Hot Doc: A Secret Baby Romance (Loving You Again)

by Sofia Finn

  “I could get some ice cream.” I smiled cheerfully at the put-out look on Maddie’s face.

  “Don’t you have work to do or something?”

  Actually, I did. I’d been working through the night for the past week, trying to find a loophole in the Umbridge contract, and had about ten surgeries lined up. It was hell, and my head throbbed like a motherfucker. But somehow, all that fell to the background when I was around Maddie and Ela.

  There was something about the pair that was so damn soothing.

  “Yay!” Ela yelled. “We can make Cage a rocky snow!”

  “What is that?”

  “You’ve never heard of a rocky snow?” Maddie looked surprised and smiled mischievously. “Oh boy, are you in for a treat.”

  A “Rocky Snow” turned out to be a weird concoction of different ice-cream flavors.

  “So it’s a rocky road,” Maddie explained as she mixed it up. “Mint chip, chocolate, strawberry toast, and just a hint of vanilla. All topped with some crushed Oreos. And Voila!” With a flourish, she pushed the bowl toward me. “Come on, try it.”

  I was doubtful. The mixture didn’t look very appetizing.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me the great Cage Burke is scared of a little Rocky Snow.”

  “Rocky Snow!” Ela threw her hands up in the air, spoon at the ready. “Come on, Cage. Just try it!”

  “Yeah, Cage. Try it.” There was a daring glint in Maddie’s eyes that I couldn’t ignore.

  I took a bite, surprised at the burst of flavor that hit my tongue. I mean, it was a bit too sweet for my taste, but other than that, it didn’t taste bad.

  “Good,” I said.

  Maddie and Ela clapped with happiness, and their claps were so identical. I felt a funny little flutter in my chest.

  “Next time,” Maddie started as Ela dug into her ice cream with vigor. “We’ll go to Little Italy, and I’ll show you my little ketchup spaghetti creation.”

  “I look forward to it,” I replied.

  Her eyes widened. She seemed to be expecting me to take it back, searching for some hidden insult in my statement, and I felt something close to guilt. Maybe, I’ve been a bit harsh on her.

  Careful Burke, a warning set off in my brain. Land mines ahead. You still don’t know her that well yet.

  “Why did you join the military?” Maddie asked suddenly.

  The question took me aback for a few seconds.

  “I’ve always wondered,” she added.

  “Easy.” I took another bite of the rocky snow, more to see her smile than anything else. “It taught me a lot about discipline.”

  “I can’t imagine a time when you weren’t disciplined.”

  “I mean, yeah, I’ve always been a hard worker, but as most poor little rich boys, I was more than a little spoiled. I didn’t join the army expecting my ass to get kissed or anything, but I was so accustomed to getting special treatment from everyone. I don’t think I even had a realistic idea of how normal people lived. But they definitely kick that out of you in there.”

  Maddie gaped. “The mighty Cage Burke got his ass kicked?”

  I smiled at the memories. “Yes, at boot camp too. On the very first day, the drill sergeant kept flinging all sorts of insults at us, telling us how worthless we were. The things he said pissed me off so much. When he went off about us ‘crying to our mommies and daddies within a week,’ I thought I would be a smart-mouth and tell him my allowance probably cost more than his entire years’ salary.”

  “Damn,” Maddie winced. “Yeah, that’ll do it.”

  I laughed then. “It did. I was such an arrogant little shit and had a chip on my shoulder. I believed the world owed me something for all the abuse I’d endured. But sergeant Copter wasn’t having it. He made me repeat what I said again and again and again while running laps around, and I couldn’t stop until I got down on my knees and groveled. I refused, thinking I’d rather die than grovel to anyone. I mean, I had pretty good stamina and thought, hey, how long could he keep this on for?”

  Maddie blinked at me expectantly. I brought the spoon to my mouth, lost in the fond memory. “Well, as it turns out, a really fucking long time. I ran until I couldn’t feel my legs and I thought my heart was going to explode in my chest. I passed out from the heat. And the next day, I had to go through training, anyway. Ironically, that ended up building my endurance. But ultimately, my smart-mouth wasn’t worth it. None of my bullshit was. People were dying, and there I was, whining about my stupid petty issues. So, ultimately the army taught me a lot. It taught me that it didn’t matter how I felt. All that mattered was what needed to be done, and if that was cutting open my best friend on the battlefield or sewing back a leg while there are bombs going off every minute, then that was what I was going to fucking do.”

  I glance at Ela, hoping she hadn’t heard the last part. I expected Maddie to lay into me for swearing in front of her daughter.

  Instead, she frowned as if coming to a realization. “You were abused?”

  Shit. I wracked my brain and realized I mentioned it at the beginning of my story. I hadn’t meant for that part to slip out.

  I checked my watch. “Ok, I gotta go. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

  “Wait—” But before she could say anything, I was already striding out of there.

  It wasn’t until later that I realized that what I did felt suspiciously like running away.

  For the first time in years, I was running late.

  Last night had been hell. Since I’d gotten Maddie off in her bedroom with that damn vibrator, most of my nights had been spent dreaming about her. But, after spending almost all my free time with her and Ela, it was even worse. In combination with her scent, I couldn’t forget her smile, that mischievous glint in them. Or the way she cocked her head when she was curious about something. Hell, even her laugh made me hard.

  And last night had been one of those nights, jacking off again and again only to get hard seconds later. It was fucking pathetic how much I wanted the girl, and it made me fucking pissed.

  It especially pissed me off that it was why I slept through my fucking alarm.

  Or it could be simply exhaustion, which I knew was probably more likely at the pace I was currently going at. Fuck, my head is throbbing like a motherfucker, too. That did nothing to improve my mood.

  Neither did the incessant ringing of my phone.

  I checked the caller ID with one hand on the wheel, racing through the I-95 at record speed. It was coming from Pennsylvania, which meant that it could only be one person.

  “Ben.”

  “Hey bro.” Ben’s voice sounded considerably better than the last time we had spoken. “How is it going?”

  “Sorry, Ben, this really isn’t a good time.” I merged off the highway, slowing to a stop right before a traffic light. “I’m currently running late, and I need to be at the hospital in the next two minutes.”

  “You? Late?” Ben laughed. “Did hell freeze over, and no one told me?”

  “Haha.” My conscience pricked me. Tell him, it demanded. He deserves to know about his daughter.

  But what if it causes him to relapse? According to Maddie, Ben didn’t want kids, and learning that he has a daughter might cause him to panic and go off the deep end again? Even though he sounded good, I knew my brother was still in a fragile mental state. He had been in one his whole life.

  Yeah, and who helped him get there?

  Although it was instinctive to blame Maddie, placing all the blame at her feet wasn't fair. She had been an addict just like him. If anything, it was our bitch of a mother’s incessant verbal abuse that had broken him down so bad that he felt the need to find a coping mechanism.

  And it turned you into a control freak who can’t stand the thought of being even ten minutes late to anything.

  Well, yeah. But shit, at least I was self-aware about it.

  “Listen, Ben,” I said, ultimately deciding not to tell him about Ela. A big part of that was
because I had given my word to Maddie, and I never went back on my word. Besides, a part of me that I wouldn’t give voice to felt ill at the thought of betraying her. “I gotta go. We’ll talk later, ok.”

  “Alright, bro. Take care.”

  “You too.”

  I arrived at the hospital only ten minutes behind schedule, but it was far too much for my liking. I was already in a foul mood before I walked in and saw the thing that set me off.

  It was one of the doctors, Dr. Gray, flirting with Maddie right at the nursing station. He was giving her a smarmy smile, and she was giving him an uncomfortable one back.

  With intent to murder, I stalked towards them just in time to hear him whisper to her, “Hey, what time do you want to go out with me tonight?”

  “Whenever you want to die, asshole.”

  8

  Cage

  The color drained from Grayson’s face as he took in my expression.

  I had no idea what I looked like, and frankly, I didn’t care. I didn’t even care that the nurse’s station had gone quiet; everyone intently watched the drama unfolding. At the corner of my eye, I could still see the bastard’s hand on Maddie’s shoulder, and I could still hear the sexual intent that had been in his voice. Everything in me demanded that I eliminate him immediately.

  In fact, it was a testament to the sheer self-control military training had embedded in me that I had not pounced on the asshole yet—he still had his hand on Maddie. My Maddie. And he dared to ask, “Excuse me?”

  “Get away from her,” I ordered. “Now.”

  “Cage,” Maddie came forward, finally dislodging the offending ligament. “Calm down.” She held out her hand out as if attempting to soothe a wild dog, and to be fair, the analogy wouldn’t be too far off. I felt feral since the minute I had walked in to see that runt’s hand on her.

  She was mine. It was a savage thought that didn’t make sense, but one that I finally wholly accepted. I had stayed away from her for my brother’s sake, but she had come back into my life, and I was staking my claim. I might not have trusted her or approved of her life choices; nevertheless, she was mine.

  And any other man who touched her would have to die.

  “What the hell Burke? You’re acting like she’s your girl or something.” Grayson laughed nervously, looking around for support that wasn’t coming. It seemed that the rest of the nurses were frozen in shock, and one of them suddenly hurried away—probably went to get security. Good because I was seconds away from taking Grayson’s head off.

  “Stay away from her,” I said slowly, carefully, making sure that he understood that this it be his last warning. “Never ever approach her ever again. Do you understand?”

  Grayson looked like he wanted to argue, but then I let out another growl, and he jumped.

  “Fine,” he said, huffing with his red face. As he walked away, he spoke over his shoulder, “She wasn’t even all that anyway.”

  My body had lurched forward.

  “Stop!” Maddie shrieked. I wanted to go after him and end the motherfucker, but Maddie put a hand to my chest to hold me back.

  “Please,” she begged, and even though I could probably overtake her and go after him anyway, I decided against it. Perhaps, it was the look in her eyes that soothed my anger, that made the rage that clouded my whole mind begin to fade back so I could think rationally again. A trail of sweat wandered down her neck. I wanted to lick it.

  Get a hold of yourself, Burke. You’re not a randy young welp.

  But the truth was I had wanted her the whole week.

  I surveyed the damage. A few nurses were staring at me agape as if I had just popped an extra head. Two security guards stood nervously behind me. There were a few other onlookers, patients, who had left their rooms to see what was going on.

  Shit.

  I could already smell the bullshit that was coming my way. St. Johns was peculiar because it had a very strict rule that prevented doctors from dating nurses, particularly doctors like me who had direct control over hiring and firing them. The rule was passed after a scandal during our launch year, where one of the senior doctors had harassed a nurse, and she had gone to the press. It had taken years to recover our reputation from that. Ever since then, any type of sexual contact was prohibited—a rule that despite the number of nurses that threw themselves at me, I had never even considered breaking.

  Until now.

  Well, there was nothing to be done. It didn’t matter if Maddie testified that I didn’t stalk her; it would still be a scandal, the second of its type to strike the young hospital. It was grating, though, that I had just given Hastings extra ammunition in his attempt to oust me and enact his new payment model.

  I should never have allowed Hastings on the board in the first place. In fact, I wouldn’t have if his father, Robert Hastings, hadn’t been a fundamentally decent man who had lots of experience setting up hospitals—an experience I needed. But I hadn’t known he would have a heart attack only five months into the venture, saddling me with his poisonous and useless gnat of a son, Robert Junior.

  Pampered, soft, and unsympathetic to the poor, he was exactly the kind of man I had no respect for, the kind I encountered at every single prep and boarding school I attended. He was the type of man I joined the army to prove I wasn’t. He was the major force I’d had to fight for Tate Collins’ kidney.

  No sooner than I had entered the conference room did Hastings say, “Late night, Cage?”

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business, Hastings.” I sat at the head of the table, giving brief nods in greeting to the other four old men and women who lined either side. All of them held different levels of power in the decision-making of the hospital, but none came close to my majority stake. However, if they worked together, they just might be able to overthrow me.

  At least, that was Hastings’s hope.

  “It is if it’s with an employee.” Hasting’s voice was slithery like a snake, matching his gangly slimy appearance. “Or if it causes you to come in late to meetings.”

  “It was ten minutes. Now, are you gonna get off my dick so we can discuss actual hospital business, or are you gonna keep jerking me off?”

  His face went red, but he let it go. I knew it wasn’t the end, though. Hastings had the tenacity of a Pitbull and would not stop until he was in my chair.

  Good fucking luck with that.

  “Alright. Meredith, what are our Q2 earnings?”

  My very efficient secretary, Meredith, nodded from where she stood beside the projector and gestured with the clicker as graphs flashed on the screen.

  One of the stakeholders, Raymond Garcia, whistled at the numbers. “That’s pretty good.”

  It was. We had managed to come in almost 12% higher than the last quarter, mostly due to the endless amount of surgeries I had performed. The rest of the stakeholders nodded with varying levels of enthusiasm, until Hastings scoffed.

  “Seriously? Only half a million for the entire month of May? For a hospital with this amount of equipment and talent, we could be easily making triple that. Also, we had fewer paying patients this quarter than we had last quarter. Most of what I see is charity, donations, and CHIP. But what happens when our donors no longer feel like being good Samaritans, huh?” He looked around the table, gesturing for emphasis. “This is a very concerning trend, and anyone who doesn’t see it is a moron. We keep getting deeper and deeper in the red and pretending like this shit won’t come back to bite us in the ass. This isn’t gonna work in the long run. Mark my words—we’ll all be screwed.”

  After he was done with his rant, a few of the stakeholders nodded in agreement. It was the usual suspects, Johnson and Lipsky, who were basically Hastings’ lackeys and agreed with everything he said. Though, my actual concern was Maria Lopez, the sole woman on the board. While she didn’t look as enthusiastic as the other two, she was not as turned off by the speech as Garcia was. It meant trouble. I had to nip it in the bud right away.

&nbs
p; “St. John’s will not be changing its payment structure,” I stated firmly. “It would go against the entire ethos of the hospital, which is to provide children with world-class treatment despite whatever financial limitation they may have. That is final. Now, any other questions?”

  Nobody spoke up, but Hastings gave me a glare that seemed to suggest that it wasn’t over.

  It was nearly 10 pm, and my headache had ratcheted up when I got home. But I could not rest because there was somebody in my penthouse.

  Even though the doors were still locked, I knew it, and security didn’t alert me of any visitors. I also knew that whoever it was wasn’t a threat, because if they were, they would have attacked me already. So, I simply went through the motions of taking off my jacket and flipping on the light switch. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw a woman, garbed only in lingerie, lounging on my couch.

  “Hey, baby,” she purred. “I was wondering when you would be back.”

  “Florencia. I thought I took my key from you already.”

  “I had a spare.” She sauntered towards me, her long, lean body moving in a feline fashion. I wanted to groan. I’m too tired for this shit.

  Florencia was one of my more persistent lovers. Usually, the rest of them knew the score; I called them whenever I needed them and sent them away with expensive gifts and a few orgasms for their troubles. They were not to contact me in between. Not ever. And when they were tired of the arrangement, they could call it off at any time, no questions asked. Most of my women abode by that rule, except for Florencia.

  It was why I had tried cutting it off with her earlier. She had simply become too persistent, too needy, and it had been more than I could handle.

  But the girl was stubborn as a gnat.

  She wrapped her arms around my neck, and her subtle perfume teased my nostrils. “You haven’t called me in a while, baby.”

  ‘’I’ve been busy.”

  “Too busy for me?” she leaned in and pressed a kiss against my neck, hands traveling to my cock.