Surprise Daddy: A Billionaire Doctor Accidental Pregnancy Romance

by Hunter Rose

  Kinsey looks back at me, suddenly shy. I hang back as Tyson steps up beside Kinsey and takes her little hand in his. He looks down at her and gives her a wink.

  “What’s it going to be, little one?” he asks her.

  “Cotton candy,” she chirps. “And bubble gum.”

  Tyson feigns shock. “What happened to chocolate chip?”

  She shakes her head emphatically, her pigtails whipping wildly side to side. “Cotton candy and bubble gum!”

  “Okay, okay,” he says and turns to the girl behind the counter. “A scoop of each. And I’ll have two scoops of mint chip.”

  The girl behind the counter shuffles off to get their ice cream, and Kinsey bounces up and down on her heels as she waits. A minute later, she hands a bowl to Kinsey. My little girl takes it with a wide smile and starts to run off, but I hold up a hand to stop her.

  “What do we say, Kinsey?”

  She gives me a sheepish look, then turns back to the pink haired girl. “Thank you.” Of course, when she says it, it sounds more like ‘tank-oo’.

  The girl behind the counter smiles and then hands Tyson’s bowl to him without a word. Clearly, customer service isn’t her forte. I place my order and pay for our ice cream. When the girl hands me my cup, the three of us wander outside and find a table in a small courtyard where we sit down, enjoy our sweet treat, and make small talk. It’s been a nice day out, and I’ve enjoyed myself. More importantly, I know that Kinsey has enjoyed herself – the lack of new toys notwithstanding.

  Once we finish, I grab the ice cream cups and throw them all away. Suddenly, while my back is turned, Tyson’s voice rings out in the air.

  “Aagh!”

  I spin around at the sound of Tyson’s pained cry and see him clutching his midsection. He topples to the ground, his face a mask of pure agony and Kinsey lets out a scream of absolute terror.

  “Tyson!” I scream and drop to my knees beside him.

  Kinsey is standing next to me, her eyes wide, tears streaming down her face as she watches her uncle Tyson writhing around on the ground in pain. Tyson’s face is red, his breathing is labored, and a sheen of sweat makes his face glisten. I pull my cell out of my pocket and dial 9-1-1. When the operator answers, I rattle off the location and give them a quick summary of Tyson’s symptoms.

  Being an ER nurse, I’m used to having to remain calm in a crisis. I know how to keep my head and do my job. So I do my best to calm him down and try to diagnose him as we wait for the ambulance to get here. My best guess is appendicitis – meaning, he’s got to have surgery and soon.

  Kinsey is sobbing, nearly inconsolable, so I take her hand and give it a gentle squeeze. With sirens wailing in the distance but rapidly growing closer, I look her in the eye.

  “Uncle Tyson’s going to be okay,” I soothe her. “I promise you he’s going to be okay, honey.”

  Kinsey sniffs hard and wipes at her eyes. Tyson grunts in pain and squeezes my other hand hard as he tries to control himself, not wanting to scare Kinsey any more than he already has. I look at him and put on the bravest face I can muster.

  “Your symptoms point to appendicitis,” I tell him. “You’re going to need surgery, but it’s a simple procedure. You’ll be right as rain in a few days.”

  My voice is calm and controlled, but my insides are swirling and churning like a massive tornado tearing through a trailer park. It doesn’t matter how hardened you are, or how much you’ve seen and been through, when you see a loved one in pain, it will screw you up every single time. Tyson grunts and nods as he looks up at me, obviously so racked with pain he can’t quite form words. The sirens are getting closer, but they still sound agonizingly far away.

  “Guess I’m,” he finally manages through clenched teeth, trying to catch his breath, “swearing off ice cream for good, huh?”

  Despite the extreme stress of the situation, I bark out something between a laugh and a sob. Even on the ground, writhing in pain, Tyson knows just how to cheer me up.

  Tyson reaches up and takes Kinsey’s hand. He gives it a squeeze, doing his best to reassure my little girl even though he’s racked with pain. Tears are still streaming down her face, but she’s doing her best to remain strong for him. I couldn’t be prouder of her.

  Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the ambulance screeches to a stop. The EMTs jump out and come rushing over to us. I take Kinsey by the hand and pull her to the side, keeping the both of us out of the way, and letting the paramedics do their job. They check on Tyson and do their best to get him stabilized before loading him onto the gurney.

  “Where are you taking him?” I ask one of the paramedics as they start to wheel him away.

  “St. Agatha’s,” he calls back. “On Wilshire.”

  I nod. I know where St. Aggie’s is. Pulling Kinsey along with me, we hustle back to the car, my stomach lurching. Even with a procedure as simple as an appendectomy, nothing is ever guaranteed. Surgery, regardless of how routine, is never simple. Any of a thousand different things can go wrong.

  I pray a quiet word to anybody who might be listening that Tyson is okay. That he comes through the surgery alright. My heart is thundering in my chest, and the knots in my stomach are constricting painfully as we merge into traffic and head for St. Aggie’s.

  13

  Roman

  I pull into the lot at work, grateful to be anywhere but home. I’d woken up in bed next to Eve, the woman from Glass, my head throbbing painfully. I’d clearly had too much to drink last night, and judging by the aches in my body, I’d apparently had too much Eve as well.

  It was an awkward morning, to say the least. Last night was fun – a lot of fun – but the clinginess started as I was getting ready for work. She wanted to know when we were getting together again, whether she could come by tonight, and started trying to make plans for a future she seemed to already be mapping out in her head.

  As I was getting ready to leave, she grabbed my phone and quickly keyed in her number, handed it back to me with a smile, and ordered me to call her. It was all I could do to keep from erasing it right then and there and throwing her out of my house.

  It was everything I didn’t want. Eve is everything I don’t want. I do everything I can to avoid those kinds of emotional entanglements and complications in my life. So when Eve started prattling on this morning and trying to make plans like we were already a couple, trying to wriggle her way into my life, I practically pulled a hamstring getting out of there.

  I step into my office, put my things down, then check my messages and my emails. There’s surprisingly not a lot going on today. At least, not yet anyway. Finished with the busywork, I slip into my white lab coat and head out on the floor. I have to check up on my recent patients and see what else is on the slate for the afternoon.

  After checking in on my patients still in the ICU, I grab a cup of coffee from the lounge then head back out onto the floor. The hospital is quiet. There isn’t a lot of action, which is odd. There’s usually a car accident or two, or perhaps a shooting to deal with. I figure it’s just the calm before the storm, so I stop at the nurse’s station and peruse some of the charts.

  “Hey, Doctor Wheeler.”

  “Hey, Marisol.”

  I give her a small smile, then turn back to the charts in front of me. Obviously not taking the hint, Marisol leans against the counter, pretending to look through some papers, but from the corner of my eye, I can see her casting furtive glances at me. After the morning I had, I’m definitely not in the mood for these games. I gather up the charts, stack them all together, then stick them under my arm and give her a quick smile.

  “Have a good day,” I say as I turn away.

  “Hey, listen –”

  I walk off abruptly, not giving her a chance to finish her statement. My shoes squeak on the tiled floor as I walk. The air smells of disinfectant. The hospital smells clean. Everything is orderly. I think about the hospital back in Syria and how horrible the conditions were. About how oppo
site it was from this place.

  That train of thought, of course, leads me down a path I’d rather not go. But it’s a path my mind usually takes me down more often than I’d like. I quickly shut it down and try to clear all thoughts of Scarlet from my mind – which is always easier said than done.

  I turn and head down a corridor in the recovery wing that’s mostly empty. My footsteps echo down the hallway ahead of me. When I make the next right, on my way to the elevator, I pass a room and hear a voice that stops me in my tracks. My stomach lurches, and my mouth suddenly goes dry when I hear a laughter that’s familiar to me.

  “It can’t be,” I whisper.

  I step closer to the wall and edge toward the door. I strain my ears and listen, feeling a charge of adrenaline surging through me. I peek around the corner and see a man lying in a bed and a small girl with strawberry blonde hair, maybe three or four years old, standing next to him. She has hold of his hand and is smiling. But the woman I heard speaking is out of my line of sight. To see her, I’d have to physically step into the room. And until I’m sure, I don’t want to do that. Honestly, I don’t know if I want to do that even if I am sure.

  “Everything okay, Doctor Wheeler?”

  Startled, and feeling like a kid who just got caught looking at porn online or something, I stand up straight and find myself looking into Marisol’s face. I guess I was so absorbed in eavesdropping, I hadn’t even heard her walk up. She’s got a wispy grin on her face, and her eyes sparkle with a mischievous light, obviously amused that she found me spying on a patient.

  “Playing secret agent?” she whispers, a tone of amusement in her voice.

  I chuckle, pitching my voice low to hopefully avoid being overheard by the woman in the room. I want to avoid looking like an idiot. As Marisol’s smile widens, I realize it’s probably too late for that.

  “No, I just thought I recognized somebody,” I explain.

  “So you’re lurking out here in the hallway?”

  “I’m not lurking,” I reason. “I just didn’t want to interrupt.”

  She nods, her amusement seeming to grow by the second. I run a hand through my hair and clear my throat again, not really sure how to extricate myself from this situation without looking like a bigger fool than I already do.

  Thankfully, I don’t have to. Marisol’s being summoned to the ICU over the hospital’s PA system. She sighs and gives me a shrug. Saved by the bell.

  “Well, good luck super-spy,” she grins.

  I give her a smile as she turns on her heel and hustles down the corridor, heading for the ICU. Inside the room, I hear her laughter echoing out of the room again, and the voice of a man’s slurred, slow speech. Her voice, though, is so familiar to me that it fills my heart with a warmth and genuine swell of emotion I haven’t felt in – well – about four years.

  I peek around the corner again only to find the little girl staring straight back at me. She must have heard Marisol and I speaking in the hallway or something. Her green eyes sparkle, and are so familiar, they cut me to the bone. I might as well be looking straight into Scarlet’s eyes. As she continues to stare at me, I feel like I’ve been struck by lightning. It leaves my entire body shaking.

  The little girl tilts her head, a small grin tugging the corners of her mouth upward. It’s almost like she recognizes me, although I know that’s not possible. But something about the way she looks at me is familiar. It’s as if she can see straight through me. Like she can lay me completely bare, with nothing more than her eyes. Like she can see all of my secrets. And I’ve only encountered one person in my entire life who can do that.

  Scarlet Carrington.

  Maybe it’s because I was just thinking about her, and she’s forefront in my mind, that I’m hearing her voice or seeing her eyes in the face of a little girl I don’t even know. I mean, green eyes aren’t exactly rare. And maybe I’m simply projecting my – issues – onto this little girl. I probably am. She smiles and waves at me.

  “Who are you waving at, sweetheart?”

  When I hear her voice, I freeze in place. It instantly takes me back four years and breaks something loose inside of me. As I stand there, peeking around the corner of the room, I’m suddenly pulled under a raging torrent of emotion, the likes of which I haven’t felt since being in the desert all those years ago. The temptation to walk away is strong. In fact, common sense says I should. But I can’t seem to force myself to do it.

  A second later, I feel like I took a sledgehammer to the gut and had all the air driven from my lungs. Like a specter rising from the grave, Scarlet Carrington steps into view looking almost exactly the same as she did the day I left her standing on the hospital steps in Syria.

  My heart jumps into my throat, my stomach clenches hard, and just like that, I’m taken back in time. Everything I felt four years ago – everything I’ve kept stuffed down and buried all this time – comes rushing to the surface. It starts to feel less like a sledgehammer to the gut and more like a kick to the balls. From a horse with a bad attitude.

  Her eyes widen with the same expression of shock that’s gripping me – that I’m sure is painted all over my face. Scarlet takes a step forward, putting herself between me and the little girl protectively – who I now know has to be her daughter.

  “Roman,” she says, a slight tremble in her voice.

  “Scarlet,” I respond. “It’s – been a while.”

  The little girl pokes her head around her mom’s legs and looks at me, flashing me a grin that lights up her tiny face – which is a direct contrast to the sour, dark expression on Scarlet’s. The man in the bed looks over at me with the sleepy-eyed gaze of the heavily medicated. His grin is sloppy and crooked. He’s obviously doped to the gills and is drifting in and out of coherence – and probably consciousness too. My eyes shift back to Scarlet, who’s still staring at me with an expression that’s a mixture of shock, fear, and horror.

  Feeling like an idiot standing in the doorway, I step into the room, grab the chart off the end of the bed, and give it a look just to give myself something to do.

  “W – what are you doing here?” Scarlet asks.

  A grin touches my lips as I tap the ID badge clipped to my lab coat. “I work here.”

  “Right,” she says, looking away sheepishly.

  I look at the chart. “Appendicitis. That’s rough,” I say. “But his vitals are all good. Overall, it looks like he’s in good shape and should be back on his feet in a few days.”

  She purses her lips and nods. “Yeah. The doctor who was here before you already told us,” she replies. “But thank you.”

  There’s still a slight tremor in her voice, but it’s colder. Harder. And when she looks at me, there’s a long held simmering anger, in her eyes.

  “Right. Of course. As the Chief Trauma Surgeon here though, it’s kind of my job to follow up with patients,” I attempt awkwardly. “All patients.”

  It was a silly thing to say. I certainly don’t need to justify myself to anybody. But for reasons I don’t understand, I felt the overwhelming need to explain my presence in her husband’s room. I hadn’t expected this day to ever come. I never expected to be standing in front of Scarlet again. Despite the fact that she was never all that far from my thoughts, I never really let myself dare believe that this – reunion – would actually happen.

  But if I had dared to let myself believe, this is not how I would have expected it to play out. I feel like a babbling fool who’s been caught completely flat-footed. And it’s most definitely not a good look for me. I’m a man who is prepared for anything and thinks quicker on the fly than most people. Yet in the face of a woman – the only woman – who’s inspired the depth of emotion I feel bubbling up inside of me right now, I feel more like a gangly, awkward as hell teenage boy talking to his first crush.

  “Who are you?” the girl asks as she peeks out from behind Scarlet’s legs.

  “Kinsey,” Scarlet admonishes her.

  “Well, I’m Doctor
Wheeler,” I answer. “I’m an old – friend – of your mom’s.”

  She chuffs suddenly, the sound erupting from her throat like an involuntary response – like it was something she’d had stored in her chest that just came bursting out of her. ‘Friend’ was probably overstating things, but I couldn’t exactly think up anything better on the spot like that. What was I going to say to a little girl? Hey, I’m the guy who banged your mom before your dad here got a crack at her and had you? Yeah, that wouldn’t go over very well.

  “And who are you?” I ask the girl.

  The little girl giggles and buries her face in Scarlet’s leg, suddenly overwhelmed by a bout of shyness. Despite the awkward tension in the room, it’s utterly adorable. Scarlet shifts on her feet, a look of extreme discomfort on her face.

  “This is my daughter, Kinsey,” Scarlet says curtly.

  I nod and feel something that feels like a lead weight settling in my stomach. I look over at the man on the bed. He’s a tall, fit, good-looking man. Even strung out on painkillers and in that post-op haze of confusion and sleeping wakefulness, he still somehow seems fashionable and well put together. I can see why Scarlet’s attracted to him. My gaze drifts over to her, and I find there are so many things I want to say to her. Things I feel like I need to say. And yet, when I open my mouth, nothing comes out. My throat is dry, and I’m having a hard time holding her gaze.

  “W – who are you?”

  I turn and look into the man’s sleepy eyes. His voice is thick, and he’s slurring his words. He only looks about half-lucid as he repeats the question Kinsey just asked. I think the drugs are beginning to wear off, but he’s not going to be completely coherent for a while yet. But he’s getting there. Or at least, he’s starting to.

  “He’s just one of the doctors,” Scarlet replies, her voice tight.

  I don’t know why, but those words cut me sharply. Just one of the doctors. As if I’m no more consequential than – the janitor, or some random guy on the street. I cut a glance at her, then at the little girl, and finally to the man in the bed. They’re a perfect little family.