Page 19 of Secret Vendettay
After what we’d already shared, would he tell me what it was?
Before I could ask him, though, he pulled up to the emergency room doors and stopped.
It was jarring to end such an intimate moment so abruptly, but there was another car behind us, waiting for him to move.
“Thanks again for the ride. I’ll, uh…” I tugged his shirt down another inch. “I’ll get your shirt and jacket back to you next week, if that’s okay?”
“Keep them, Luna.” His voice was a low rumble, deeper than before, and when he looked at me, it was like an anchor, drawing me in. The ambient noise of the hospital’s drive-up entrance faded to a distant hum, every particle of my attention captured by the weight and warmth in his eyes.
A tightness gripped my throat, making me swallow.
“Thanks again for everything.” I offered him a tentative smile. “I’ll see you around.”
I wasn’t sure why Hunter furrowed his eyebrows slightly, but he watched me get out of his car and walk into the building.
Shockingly, there was no wait in the emergency room, so I was escorted back immediately. A nurse came in, took my vitals, got all of my information, and now, I was bouncing my knee so harshly, it could probably cause tendon damage, waiting for the skin-stabber to show up.
A soft knock at the door had my eyes darting up, anticipating the sterile white of a lab coat. Instead, the door swung open to reveal a man wearing designer suit pants, now paired with a black workout shirt that he must have stored in his car.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
With an unhurried pace and relaxed shoulders, he sauntered into the room, exuding an air of nonchalance.
“They told me which room you’re in.”
“That’s not what I mean. Why are you still at the hospital?”
Hunter sat in a metal chair that made a high-pitched sound against the floor from its movement, looking so out of place, he almost looked like an intruder. His suit pants were tailored to perfection with luxurious fabric that seemed to absorb the harsh fluorescent lighting—quite the contrast to the hospital scrubs I’d seen the nurses wearing. His polished Italian leather shoes gleamed, pristine and alien on the worn linoleum, and the sharp scent of his expensive cologne mingled uneasily with the antiseptic sting of the hospital air. It was like witnessing a lion in a cage, a creature of power and majesty forced into a world that wasn’t his own.
“Last time I checked, you don’t live at the hospital,” Hunter said flatly. “My offer to drive was round trip.”
“Okay, are you ready, honey?”
The nurse practitioner—whose name tag readJennifer—walked into the room and glanced at Hunter.
“He was just leaving,” I said.
“I wasn’t, actually.” Hunter grinned at her.
“He was,” I countered.
Jennifer put her hand on her hip and opened her mouth to tell Hunter to leave. At least, that’s what it looked like she was about to do until recognition bolted through her features.
“Are you…”
“Hunter Lockwood.” He winked at me in triumph. Which was so frustrating.
“Oh, Mr. Lockwood,” Jennifer cooed. “Your donation has done so much for this hospital! The new cancer wing is making a huge difference in people’s lives!”
A wing?
I glared at Hunter.
Figures. Of all the hospitals in the city, I had to land in the one where Hunter’s name was probably plastered on a wall or door somewhere.
First of all, it struck me just how different we were. Here I was, going to have a hard time coming up with the money to repair whatever was wrong with my car, while he was funding entire wings of hospitals. But of more importance, I was merely a patient who needed stitches. He was a massive donor to this place.
No one at this hospital would make him leave.