“I get a pinch and we give it another try.” She couldn’t be seen with Maddux Bates at the hospital and she had everything she needed right here.
Discreet.
She needed to be better and soon if she was going to keep Belamar on track.
“I’ll guide you through it. Grab my bag.”
Brynn laid out her supplies and handed him gloves.
He raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t need these.”
“Sure you do. There may be blood.”
“We’ve already shared body fluids.”
If he was going to continually bring that episode up, she was going to stab him with one of the fourteen gauge IV catheters. Her gaze narrowed. “On.”
Muttering, he tore the packaging and put on the purple gloves. A snug fit. She’d only brought medium for herself and he clearly needed a large. He flexed his hands.
“Are they supposed to be this tight?”
“They’ll do.” She handed him the intravenous catheter and tubing. He took them from her gingerly, his hands shaking as he took the catheter out of the packaging. His gloved fingers examined the tip. “Geez. This is big. Are you sure it will fit?”
“Isn’t that my line?” she quipped, trying to put him at ease.
His lips quirked as he tied the tourniquet around her upper arm, prepped the spot with her guidance, and hesitated.
“Go ahead. It doesn’t hurt,” she said, tightening and relaxing her fist.
He pushed the catheter in, straight through the vein. Blood welled and the surface of her inner elbow swelled instantly.
“What the—” Maddux said.
“Okay, take it out … get the gauze.”
He was staring at her arm, an expression of abject horror on his face. “Fuck!”
“No, it’s okay, just withdraw it. Maddux? Look at me.”
His gaze lifted.
“Tourniquet off.”
He didn’t move.
“Then take the needle out. Maddux? Maddux.”
He looked up.
“Needle out.”
He pulled the needle out.
Crap. Brynn pulled the tourniquet off herself, then grabbed a gauze pad from the bed.
“Maddux, put the needle in the red Sharps container. Good. Now open this bandage for me, please.”
She handed it to him and he automatically followed her instructions, his eyes never leaving the trail of maroon blood flowing down her inner arm.
“Ok, here.” She took the gauze and pressed down, hard, staunching the flow. She took his unresisting hand and freed one of his gloved fingers. “Hold there.”
“Put the sharp—put the needle in there.” She nodded at the red plastic container. “Okay, that’s enough pressure, now tape it down, good.”
He stared at her bandaged arm in dismay, a track of blood drying on her inner arm.
“This isn’t going to work. I may heave.”
She glanced up, smiling reassuringly. This stuff was hard for lay people, the concept of breaking the skin’s surface. She’d probably felt a similar horror all those years ago when she’d first started doing procedures.
“Of course it’ll work. You just need to go slower; it’s a fairly delicate process. You went in at the wrong angle.”
He glanced up with a forced smile. “That’s a first.”
She pressed her lips together to contain the answering smile that had sprouted. If he could banter, he could give it another try.
Brynn explained the steps again as she awkwardly prepped her other arm.
He was as ashen as a first year medical student.
“Suck it up, buttercup,” she said.
Maddux looked up, astonishment giving way to a stutter of laughter.
“You know,” he drawled, his Texas roots still woven into in his lightly accented speech, “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that, cupcake.”
“You’ll be fine. Trust me. You’re not the first person to practice on me, but hopefully you’ll be the last.”
“What?”
“How do you think we learn this? On patients? We practice on each other in school, or at least some of us do. You’ll do fine.”
He shuddered. “Of all the things I’ve done in my life, I think this is the worst.”
She laughed. “There’s so much worse in medicine, you have no idea.”
“Spare me.”
Their eyes met over the needle hovering over her arm, and Brynn forgot to breathe.
Chapter 7
Maddux sat in the corner, checking his phone. He’d already missed one scheduled flight to Heathrow. Now he’d have to text his travel manager to get him on another one—he had to be in Buckinghamshire tomorrow morning for meetings at the Supernova racing headquarters. There were only two weeks until the next race in Italy to make improvements to the car that might, finally, put him on the podium.
He had team meetings, meetings with sponsors, meet and greets lined up. Practically every day was scheduled through the end of the season. After Italy, it was on to Singapore and Japan. He liked going to Asia. Mostly because it put him out of reach of Europe where he was continually beaten down in the press. Last year Formula One had done their damnedest to make him unlikable, playing up his rivalry with Ronan Hawes; now they were trying to get him back in the good graces of the fans. Not gonna happen.
And therein lay the trouble with this sport. It was about so much more than the race and the car. Those things he could deal with that. Those things he excelled at. He’d been so desperate to get here. His prior decade of racing—karting, Formula Ford—was all in pursuit of F1. And yet here, living the dream, he found the reality quite different from his expectations. He always felt like he was playing a role, one dictated by the PR department for F1.
He’d been racing long enough to know that some years you had the best vehicle. Some years you didn’t—winning wasn’t everything, and there were years you couldn’t overcome the limitations of your drive. He prided himself on driving whatever he was in right to that limit.
It was the rest of it that had beaten him down last season and again this year. Endless scrutiny. Lies. This manufactured “persona” Formula One pushed on him—last season they liked the idea of the “ugly American” and encouraged attitude. So he had been outrageous last season. And the outsider role came naturally—he was an American in a sport dominated by Europeans. They’d been more shocked than anyone when their manufactured villain had snatched the championship out from under their golden boy, Ronan Hawes.
Yes, last season everything had come together, and to him the racing was all that mattered.
This season nothing was going right, not the car, not managing the press, and not even his driving. The image makers were at a loss at how to transform their arch villain into a superhero. Being on the same team today with his biggest competitor only reminded everyone that Ronan was the one to love and he was the one to hate. All the European sponsors flocked to Ronan Hawes. Maddux had a few clothing contracts, an American liquor company, and of course, Supernova Energy. Meanwhile, the public relations people hosted weekly meetings on Maddux’s appeal or lack thereof and lamented his lack of sponsorship.
He looked up from his phone to where Brynn Douglas dozed in the double bed.
What he didn’t need in his life was a raging, desperate urge for Carl Belamar’s woman.
Ill as she was, she brought out every protective instinct he’d never had. His only exposure to doctors were his white-haired pediatrician and the various general practitioners he’d seen in England for one thing or another over the years. In his comprehensive annual Formula One physicals, he hadn’t encountered anyone like her. Clever, hot, and dating a man forty years her senior.
It was all he could do to keep his hands off her. All that natural light blonde, thick hair that smelled like coconuts, like summertime poolside in Austin. Her wide, somehow innocent brown eyes. That gentle, very precise, tone she had when she was telling him what to do. Those looks
she gave him from under her lashes and how she’d moaned and writhed in his hand, the feel of her—
He pulled at the front of his suddenly tight Diesel jeans.
She was off limits. The idea of her with Belamar sickened him. He needed to hang onto the queasy feeling he got imagining Belamar’s liver-spotted hands all over her pale, slender body.
Theirs had to be the strangest pairing in history. What Brynn had in common with a dinosaur—and a predatory one at that—like Belamar was mystifying. Surely she wasn’t in it for the money. She was a doctor, for God’s sake. Must be the power thing. Some women got off on that. Just like some women got off with racecar drivers.
He’d seen plenty of rich old men paired with hot babes in Formula One. The model/actress or socialite on the arm of some oil magnate or telecom executive sponsor was a common sighting, the little blue pill their party drug of choice. But why would a seventy-year-old man dump his long-time love for a woman young enough to be his daughter—hell, his granddaughter? Brynn was no model or actress or socialite. She was accomplished in her own right. My God.
It had to be about the American Formula One team. Everyone knew Villers was looking to expand F1 for next season.
Maybe Belamar was finally making it happen. And she had to be tied up in it somehow.
From his vantage point in the chair by the window, he noticed the minute she jerked awake from her light doze. She sat up sleepily in the bed, a lost expression giving way to relief when she spotted him in the chair.
His gut clenched with pity.
“There you are,” she said. “I thought you might’ve had to leave.”
“I’ll stay till you’re better,” he heard himself say. Doctor or not, she was halfway around the world without anyone.
“Can you? I mean, you shouldn’t,” she said, softly pushing up the pillows until she was sitting up, the bulky robe gaping in front. She clutched at it.
“I can already tell I’m on the mend,” she said.
“Just promise me I don’t have to stab you again.”
“You don’t. If you bring me my duffel, I can switch it myself.”
He stood and walked over to her black duffel bag on the floor and hefted it in his hand. It was surprisingly heavy.
“Whatcha got in here, rocks?”
“Just stuff I thought I might need.” She toyed with the end of the gray duvet. “I haven’t been outside the United States much, just to Canada. I wasn’t sure what the health care systems would be like, so I brought a few things with me in case of an emergency, plus, you know, shoes and stuff.”
He tossed the bag on the bed with a grunt.
“So, tell me, Brynn. What kind of doctor are you?”
“A hematologist,” she said, still digging through the bag.
“Which is?”
“Blood disorders,” she replied briefly, head down, rummaging for something.
Gross.
“Like what? Anemia?”
“Well, mild anemia would be treated by primary care. I specialize in treating people with disorders of plasma cells, white blood cells. So, multiple myeloma and amyloidosis.”
“Myeloma? Isn’t that—”
“Cancer,” she said, without looking up.
“Cancer?” he repeated in a strangled tone.
“Yep. Ah ha! Here it is.” She pulled out a bag of fluid. “I’m not sure I’ll need it. One oughta do it, but—”
“Cancer, Brynn?”
“Right.” Her head was cocked, and those wide brown eyes met his.
“Of all the types of medicine, you picked blood and cancer?” He shook his head. “Why would anyone want to do that?”
“It’s very rewarding, most of the time,” she amended. “We all lose patients, you know, no matter what our specialty.”
“Yeah, but cancer? How depressing.”
She sat up straighter in the bed. “When your patient goes into remission and gets a few extra good years, it’s pretty great.”
“But the kids—”
“No kids. I’m not a pediatric hematologist-oncologist.” She studied the bag in her hand.
“I wouldn’t be able to do it.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “Too many people dying.”
Those wise, wide brown eyes above a sober expression met his stare. Right up until this moment he’d thought of her as innocent despite her circumstances. Less worldly than him. But there was something both knowing and calm in her gaze as she met his stare and replied, “We all die from something, Maddux; sometimes the best you can do is help someone get a few extra months or years—and then a good death.”
He sat on the edge of the bed across from her and watched her fine-boned hands lay an assortment of materials out on the plastic blue-backed napkin thing she’d called a “chuck” earlier.
“Why that? I mean, why not … I don’t know—” He racked his brain for a better specialty, but all he could come up with was one ugly disease after another. “Something else,” he finished, lamely.
“I lost a cousin to leukemia when I was in junior high. We were close. After she died, I decided I wanted to go to medical school. To try to improve outcomes, I guess. But I found during my rotations that I wasn’t cut out for peds. I wasn’t able to establish enough professional distance from my patients and their families. I found a little more distance with adults, but it’s still not as much as I’d like. It’s a great field and I love my job.”
“Then why are you here?”
She zipped up the bag and did her best to push it down the bed.
He came to take it from her.
“Brynn?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Why’d you leave it if you love it so much?”
“Uh, well, I met Carl at a hospital fundraiser. We got to talking. We had a—” she wouldn’t meet his eyes “—a connection. He kind of swept me off my feet.”
“Really?” He couldn’t keep the skepticism from his tone. “Are we still talking about Carl Belamar?”
“You have to understand,” she said, her expression almost shy, “I’ve been working my ass off in school for, well, forever. College, medical school, internship, residency, fellowship—not to mention boards and then my patient load at the Gates Institute. I’d started to feel like I was on a ride I couldn’t get off. I kept thinking the next thing would give me breathing room. More of a personal life. But it never did.” She spoke slowly. “Carl and I became … friends. He could tell I was at a crossroads with my career, and he asked me to join him.”
“A crossroads?”
“The center where I work has a strong research focus. I’m more comfortable in direct patient care. Three years into my dream career, I was having a hard time balancing my life with my job. My days were filled with consults and rounding at the hospital. After hours I worked on research. I haven’t had much of a life, you know?”
“So find another job.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. I’m only three years into my practice and I’ve got loans to pay off. And so many of the prestigious cancer institutions have that same research focus. So, I’m taking some time to reassess how I want to practice medicine, and Belamar was looking for … ”
A hot young lover?
“ … companionship.” She glanced up. “You disapprove,” she said, drily.
“You hooked up with him to go on vacation?” he said, incredulous.
“No. I like him, I … he’s … ”
He watched her struggle to come up with something to say about the seventy-year-old man, her lover.
“It was an impulsive thing. We hit it off, he invited me to come with him, and, look, it’s really none of your business,” Her tone was crisp, her body language tense.
“You’re forty years younger than he is.”
“So?”
“So? So, it’s—” He closed his mouth before his tongue could get him into even more trouble.
Her eyes narrowed. “What?” she said,
her voice dangerously cool.
Finally, his F1 public relations training kicked in. “Unusual.”
Jealousy and disillusionment warred within him. Despite that fact that he’d known she was with Belamar, he hadn’t been able to shake his image of her as uncorrupted. It was her eyes. Those damn wide and guileless eyes. But here she was, admitting using the man as her meal ticket to a little time off. It was mercenary. And also clear that whatever feelings she had for the old bastard weren’t love. The intensity of his disappointment in her character took him by surprise. He’d put her on a pedestal, envisioning her as someone selfless, a doctor driven by a desire to help people.
No matter her day job in the past, these days her job was keeping her sugar daddy happy. And for what? A vacation. He wanted to wring Carl Belamar’s scrawny neck.
Chapter 8
Brynn closed her eyes and leaned back against the pillow as Maddux Bates got off the bed and took the dozen steps to the window on the far side of the room. Of course he was curious. Who wouldn’t be? Despite Belamar’s assurances, their age gap was highly unusual. Public disapproval of their relationship was palpable at times. Although, if Carl had been in a relationship until recently, it was possible people still felt loyal to Ellen.
Uncomfortable as she was with her decision, it was still tough to see Maddux’s expression shift and harden into something resembling derision as she explained her relationship with Carl Belamar. The plan was to tell people she was a hematologist and not reveal the oncologist part. Laypersons didn’t always make the connection. Blood disorders sounded more benign, but if it did come up, he’d told her to downplay any reference to cancer.
Well, that hadn’t been possible.
She had a headache, and her body ached from its efforts to purge the virus. She hadn’t slept or eaten or had a real conversation with anyone in days, and now that she had, she had stay focused, stick with the story.
“He’s my patient, idiot!” she wanted to shriek. Except there would go the loan payoff, the salary, the $4 million and, most importantly, his treatment. He’d said he’d put an end to her medical career, and she had no doubts he could do that at the more prestigious cancer institutes, who were slavering over even the possibility of his largess. And she should risk that for some F1 driver she’d just met and taken an instant lust to? So he wouldn’t think badly of her?
High Octane Page 23