Rich and Seductive
The Fraternity Brothers Series Book Three
Emerson Rose
Contents
Important!
Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
More from Emerson
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About the Author
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Description
Lennon
Without my memories, I’ve learned to rely on my friends and my fiancé.
The problem is I don’t remember them, or her.
The only person I feel connected to is the one I’d never met until I woke up
in this hospital with amnesia. The beautiful British nurse, Trinity Thomas.
Trinity is my nurse.
Kelly is my fiancé.
Trinity is my angel.
Kelly is a stranger.
As my memories start to return, none of them include Kelly and I need to find out why.
If I don’t, I could end up with a ball and chain instead of angel wings.
1
Lennon
The faint sound of beeping in the distance is the first thing I hear after… after what? I search my mind for my most recent memory, and I can’t grasp it. I cannot grasp any memory. What I can grasp is the sensation of pain shooting through my head, that incessant beeping, and another sound that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s soft and muffled and far away.
Until it’s not. The roaring sound of voices suddenly fills my head, and I try unsuccessfully to open my eyes. What are they saying? Are they talking to me? Are they talking about me?
I listen harder until I make out my name, or at least I think it’s my name. Lennon. Lennon. Yes, I struggle to remember, but I’m almost positive that’s my name. I strain again to hear what the voices are saying about me. “His condition.” “Stable.” “Serious.”
I’m hurt and in the hospital. That’s all I can gather, and it’s enough for now. I follow the darkness when a warmth flows through my body, dulling the pain in my head.
When I hear the sounds of my hospital room again, I lie still and will my eyes to open. When I’m able to open them a slit, I’m met with a bright room filled with blurry outlines of people standing around my bed. Two of them are wearing white jackets, and one is dressed in pale blue. That’s all I can make out through my hazy vision.
“Mr. Berkshire? Lennon, can you hear me?” says a smooth-as-silk female voice that sounds like an angel. Would an angel call me Mr. Berkshire? Is that even my name?
“Dr. Carmichael, he’s waking up,” she says to one of the men in white jackets.
I feel like I’m seeing them through the lens of a camera that’s trying to auto-focus. Their faces change from crisp to blurry and back again.
“Lennon, hello, my name is Dr. Carmichael. You’re at Trinity Hospital. You were hit in the head while working on your yacht. If you can, blink once if you remember, twice if you don’t,” the older man with white hair says.
I can’t speak, there’s something in my mouth. I obey and blink my eyes twice. I have no idea how I got here. Apparently, I have a yacht, though, and that sounds great.
“That’s okay, a little memory loss isn’t unusual after a head injury like yours. You’re on a ventilator that’s been helping you breathe. I’m going to remove it now that you’re awake and see how well you do without it. All right, Lennon?”
I blink once, and he smiles. “Good, good. Trinity, may I have some gloves, please?” he says, and I switch my attention to the person he’s talking to. She’s a tall woman with smooth, dark skin that seems to glow from within. She moves with otherworldly grace, her arms floating to the box on a table to remove something and hand it to the doctor. When her amber eyes meet mine, she smiles, and I know what she is—she’s an angel. I must have died from a blow to the head, and I’m in heaven. There’s no other explanation for her beauty or the way I feel when I look at her.
The beeping of one of the monitors speeds up, and my angel raises her gaze to a glowing box over my head before looking at the doctor with concern. “You’re going to be all right, Lennon, just relax. When I say go, blow out a big breath, and I’ll remove the tube.”
My thoughts jumble as I try to make sense of what he’s saying. Before I can put two and two together, he is unhooking a tube and telling me to, “Go.”
My angel touches my shoulder, and I calm remembering to blow as the white-haired man slips the breathing tube from my body. I cough and sputter when it’s out and raise my hand to my throat. I find another tube taped to my arm. This one is attached to the box that beeps, the one that’s been driving me nuts.
I gulp in air as my body remembers how to breath on its own, and out of nowhere, exhaustion covers me like a blanket as if to say that’s enough for today. I want nothing more than to close my eyes and go back to sleep, but this white-haired man begins to ask me questions.
“Glad to have you back, Lennon. Can you tell me what day it is?”
I try my voice, and at first, it won’t work. A rough, barking sound come
s from my throat. When I try again, I whisper, “I don’t know.”
“That’s okay. It’ll all come to you soon enough. Why don’t you rest a bit, and I’ll let your friends know you’re awake?” he says.
“I can do that for you, doctor. I know one of his friends,” my angel says in a light British accent, and he agrees.
I watch the doctor speak quietly to the other person in a white coat for a moment before they leave together.
My angel takes a step away from the bed, and I reach out to take her hand, stopping her.
She covers my hand with her free one and returns to my side. “Do you need something, Lennon?” she asks.
I search her face, my eyes darting back and forth between hers for any signs of humanity, but all I see is unearthly beauty. “You’re an angel, and this is heaven, isn’t it?” I croak.
Her smile is proof that I’m right, and her hand on my cheek confirms it further. “Rest. Everything will sort itself out in time, I promise,” she says, and I close my eyes thinking how funny it is that angels have a British accent.
2
Trinity
I’ve been a nurse for a long time, and patients have called me a lot of things but being called an angel is a first. And I think he truly believes it. The way he looked at me like I wasn’t real as if I was the most amazing thing he’d ever laid eyes on, it should have been creepy. It should have been, but it wasn’t. It was nice.
I’m smart enough to know it was just the ramblings of a man with a head injury, but it was still nice to be thought of that way. Angels help people, and so do nurses, so maybe we are one and the same?
He will start to remember what happened. His friends and family will help him, and he will go back to the life he was living before the mast of his yacht hit him in the head. I’ve seen it a hundred times.
Dimming the lights in his room, I leave to inform his friends, who have been waiting for over twenty-four hours in the waiting room, that he is awake and talking. I work with one of them. Dr. Evan Andrews is a resident here at the hospital that carries my name. He is Trinity Hospital’s up-and-coming star psychiatrist. He’s friendly, kind, handsome as hell, and part of a tight-knit group of friends.
In the waiting room, I find him talking with the group. I tap him on the shoulder. “Dr. Andrews, isn’t the patient in bed eight a friend of yours?” I ask.
“Yes, is everything okay?” he asks, turning to face me.
“Oh, yes, I wanted to let you know he has regained consciousness. I thought you might want to see him.”
A woman to my left gasps covering her heart with her hand. “Oh, thank God.”
A muscular man with wind-blown hair and another shorter man with a lean build say, “That’s awesome” in unison.
Evan tells them he will go and check on Lennon and return with an update. He also asks where someone named Kelly has gone. It sounds like Kelly might be Lennon’s girlfriend. I listen to them discuss a ring she was wearing and what it means. From the sounds of it, there’s no love lost between Kelly and the group. Evan asks if Kelly should be called about Lennon’s change in condition. He is met with a resounding no, and I smile to myself.
I’ve never known someone to leave a loved one in the ICU with a critical head injury unless the patient wasn’t really a loved one. Lennon deserves better.
Evan turns and surprises me by introducing me to his friends. “All right, I’ll be back in a few minutes. By the way, this is Trinity, everybody. She’s one of the best nurses in the ICU,” he says, and they reply in unison with a, “Hey, Trinity.”
I flash them my best smile. “I’ve heard a lot about all of you.”
“Don’t believe a word of it,” the handsome bronzed-skin man says. If I remember correctly, his name is Damian, and he’s a race car driver.
I laugh, and Evan places his hand on my lower back, guiding me away toward the ICU. Evan is a great friend and an even better man. My parents would love him. He’s smart, handsome, well-off financially, and most importantly to them, he’s black.
Unfortunately, there’s no chemistry between us whatsoever. We went for coffee a few times, talked about our lives, and we even tried to kiss. But in the end, we agreed that there were no sparks, and friendship would be best.
“Does Lennon have family we should contact?” I ask Evan.
“His parents are divorced. His mom lives in New York, and his dad is in Europe. I’ll see if anyone knows how to contact them.”
“Europe? Where about, do you know?” I ask, my interest peaked being from London myself.
“No, sorry. He’s never talked about them more than to say his wealth comes from his father’s family.”
“It’s a shame. From what you’ve told me, Lennon seems like a good guy.”
“He’s the best. His relationship with his parents is strained, but it’s not his fault. His mother has a love of material things. His father has a roaming eye and other parts as well, I suspect. Lennon wasn’t the focus of his parents’ attention as he should have been. It’s amazing that he’s turned out so well, to be honest.”
“That’s sad.” We stop in front of Lennon’s room. “I don’t have to remind you that he might not act like the same Lennon you know. He might have memory loss, most likely short-term. He could be confused, agitated, distressed, or frightened. Oh, also, he thinks I’m an angel.”
Evan was following along fine until that last bit.
“An angel? As in a real angel, or was he simply recognizing your beauty?”
I feel the heat of my blush creep up my neck at the compliment. “Well, it seemed like he thought he was in heaven, and I was an actual angel. It’s all part of the healing process as you know. He may not even remember saying it.”
Evan raises his eyebrows in an ‘I doubt it’ expression and opens the door to Lennon’s room. He’s asleep breathing easy on his own without the ventilator. Another nurse sits at a computer next to his bed charting. The room is still dim, and the soft blip of Lennon’s heartbeat plays in the background like white noise.
Evan approaches the bed and takes Lennon’s hand in his. Lennon opens his eyes and looks at Evan with confusion. “Hey, you gave us all quite a scare, sailor,” Evan says in a soft voice.
“I did?” Lennon says.
“Yeah, do you remember what happened?”
Lennon looks away thinking, and his heart rate increases. “It’s okay if you don’t, no big deal. You hit your head pretty hard, and it will take your brain some time to heal. Your memory will come back,” Evan says, bringing Lennon down before anxiety has the chance to grip him tight.
“Where am I?” he asks.
“You’re in the ICU,” Evan says keeping it simple as he knows he should. Small bits of information at a time, that’s the way to reintroduce him to the world.
“ICU? The hospital?”
“Yes. You hit your head. You’re going to be okay now,” Evan says.
Lennon’s gaze drifts to where I am standing, and his eyes light up. “Angel, you’re real. I thought you were a dream,” he says.
Evan looks at me with ‘I told you’ written all over his face. I roll my eyes at him and step forward. “I’m your nurse, Trinity. It’s nice to meet you.”
He shakes his head back and forth disagreeing and groans. “Try not to move your head too much. It’ll only make the pain worse,” I say.
“You’re not a nurse, you are an angel. I died, and this is heaven. You were here before.”
“I’ll go along with the angel thing, but you’re definitely not dead. Trinity is an angel on earth,” Evan says, and that damn blush is back crawling up my neck to my cheeks.
Lennon calms, resting his head back into the pillow, and his pulse returns to normal. “That’s good, close your eyes and rest. Things will make more sense when you wake up,” I say in a soothing voice, not knowing if I’m telling him the truth or not. It works, though. He does as I ask, and within seconds, the muscles of his chiseled and handsome face relax, and he is a
sleep again.
Evan stands, and we move to the door. “Keep me updated. I’ll be in the ER for the next two weeks, day and night. If there’s any change, anything at all, please call me. You still have my number, right?”
“I do and don’t worry. I’ll take good care of him.”
“I’m sure you will, Angel,” he says playfully.
“Don’t get cheeky with me, Dr. Andrews,” I say, and he’s out the door before I can say more.
3
Lennon
Angel. Angel. Where is my angel? There’s a song there I think as I struggle to open my eyes. Was I listening to the radio? No, that’s not it. My eyes open a slit, and panic strikes me. “Where am I?” I yell, sitting up in bed. Pain stabs my head, and instinct pushes me back down onto the pillow.
“Hey, hey, shush, you’re okay. You’re in the hospital, you hurt your head,” a female voice says. When the room stops spinning, I glance over at a petite woman dressed in hospital scrubs sitting in the chair next to my bed with a sandwich in one hand and a giant Slurpee in the other. She feels more than looks familiar like I know her, but seeing her in person isn’t helping me connect the dots.
“Who are you?”
She grimaces and groans. “Oh, that hurt. Of all the people in our group, I figured you would remember me. It’s Fiona, dude, your best non-girlfriend, girlfriend.”
Rich and Seductive: The Fraternity Brothers Series Book Three Page 1