The travel schedule he described would preclude a relationship anyway. Was she willing to give up four months of her life? Her job? Her patients?
She was drowning in debt.
“But if you tell anyone of my illness, I’ll not only nullify the agreement, I’ll see to it you don’t practice medicine again.”
She suppressed a shudder as she caught a glimpse of the ruthless man beneath the well-dressed exterior, the man who had made billions in technology investments.
“HIPAA,” she said. “By law, I can’t reveal protected patient information.”
“It’s critical to this deal that you don’t.”
“What’s the time frame?” she blurted. Why was she even asking this question? She didn’t want to encourage him, she had patients to see.
“We leave for Belgium in two weeks. I’ve been with Formula One since the preseason in March. I wasn’t well, so I came back to New York two weeks ago, during the season break. There are eight more races until the final in late November. I’ll give a million dollars to the non-profit of your choice for each month you’re with me. St. Jude’s, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, whatever you decide. I don’t care. But you have to stay through the season.”
She stood rooted to the beige carpet floor, staring at him.
Four months, four million dollars. For blood cancer research. For breast cancer research. For any number of foundations doing cancer research.
If only I could leave my patients to travel the world.
“I’m sorry. I sympathize. I really do,” she said, softly, regretfully. “I wish I could, but my patients, this job … ” She shook her head.
He searched her expression, then stood. “Thank you for your time, doctor.”
“Tell Dr. Adams hello from me.”
“You’ll probably see him before I do.”
She cocked her head. “Won’t you do your treatment at Sloan?”
“Yes, but not until November.”
“Mr. Belamar, you can’t put this off. It’s … you have to be aggressive. You’ll go to stage two where there’s the possibility of organ damage. All the advantages to catching this early will be lost.”
He reached to shake her hand and she put hers in his, limply.
He turned his back and was one step from the door when she said, “Wait.”
Belamar faced her, his expression expectant.
“Will you really put off treatment?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Her right hand pressed into her temple in a fruitless attempt to ease the pressure building there. She had five patients this week scheduled for hospice. But not him. Not if she were willing to do what he needed. Otherwise he could be in her office or Dr. Adams’s office or some other oncologist’s office by December, starting preparations for the end of his life.
“God damn it. All right. You’ve got yourself a doctor. And a pretend lover.” Even saying those words made her stomach cramp. “But you’re making a very big mistake. You’re doing this against medical advice. I won’t be able to control all the variables the way I could in a hospital.”
He gave her a half smile and a nod.
“I wonder if you really understand what that means, Mr. Belamar,” she said.
“Maybe when you’re my age you’ll understand what you want your legacy to be. An American Formula One team is something I’ve been dreaming about for a lifetime. I’ll do anything—anything—to make that happen. Thank you, my dear.” He rose from the chair. “My attorneys will send the paperwork over. The hospital has a benefit this weekend. We’ll publically ‘meet’ there and begin our fictitious love affair. Does that suit you?”
She nodded.
“And treatment? Can we do the first course here?”
“No. Belgium.”
Had she really just agreed to this?
“I’m not sure what you have in the way of a wardrobe.” He glanced at her utilitarian khaki pants and white, tailored dress shirt under her lab coat. “Buy what you’ll need to hobnob with people of means. Spare no expense. My advice?” He looked her up and down. “Find yourself a stylist and pay a visit to the Nuvo salon.”
And then he exited her office.
Had a septuagenarian just insulted her taste?
Chapter 2
Maddux feigned sleep as the hotel mattress dipped. Seconds later the bathroom door closed. He rolled away and opened his eyes. Morning, and not early if the light coming from the edge of the room-darkening curtains was anything to go by. Why was she still here? And why was he being such a coward about it? He knew all the appreciative things to say to keep the morning after casual, to make her feel good about what they’d done while making it clear there was no possibility of a repeat.
Guilt erased his ability to do any of those things.
The sound of the toilet flushing and the bathroom door opening penetrated his conscious. He heard shuffling from the other room, and moments later, the sound of the hotel room door closing. He leapt from the bed, bent double by a bladder at maximum capacity, and leaned over the toilet, a shiver of relief ripping through him.
He froze as a knock sounded on the door.
Crap!
Had she forgotten something? But that was no tentative sound; it was bold and assured and …
Hell.
He’d forgotten he’d made plans to golf with his brother this morning. What time was it anyway? He searched his memory for discussion of a tee time and came up empty. He flushed the toilet, washed his hands, and filled the glass on the counter as another loud bang sounded on the heavy hotel door.
Maddux grinned. No one kept Spencer Bates waiting, least of all his kid brother. He drank the water, put down the glass, and grabbed the heavy, white robe from the chair on his way to the door.
A scowling Spencer pushed by him and searched the suite.
“She gone?” Spencer asked.
“Yep. Surprised you didn’t pass her in the hallway.”
“Do you think Jillian didn’t notice you leaving the wedding with her maid-of-honor? Before they’d even cut the cake?”
“Jillian doesn’t care,” Maddux said.
He felt his brother’s unwavering stare.
“What’s wrong with you?” Spencer asked.
“I hooked up. It’s a wedding. It’s practically mandatory.”
“Sleeping with the best friend is one way to send a message to Jillian.”
“Not trying to send a message to anyone.”
“Right. This is a small town, Maddux. That girl’s parents were there. Trust me, we all noticed the two of you disappear and not come back. You can’t just—”
“Whatever, Spencer.”
“You’re not in Europe anymore, bro. And these aren’t grid girls.”
“We’re consenting adults. Get a grip, grab a beer from the minibar. Relax, for chrissake. I need to dress.”
As he showered, shaved, and rummaged through his suitcase, Maddux considered his brother’s words. When his parents sent him to England at sixteen to pursue his dreams of kart racing, his high school sweetheart Jillian had been his lifeline, his link to his suburban Texas life. But after Jillian left for college at Southern Methodist University and he’d graduated from karting to Formula Ford, living and training in the UK, traveling the world, everything changed. Two Christmases later, their past was the only thing keeping them together, and their interactions were filled with the awkwardness of strangers who no longer had anything in common.
He should be glad that she’d found happiness with Michael. But watching them together, he was consumed by envy. Him. The reigning Formula One world champion, envious of a couple of newlyweds who would settle into a normal life, probably have a baby in a year or two, and argue about what color to paint the nursery. That life wasn’t one he even wanted.
Still, he hadn’t ditched the party because of Jillian and her new husband. He’d ditched when the third person, and his childhood best friend, hit him up for money.
Maddux
had been washing his hands in the bathroom when Dylan appeared over his shoulder, explaining in desperate, frantic whispers about debts and bad luck. He hadn’t even couched it in terms of a loan as his second cousin had, or the “investment opportunity” that Jillian’s father had pressed on him.
After Maddux turned him down, he’d been the subject of increasingly hostile, drunken stares from Dylan, parked at the bar.
He shouldn’t have come back for the weekend, midway into his nightmarish racing season, to the August heat of Texas. Thank God he’d be leaving tomorrow to rejoin his team. Go over testing, get the engine in order. Try to salvage what remained of the season.
Maddux emerged to find his brother flipping through television channels.
Spencer gaped at him, then burst out laughing. “Jesus, dude. We’re playing golf at the Canyon, not Pebble Beach!”
Maddux looked down at his chinos and golf shoes. “What’s wrong with this?”
“It’s … it’s Justin Timberlake.”
Maddux grinned. “He wears T. Linberry, too.”
“Yeah,” his brother said, “but this is just … I don’t know. Too much. Do you have to wear that?”
His grin disappeared. “As a matter-of-fact, I do. Linberry’s a sponsor. I golf, I wear their stuff. I travel, I wear—”
“Even on vacation?”
Maddux shrugged and picked up his phone from the coffee table, tucking it into his pants along with the hotel key. “I have a contract. Company pays me to wear clothes they make for me. I was told I’d be under the microscope this year. Ready?”
His brother nodded and they exited the room. Maddux pushed the down arrow for the elevator and while they stood waiting, Spencer asked, “Who told you?”
“What?”
“That you’d be under the microscope.”
“Formula One.”
“Doesn’t it drive you crazy? You always had your own style—remember your board shorts with a button-down shirt and tie for Friday night dinners with Pop and Mom in the dining room at the Canyon Clubhouse? And now you dress like, I don’t know, something out of GQ.”
“It’s required.” Maddux replied, stepping into the elevator, and hitting the lobby button.
“What happened to you? You used to be such a rebel. BMX racing, skateboarding. What happened to the guy from Texas with the 6th Street tattoo on his shoulder?”
Maddux stepped out into the lobby, looked over his shoulder, and answered, “Haven’t you heard? That guy is world champion.”
Chapter 3
Brynn scrutinized the man across the ballroom at the Belgian hotel. Something was wrong with him, that much was clear even from half a room away. He had to be a driver. She’d been spotting them at the party—universally lean, elegantly attired, and at least a decade younger than any other man in the room.
Brynn nursed her glass of port, her eyes glued to the dark-haired man. Despite his expansive hand gestures and the crowd of people around him, he was pale beneath his tan, a sheen of sweat on his handsome face glistening even in the poor light from the chandeliers. A hangover could do that; so could illness. She couldn’t let her patient get anywhere near someone ill—his white cell count was too abnormal.
She searched for her patient in the crowd. Patient? More like employer. There he was. The picture of health—on the outside. Belamar was in his element here in this crowd of Formula One heavy hitters. And she was still jet-lagged, exhausted after attempting to make conversation with strangers, and foreign strangers at that, for most of two hours. Belamar’s eyes met hers. She lifted her glass and sent what she hoped was a lovesick smile his direction. She wasn’t very good at pretending and had no idea if they were pulling this off.
He beckoned with a tilt of his head and she made her way across the room, toes pinching with each step.
She went to his side, replied in kind to a chorus of hellos in a variety of accents, and leaned her head on his shoulder. That was their signal.
“Darling, running out of steam?”
“You know me so well,” she replied. Her hand rose to cover a yawn and he smiled down at her.
“Before you go, I want you to meet Henrico Villers,” Carl said, stretching an arm out to the tall man standing next to him. She recognized Villers the head of F1, of course. She’d looked him up online shortly after Belamar approached her with this arrangement. The head honcho was hard to miss as he was continually surrounded by a throng of sycophants. Here was a man who refused to age gracefully. His thinning hair was artificially darkened to an unnatural black, a stark contrast to the paper thin, oddly unlined skin of his face. He was a testament to image-enhancing surgeries and, in all likelihood, human growth hormone injections to maintain muscle tone.
The overall effect should have been appalling, as it was with certain aging action heroes, but instead, this nearly seventy-year-old man radiated a dynamism, a charisma, that belied both his age and his efforts to hold it back. She could well imagine that this man valued strength and youth—and for the first time she understood Belamar’s predicament. His colleagues would not suffer illness or infirmity—they’d view it as weakness. And potentially disruptive to their empire.
Her patient would never go quietly into the night, good or otherwise.
She beamed at him and did her best imitation of a loving girlfriend under Villers’s assessing stare.
Belamar took the room key from his pocket and handed it to her. She had her own in her clutch, of course, but he’d asked her to come to him—not to be controlling, he assured her, but for appearances’ sake. The suite he’d booked at the Ritz Carlton was like a large apartment—complete with a dining table seating six—but unlike most of the hotels he’d arranged for their travels, there was only one bedroom. Carl had purchased a small, quiet, state-of-the-art air mattress for these occasions. She slept next to that table for six, inflating her bed each night, deflating it each morning and hiding it away. She still wasn’t sure this business warranted such a degree of secrecy, but he seemed to think it did.
Brynn took the key and reached for Carl. They’d agreed on brief kisses. It wasn’t awful, but it sure as hell wasn’t comfortable. This whole experience lay somewhere between awkward and loathsome.
Carl leaned down and pressed cool, dry lips to hers. She twisted her lips into what she hoped passed for a smile and stroked a hand down his lapel. “Don’t be too late.”
He winked at her. “I won’t.”
The group surrounding them seemed to take this little exchange in stride. While she wasn’t the only wife or girlfriend decades younger than her companion, a gap this wide was not the norm. Good cause or not, she couldn’t shake the shame.
Brynn minced through the ballroom and to the lobby, nodding and smiling the entire trip, cursing the shoes under her breath.
She pressed the up arrow and waited for the metal elevator doors to open.
When they did she stepped inside, inserted the key as her permission to access the suites above the fifth floor, and pressed her floor. The doors were half closed when she heard an authoritative “Hold it!”
Instinctively she stepped forward and put a hand up to prevent the doors from coming together.
Oh God.
It was him. Sick guy. While her brain registered his American accent, the doctor in her noted the over-bright, thickly lashed green eyes, the almost gray skin tone, and the finger that shook as it pressed the fourth floor button.
The woman in her couldn’t help but notice his thick dark hair; the nearly perfect, chiseled features; the sensual lips; and lower, a strong jaw covered by the just the right amount of scruff.
Brynn retreated to the far corner of the elevator, hugging the wall, holding her breath.
A physician who worked with severely ill and immune-compromised patients couldn’t be too careful. This guy wasn’t hung over. He was ill.
“Thanks,” he mumbled without looking at her as he propped a shoulder against the wall. Then he leaned his head. His knees buckled
and he went down, fast and hard.
She gasped and took two steps forward, but she was too slow to stop his descent to the floor. The doors to his floor opened.
“Damn it.”
She stared at him lying in front of her for two heartbeats. The doors were already closing. Brynn hit the “L” button and went to her knees next to him. The elevator resumed its motion.
He was already coming around as she helped him onto his side into the recovery position—that way if he threw up, he wouldn’t aspirate. She put a hand to his forehead. Cool and dry. After what seemed like forever, the doors closed and the car descended.
She pushed up the sleeve of his suit jacket, then the white dress shirt underneath, exposing his forearm. She pinched his skin; the warm flesh stayed upright, a sure sign of dehydration.
The elevator doors opened and shut on her floor and she weighed her options. No matter what he had, she’d been exposed and she couldn’t get near Belamar now. The lobby doors opened and she called for help.
• • •
Maddux groaned as his eyes opened, the dizziness overwhelming. He shook his head; the floor, inches from his nose, rotated sickeningly. He’d passed out in the damn elevator. A woman was helping him to his side. Maddux obliged her, though his legs were leaden, his head foggy and buzzing.
A bellhop appeared in the entryway. “Sir?” he asked and propped open the doors. “Do you need help?” he asked in Dutch-accented English.
“Ambulance?” she tried.
The man looked uncertain.
“I’ll be okay—I just … ” he mumbled, his tongue thick in his dry mouth. He struggled to sit up, finally pushing himself to a sitting position against the wall as the bell for holding the doors open too long sounded.
“How long have you been ill?” she asked.
“A day? No, since the night before last,” Maddux said.
“Vomiting, diarrhea?”
He looked away. He wasn’t so out of it that he would share what had been going on in that department with an unreasonably beautiful pale blonde in an expensive black gown.
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