  “May I help you?” she said cheerfully. Somehow, the bright, friendly expression still managed to create a feeling of being tested. And being found wanting.

  It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. Not one he was used to.

  “Dr. Layton,” he said, holding out his hand. “Dr. Bell from the clinic told me someone needed a doctor?”

  “OH!”

  Brant watched her eyes carefully. He suddenly slotted neatly into an organized classification and she was able to judge his level accordingly. He went from potential honored guest to co-worker to hired contractor. He might have said he was a plumber or an elevator repairman and had the same response.

  “I’m not sure ‘needed’ is the right word, Doctor,” she said, leaning in confidentially. “More like ‘requested.’ Mrs. Tinsale was quite insistent that she needed attention, however.”

  “What sort of ‘attention’ are we talking about?” Brant decided he didn’t like the receptionist who diagnosed her guests.

  “Well,” she looked around briefly and, satisfied that no one was within earshot continued, “you know how it can get with the wealthy,” She smiled more than a little condescendingly. “Sometimes they just need a little extra attention. But that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

  “Apparently.” Brant resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Where would I find this wealthy—I mean, unhealthy—individual?”

  She glanced at her computer. “Room 223. I was left with instructions that you were to go straight up.”

  “Thank you.” Brant spun on his heel before he could say more. “I only thought I was in the Twilight Zone,” he mumbled as he waited for the elevator. His complaints continued all the way up to the second floor. “Wake up from a drunk in the middle of the jungle, share a bathroom with a snake, share a hammock with a woman who apparently has an evil twin living inside of her…” The doors opened and he paused long enough to figure out to turn right. “But now, stone-cold sober a
nd I get a house call that goes from monumental to absurdity in ten seconds. Now I can tell a rich woman from Connecticut or Boston or who the hell knows where that she has no business being in the middle of a jungle and shouldn’t eat the freakin’ food.”

  He was smiling by the time he knocked on the door. It hurt like hell, but he was smiling.

  The man who opened the door had all the dignity of a high-powered executive, and all the snobbishness as well. He looked Brant up and down, with a barely contained sneer that grew less contained as his gaze lingered on Brant’s footwear. “Are you the doctor?”

  “I’m Dr. Layton,” Brant replied. His jaw ached he was gritting his teeth so hard. This was hell. Somehow he had gotten off the airplane in some warped Christmas Carol world. It all made sense if you looked at it that way. Joseph was the Ghost of Doctors Past, back when he still gave a shit. Which obviously made Dr. Melissa Bell the Ghost of Doctors Present. And this particular gentleman was representative of his future. It was all so obvious. He’d been acting the prick for years. This was his comeuppance. “How can I be of help?”

  The old man threw the door open and ushered him in. “It’s my wife,” he said, though his look was quite clear that he didn’t expect Brant to be qualified to help. “She hadn’t been feeling well for some time; we thought the trip would help. But it seems to have made her worse.”

  Brant sidled past the man and sat on the edge of the king-size mattress, setting the battered doctor’s case he’d pulled from the Jeep on the mattress next to him.

  The woman who lay propped against the pillow looked to be pushing at least seventy. Her face was pale, her skin beaded with sweat despite the best efforts of the air conditioning.

  He took her hand, feeling for her pulse. “Hello,” he said with his best smile, “I’m Dr. Layton. What’s your name?”