Lucy Ryder - Falling At The Surgeon's Feet

Until about two years ago when the old man had decided he needed someone to take over the family business. It seemed Caspar’s son and legitimate grandchildren were a huge disappointment and couldn’t be trusted not to squander everything he’d spent a lifetime building.

The old man had told him how proud he was of Gabe’s achievements and that it was clear he was a chip off the old block.

Gabe had not so politely told him what he could do with his offer.

For a long time he’d been angry—at his mother and father—but especially the ruthless Caspar Alexander. And when he’d been invited to join the clinic he’d seen it as his ticket to the big league. Look , Gabe was saying to the old man. I didn’t need you or your family’s money to become someone. I did it all by myself .

Then his mom had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia and none of his money, contacts, fame or his skill with a scalpel had made a difference. By the time she’d slipped away, he’d realized his mother was right. He’d become the one thing he hated above all else. He’d become just like his grandfather. Ruthless, cold in his personal relationships and interested in only two things—money and status. It had been a rude awakening. One that had spurred him on to make some drastic changes in his life.

Someone bumped against the row of seats, jolting Gabe from the disturbing memories of his childhood and his non-existent relationship with a man who’d pretended most of Gabe’s life that he didn’t exist.

Grateful for the disruption, he cracked open one eye to see that a small crowd had gathered at the observation window overlooking operating room three.

A quick look at the overhead OR screen gave him a close-up of an open torso and disembodied gloved hands wielding stainless-steel instruments with skill and precision. And considering that WMS had some of the best trauma surgeons on the east coast, whoever was on the table was in good hands.

Tugging on one earphone, he tuned into the murmur of voices around him and discovered that someone called Dr. Chang was working on a young woman who had landed beneath a bus during rush hour traffic.

He replaced the earphone and watched the onscreen action for a few more minutes, admiring the dexterity of the leading surgeon’s hands, before letting his eyes drift over the observers.

They were painfully young and even if they hadn’t been dressed in light blue scrubs, he would have pegged them as residents. Their fresh, animated faces reminded him of his own resident days, which meant they were probably not discussing whatever was going on below. Most likely it was about a hot nurse, or complaints about their supervisors.

Hospitals were like small towns where everyone knew everyone else and no one’s personal business remained private for long. People gathered during quiet times to gossip about patients; nurses liked to complain about doctors and doctors liked to complain about everyone, especially Administration.

And Administration? Well, they were the common enemy because they hoarded funds like Scrooge, cutting costs and fighting every requisition from floor wax to MRI maintenance.

And, Gabe thought with a dry laugh, he hadn’t even realized until now just how much he’d missed it. Not so much the gossip but he’d missed the camaraderie of a large medical facility where the haves and have-nots were locked in a daily battle of survival. It wasn’t just a place where the rich and bored came to buy the latest style of face or body—or have a steamy affair with their attending surgeon. This was real.

Sighing, Gabe slid his gaze over the rest of the observation-room occupants before letting his eyes drift shut. He knew he should get up and return to his temporary digs, where a ton of boxes waited to be unpacked, but he just needed to—

Abruptly something he’d seen registered and his eyes snapped open to zero in on a familiar figure standing off to one side.

Dr. Holly Buchanan.

Mouth curving in appreciation, Gabe watched her focus on the overhead screen, her small white teeth nibbling on lush pink lips. A little frown of concentration marred the smooth skin of her forehead. Every so often her slender hands and long, elegant fingers would move in what he recognized was a replica of whatever was happening below—as though she was practicing or maybe committing the action to memory.

He’d spent enough time among the wealthy to recognize that Dr. Buchanan came from money, and lots of it. She even had that cool elegance that seemed to come naturally to the very wealthy. A cool elegance that sometimes hid an ugly belief that people they perceived as inferior were to be exploited and that their money and social status gave them that right.

He didn’t have far to look for examples either. His own gene pool, for one. An old ex, for another. A girl he’d honestly thought had loved him enough to overlook the fact that he had been a half-starving med student from a very modest background.

But instead of standing up to her powerful family, she’d laughed at his declarations of love and told him she’d been using him to get back at her father—and have one final hot fling before she married a man eminently more suitable to their social circle.

Okay, so he’d been a young, foolish hothead, out to prove himself worthy. Prove that his story, at least, would have a happy ending. It had just proved to him that people born into wealth weren’t interested in anything more than a hot fling with someone from the wrong side of town—especially someone they perceived as illegitimate.

But even though he knew Holly Buchanan was from a world whose vanity he’d happily exploited, he couldn’t help watching her. Her appearance was as coolly classy as it had been the last time he’d seen her, scowling across the boardroom table as though he was personally responsible for the national debt.

But that’s where the similarities ended. There was nothing cool about those large heavily fringed blue eyes. And knocked to her hands and knees, she’d muttered curses like someone tugging impatiently at the constraints of her upbringing.

Then there were those paper-thin scars that had been expertly covered with a light brush of foundation. Someone had either done a hatchet job on the stunning young surgeon or…or some horrific injuries had been expertly repaired. He wondered which it had been then decided it didn’t matter considering both would explain her interest in plastic surgery.

But it was her eyes—or rather the unguarded expression in them—that had caught his attention. Despite that outer sophistication, Holly Buchanan, it seemed, wasn’t as poised as she would like the world to believe, and he wondered what her story was.

He slid a hand to the bruise on his thigh where her briefcase had whacked him and spared a moment to be thankful that it hadn’t connected higher. Any higher and he would have been on the floor, having an up-close-and-personal view of her tampons.

He chuckled, recalling the way she’d snatched them up and shoved them to the bottom of her purse as though they had been contraband and she’d been afraid he was the secret police. But then he’d found the condom packet and despite the wild color blooming in her cheeks, the ruffled kitten had flexed her tiny claws by insinuating he used a medium.

Gabe closed his eyes to the sight of her nibbling on her thumbnail and frowning at the overhead screen while she ignored the little upstart twerp trying to chat her up. There was something about her that struck a chord of familiarity but he was sure he’d never met or seen her before.

He was just drifting off when something made him open his eyes to see her edging up the stairs, giving him a wide berth as though he was a slumbering tiger she didn’t want to disturb. Suddenly several pagers began beeping and she froze mid-tiptoe, her eyes snapping toward him, widening in alarm when she caught him watching her.