Playing with Fire (21 page)

“They will. I’ll take a look and change the bandages before I leave.”

“I’m a big boy, I follow the instructions. Besides, I didn’t think doctors made house calls anymore.”

“Neither did I. Wow, this is a nice place. Kitchen?”

It
was
nice. It belonged to someone his father knew who didn’t ever use it, because he spent a lot of time down in Miami, and Sal rented it for a song on a caretaker kind of basis. It had tall windows letting in lots of light, leather furniture that had probably cost a small fortune, polished bamboo floors, a built-in bar, and Oriental rugs in bright colors. Sal suspected the paintings on the walls together were worth more than most people’s houses. He’d never used the dining room that seated twelve. “Thanks. To your left. I’ll be right back.”

He went into his bedroom and fished out an old pair of worn sweatpants, decided they were good enough, and managed to get them on with minimal twinges.

When he walked into the kitchen, he saw Jennifer Altea had found the toaster and was putting in a bagel. There were small containers of cream cheese and butter on the counter, as well as what looked like a very nice bowl of fruit salad and a small jug of orange juice.

He liked how she moved. Graceful but efficient. As his doctor, he’d appreciated her brisk, no-nonsense honesty when she was treating him, but there was also a woman in there, and at the moment, he appreciated that even more. He leaned against the granite counter. “Can I help?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Plates and silverware?”

“Oh, good idea.” He had to grin as he moved to open the cupboard above the six-burner stove he rarely used. “I eat pizza with my hands in front of the television pretty often. Student thing.”

“I’d yell at you about that, but I was guilty of it too. Doctors preach good nutrition, but we are pretty bad about it, always cutting corners due to time. Living in New York helps, since we have a lot of take-out choices, but I shudder when I think of the sodium content in most foods. To control that, you just have to cook for yourself. I hope you like green chile.”

“Spicy is fine with me.”

“These are green-chile bagels. I discovered them when I did a rotation at a hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’ve never found them anywhere else, but there’s a shop downtown here that offers them. So good.” She hovered over the toaster. “Like heaven.”

They
smelled
good, he had to admit. For dinner the night before he’d eaten a can of soup, which Reign had found in the pantry and heated up for him, but he’d barely been able to finish that, so anything geared toward finer cuisine would have been lost on him anyway. Sal also retrieved placemats from the drawer, and at least he was capable of setting the antique table by the big window with an impressive view, even if he did it one-handed.

It occurred to him that he didn’t spend nearly enough time enjoying the wonderful space, but then again, time was a commodity he didn’t have a lot of anyway.

He had to admit the bagels were fantastic. “All right, I’m a fan,” he said after the first two butter-drenched bites. “Like seriously.”

“I know.” She ate with equal relish and he had to wonder, considering she was pretty slender, how often she took the time to sit down for a meal, just like him. The unusual color of her eyes intrigued him as she regarded him across the table. “For whatever reason, I just thought you’d be someone who would appreciate them.”

“Mental connection?”

She took a bite and chewed and swallowed before she answered. “Maybe. I’m thinking it might be more a physical attraction right now.”

Sal choked on his sip of coffee. When he recovered, he said, “I can roll with that, but are you always so blunt?”

“I’d ask how you could afford a place like this, but I’m afraid to hear the answer. Your chart said you are a law student. As a med student I lived in a crappy studio and ate cereal for dinner half the time.”

He glanced out the window. The sky was wonderfully blue for New York City. “My parents, I suspect, are not like yours back in Minnesota. I was shot on their yacht, remember?”

Jennifer used her napkin to dab her mouth and nodded. “A very valid point.
I’m
even wondering why the hell I’m here.”

*   *   *

She’d lost her mind.

Jennifer Ann Altea did not flirt with patients, she did not want an association with any sort of illegal activity, and quite frankly, she was not that fond of lawyers, especially those who got shot during some kind of elite cocktail party on an expensive boat.

But she
liked
him. And she did very much favor intelligent men. Salvatore Ariano was not just attractive but also had some sort of mysterious draw that she couldn’t put her finger on. But everyone else on the planet—even his ex-girlfriend—seemed to notice she liked him. This had never happened to her before. Even though he was obviously a little not-with-it from the meds, he was still polite and genial and managed to be fairly charming.

Not an easy task.

There were no illusions: she was not a raving beauty, but she thought she was pretty in her own way, and he was interested in her too, she got that. But as she’d told him before, this was just an interesting situation. Why the hell couldn’t she go for the insurance agent who’d accidentally run over his foot with a lawn mower last week? He’d been seriously coming on to her, even with two missing toes. And he was cute, but not like this guy.…

When Sal had been admitted, and sent into emergency surgery, the nurses had been talking about him from that first moment he was wheeled into the ED—she understood entirely why. Aside from his good looks, there was a certain charisma.

She should run the other way, but instead she propped her elbows on the table and asked him, “Why law school?”

His smile was disarming, and she was pleased to see he’d eaten his breakfast swiftly, which meant he was at least healing. Lack of appetite was a red flag. The food had done him good too, for his color was better.

He regarded her, across a table that she would guess cost thousands of dollars at the finest boutique antique store. The entire place was decorated with exquisite taste. He said readily enough, “My undergrad degree is in accounting and I got my CPA as soon as I graduated. I took a job with a firm, but it was a little boring for me, and my father encouraged me to go on to law school. I thought about it, and decided it wasn’t a bad idea.”

“So you could work in organized crime?”

His gaze was steady. “I immediately invoke a very famous amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.”

“Now you sound like a lawyer.”

“That’s promising. I certainly hope so.” He leaned the elbow of his good arm on the table and took another sip of coffee. “So, this is not a one-way street. Why medical school?”

She brushed back her hair and contemplated her coffee cup. Then she slightly lifted her shoulders. “I don’t really recall the conscious choice. I think I’d been inclined that direction all along. I loved biology and to be truthful, it is very interesting. That was my undergrad degree. Who else gets to work in a discipline where the variables are so vast that what works for one patient doesn’t work at all for another? I never know what is going to happen from day to day and it is an adventure.”

“That’s how you look at it?”

“Pretty much. Long hours, very little thanks, and the money is okay but not what everyone thinks it is.”

Sal touched his hand to the bandage on his side. “I have a certain appreciation for your dedication to your work.”

“You have any idea who shot you?” Jennifer looked at him intently. “Like
none
of that was on television. I watched the next morning. Not a word. A man is shot on a yacht and no one mentions it? Impossible.”

His face went shuttered. “My father has friends. High up.”

“That I have gathered.” She took a sip of coffee.

“No. Actually,
I
don’t so much. You are judging me by the standards I don’t necessarily hold.”

Damn it, why was he so cute with those truly beautiful eyes? She didn’t need this.

Her lashes lowered and she took in a breath. “You see, that could be a deal-breaker for me.”

“We don’t even have a deal yet, do we?”

Jennifer didn’t laugh. Instead she spread her hands on the table. “I wish you were someone else.”

“Oh man, that stings a bit.” But he then added quietly, “I can’t help it. It is what I am. I can give you some assurances. Principles vary. Don’t believe everything you see on television. Every dime I will have in my lifetime will be earned by hard work. All of this life is a negotiation. CEOs of big companies regularly take golden parachutes and leave their employees bereft. No one calls them criminals. Except the people left wondering how they are going to make ends meet.”

He had a point.

He went on. “I’m not condoning anything, either way. I’m just saying that life is gray, instead of black and white. I know how it sounds, but when you think about it, the law should be the law. In practice, that is not how it works. I can think of three very famous murder cases off the top of my head that when the defendant went to trial, everyone in this country knew they were guilty, but they got off because we couldn’t prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt to that particular jury. It’s a crapshoot, really.”

That was pretty honest, and he was gorgeous with his bare chest—bandages aside—and his rumpled blond hair. He hadn’t shaved, and she didn’t mind that because it would certainly not be the easiest process to get out a razor and use it. For whatever reason, it made him seem less tall and dominant.

In her job, she got tired of arrogant males. Or females, for that matter. “I get what you are saying and I have not walked a mile in your shoes either.” She picked up her coffee again. “Ethics are always a debatable topic. For instance, I should not have used your medical records to obtain your address.”

“But yet I am glad you did. I think I’m glad in general you were the physician on duty. My lucky day.”

He’d really been fortunate, and she was glad too.

No vital organs hit. A miracle. Maybe he had an idea of how much providence was involved, but from a medical point of view, he’d been a very lucky man. Taking a bullet to the stomach almost always involved greater damage.

Time for a change of subject. The kitchen was a dream, so that was a good place to start. She was trying to put a price tag on it and had no idea. Ceiling-to-floor cabinets with glass fronts and perfectly stacked expensive dishes, pendant lights in a sapphire blue glass, stainless steel appliances, and the view …

… water and the city skyline. Jennifer took another bite of her bagel. “I’m sitting here thinking that someday, I might live someplace like this. Of course I’m never home anyway, so it might be wasted on me. How do you afford it?”

Sal tried to shrug but winced instead. “I just lucked into it. My father knows the owner. Like I said, he knows people.” He leaned forward. “I could use a roommate.”

Jennifer had to be amused at his attempt to be seductive in his condition.

She wiped her fingers on her napkin. “First of all, you’d need to be completely lucid before you ask anyone that, and we haven’t known each other long enough. Let’s keep this all in perspective. I think you’re attractive, but you have been on painkillers since the first moment you woke up and looked into my eyes. Once life has achieved some sort of balance, maybe let’s catch a movie, okay? I’m not certain a flirtation you will never remember is the basis of a relationship that involves sharing a sink.”

“If you think I’d forget you, think again.”

He looked visibly startled after he said it, like the remark had been involuntary, and maybe it had been.

“I meant—”

She took pity on him. “You aren’t committing to anything or even scaring me away. Just relax. Middle ground here. A movie in our future?”

“Sure.”

Jennifer leaned forward and touched his hand. Not the way she regularly touched her patients, but very differently. “I’m taking your friend’s word for it and believing you are a nice guy. Now, let’s take those bandages off to look at how you’re healing and I will leave after that. I have a surgery at one o’clock anyway. It would be nice to get in a few hours of sleep.”

After years of the clinic and supervising wound care, she had to admire how he didn’t even move a muscle as she peeled off the dressing to inspect the wounds. He simply sat in the chair in that very stylish kitchen and let her do it, with the spectacular view of the Hudson River in the background, his jaw set tautly.

It had to hurt, but neither injury seemed infected, so the news was good. She wrapped and taped everything back up, and she just said mildly, “When you feel a little better, give me a call. Don’t overdo it, okay?”

Then she leaned over and kissed him very lightly on the lips before she went out the door.

Chapter

T
WENTY

“This is crazy pants.”

Reign gazed at her assistant. “Louise, what are you taking about?”

“The clothing line … I can’t get over it. I mean I was hoping.… I kept telling myself it would be you, but the competition is cutthroat in this business. Not to sound selfish, but this isn’t just your big chance, it’s mine too. I’ll know a top designer. I’ll have worked for her, with her, and when Reign Grazi becomes a household name, I’ll hopefully be along for the ride.”

The young woman paced around the small studio. It was definitely a spare space, part of an old factory with cinderblock walls and high windows, but it was practical and fairly cheap, and Reign’s father owned the building.

Louise had elfin features: tip-tilted nose, eyes with a slight slant to them, and a small pointed chin.… And she was a wiz with a sewing machine. The best Reign had ever seen, and even though Louise was just twenty-one, her enthusiasm and energy alone made Reign glad she’d hired her. No college, no experience except working in a clothing factory for a year, but she’d proven to be a good call. Reign didn’t know much about her assistant’s childhood, but she got the impression maybe there hadn’t been a lot of money. Louise had mentioned once briefly that her mother had done alterations and mending to help make ends meet, in addition to her job as a waitress, and was one of the most tired people she’d ever known.