An inconvenient desire

Growing up in the midst of her parents’ fraught union, surgical nurse Lise Bradshaw has never wanted nor needed a man by her side. Until a sensual chance encounter with Dr. Dante Valentino on the dance floor of a Miami club sparks a full-blown passionate affair...leading to a shock proposal!

Dante knows what he wants—a family—and what he doesn’t—love. But as the fire blazes between him and beautiful Lise he realizes that he’s inconveniently falling for his convenient fiancée!

Dear Reader,

Have you ever loved a series—book/film—so much that you couldn’t wait to talk about the latest instalment with someone else who loved it too?

Brainstorming and writing the Hot Latin Docs quartet with Annie O’Neil, Amy Ruttan and Tina Beckett was like that for me! When an email pinged on our email loop, my excitement demanded I stop everything and go and bask in the latest awesome idea, or devour a snippet one of the other authors had shared from their work in progress.

Dante’s not an easy man to love. Halfway through writing this book even I became afraid he couldn’t be saved. Thank you, Amy Ruttan, for talking me down! So I pushed on through, and now I know: it takes a strong heroine to save a broken man hidden behind his gorgeous smoke and mirrors.

All my characters become real to me as I write their stories, but these lovely ladies have made Dante’s whole family real to me now too.

Thank you for picking up Dante’s Shock Proposal, and if this is your first Hot Latin Doc please search out Santiago’s Convenient Fiancée, Alejandro’s Sexy Secret and Rafael’s One Night Bombshell.

Happy reading!

Amalie xo

AmalieBerlin.com/Contact Facebook.com/AuthorAmalie

Dante’s Shock Proposal

Amalie Berlin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

AMALIE BERLIN lives with her family and critters in Southern Ohio, and writes quirky and independent characters for Mills & Boon Medical Romance. She likes to buck expectations with unusual settings and situations, and believes humour can be used powerfully to illuminate truth—especially when juxtaposed against intense emotions. Love is stronger and more satisfying when your partner can make you laugh through times when you don’t have the luxury of tears.

Books by Amalie Berlin

Mills & Boon Medical Romance

Desert Prince Docs

Challenging the Doctor Sheikh

The Hollywood Hills Clinic

Taming Hollywood’s Ultimate Playboy

Return of Dr Irresistible

Breaking Her No-Dating Rule

Surgeons, Rivals...Lovers

Falling for Her Reluctant Sheikh

Visit the Author Profile page

at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

To Amy, Annie, and Tina. Expect me to whine incessantly until we do this again! No, really. When are we going to do this again? How does now work for y’all?

Amy: will pretty much always be jealous of your inspirational idea—Magic Mike: surgeon. Thank you for your tireless friendship, and for seriously raising the bar! *luff*

Annie: for being an amazing, energetic weirdo who makes this hyperactive purple-haired lunatic feel right at home! And being the other quirky medical writer. Ugly Sisters 4 Evah!

Tina: this marks our third author-led collaboration and it keeps getting better! Thank you for continuing to come back and try again. ♥

Laura McCallen: sorry for being such a pain! And thank you for not only whipping the proposal into shape, but for all you’ve done to work with me—this year’s been a tricksy one! ♥

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

SHE WAS BEING stood up.

Badgered into a blind date by her coworkers, and they hadn’t even picked a responsible man who’d actually show up to the club where he’d asked her to meet him.

Nurse Lise Bradshaw looked at her watch for the tenth time in twenty minutes, waved down a server, ordered a mojito, then let herself look somewhere besides the door she’d been staring at since arriving.

Don’t think about him.

Don’t think about any of it.

To heck with judgmental people who had no idea what it was like to date in the current decade and absolutely didn’t support her life plan.

No one here knew she’d been stood up, and even if they figured it out, she didn’t know any of them anyway.

The music was good. Tonight could be an embarrassing footnote to her week, or it could be the fun she’d dressed for. Even if she was there alone, no one was ever really alone on a dance floor in South Beach.

If, by some miracle, her date managed to drag his sorry butt to the club, amid the black and white decor, her slinky red wrap dress would stand out whether it was crowded or not, and it was still too early to be hopping.

In her safe, quiet life, Lise went to work, worked hard, read a lot, and planned for her future—a future where she’d have a family again. She didn’t go clubbing with her coworkers, and had no close friends to speak of since moving from Jacksonville to Miami—so didn’t go dancing with them either. Basically, she didn’t go clubbing. If—no, when—she managed to get her plan rolling, there wouldn’t be any nights in her future for dancing, so she might as well make the most of it.

She’d agreed to the fix-ups not because she ever wanted to replicate her parents’ deadly marriage but because she wanted to fully enjoy her remaining not-pregnant weeks.

Her mojito arrived and she downed half of it before helping herself to the dance floor.

Instruments sat ready on a stage elevated at the far side of the dance floor, promising live music later. But for now the DJ’s choice got her feet and body moving, and they could put the song on repeat for the whole evening for all Lise cared.

Staking out a corner near the stage, she closed her eyes and let the music take her. Most of the lyrics shot past her, but she picked up on enough to get the meaning. The beat filled in the rest, and she let it wash away the week’s frustration and worry, let it warm her belly...or maybe that was the mojito.

Three songs in, the music faded, but another song didn’t start. She stopped her swinging beat and opened her eyes, her gaze landing on musicians striding past her to the stage.

A tall man in a three-piece black suit and shirt—jacket missing—and a black fedora pulled low met her gaze as he walked past her.

Eyes black as his suit connected with hers, and Lise felt the thrill of shared attraction before recognition seared through her.

Those eyes. She knew those eyes. Her breath stuttered, heat flaring in cheeks and racing down over her neck and chest.

Dr. Valentino.

While not technically her boss, she worked too closely at his side in surgery with masks covering everything but those eyes for her not to recognize them.

She would have even if she hadn’t also been ignoring an unwelcome lusty crush on the good doctor for the past two years. He looked at her like he wanted to sweep her into his arms and learn her curves right there on the dance floor, like a sugar addict at an all-you-can-eat ice-cream bar. Tempted, with intentions forming...

He’d never looked at her like that before, and she’d always tried hard not to look at him like that.

For all their time working together, she knew next to nothing about him. Great surgeon, freakishly sexy, sometimes testy, and she knew which instruments and techniques he preferred.

Some voice in the back of her mind shook her out of her staring. Go back to your table, dummy.

Her feet stayed stuck, like her eyes.

Dr. Valentino headed for a piano at her end of the stage. As he stepped over the bench his gaze connected with hers again, and her stomach bottomed out.

That was desire. Real desire. An honest-to-God, I-want-you-hot-on-this-piano heat, those gorgeous eyes filled with dirty, dirty promises.

How did he do that?

Had he always felt that way but been too proper to show it at the hospital? He could obviously hide things—like musical ability. Like him being in a band and wearing real, non-scrub-like clothing better than anyone had a right to. Who wore a three-piece suit to a nightclub—assuming there was a jacket somewhere around the establishment?

A rush left her feeling powerful and sexy, something she’d not felt in a long time. This was the emotional payoff for the red dress, which had been giving her courage and confidence all evening.

Her date may have stood her up, but she barely gave him a passing thought when Dr. Valentino looked at her like that!

Suddenly his brows snapped down over narrowing dark eyes. A scowl darkened them further and thinned his usually fine mouth. His storm shutters came down hard as he sat at the piano.

First desire—let’s have naked fun with this marshmallow fluff kind of dirty, playful sexiness. Then...

It took her a second to riddle it out, and the tipsy alcoholic butterflies in her belly figured it out first, and a ripple of something wrong stole her breath for an entirely different reason.

He hadn’t recognized her until he’d sat.

She’d probably been looking at him exactly like she’d been striving not to for two years—suggestively goofy, with added appreciation of his dirty looks. But he’d only just recognized her.

The man never said much outside of delivering orders or maybe some narration for the surgery recordings, so she’d learned to read his eyes, often the only part of his face she could see.

If she’d seen that look over a patient, she’d be readying for the worst.

Her alcoholic butterflies definitely needed another mojito. If the laws of physics could at least be counted on—as it seemed possible they could have suddenly turned against her too—going back to her table to get another glass of liquid forgetfulness would move her far enough outside the glow of spotlights for him to see her. Or how the color of her face currently probably rivaled that of her dress.

Lise unslung the small purse from across her torso, fished out her phone, and set it on the table as the music began. Soon she had another mojito in hand, and having things to fiddle with helped her settle in to listen without worrying about what his scowl had meant.

The music that had been playing before the band had taken to the stage had been modern, Latin pop—mostly Spanish and some Spanglish songs. But the band played something different, and it took her a moment to classify the bright, fevered jazz that rolled off the stage and through the speakers.

It helped a little, though, the idea of leaving tempted. If she ran away, she could have three whole days for him to forget before the usual Monday morning surgery.

But Jefferson might still show up. There existed a slim chance that he’d gotten stuck in traffic or forgotten what time they were going to meet. A terrible accident could excuse not phoning or texting to bow out. If she left now, knowing her luck today, he’d show up and she’d have to reschedule rather than just getting to mark this third date officially off her to-do list without further delaying her life plans.

The band had either practiced daily or had been playing together for years. The arrangements gave all instruments and stylings a chance to shine, and no matter the major personality trait Dr. Valentino displayed in every other interaction she’d had with him, he didn’t try to dominate the music like he took over everything else.

That awful scowl left him before the first song finished. Tension flowed off him, brows and posture relaxed. He enjoyed it, clearly, and was good.

By the time the set finished just over an hour later, she’d almost convinced herself that he’d only scowled because he’d given her The Look, and she was a coworker. That was all it could be, she hadn’t done anything to earn his ire. Could he look at her with unhidden interest then hold it against her because she’d shared it?

Nah... It was consternation over a case of mistaken identity.

But if she trafficked in lies, now would be the time to claim to not have recognized him. The fact that she even considered lying showed how far away from him and his sexy looks she should stay. Lying was a slippery slope. Lies that started out hard to tell became easier, became reflexive... This was just the power of a sexy dress and mojitos mixed with her lusty crush. It made her react uncharacteristically, and she’d own it.

If it came up.

She would not become her parents.

As soon as the lights lowered at the end of the set, his gaze found her again and she did the only thing she could think to do: lift her now-empty glass in a socially ludicrous toast.

He stood, no sign of the scowl, hopped down from the stage, and made a beeline directly for her.

“Another drink, Bradshaw?”

Last names. Yes. Good. Like at work.

“I wasn’t asking but, sure, if you like. I was just apparently trying to wave or toast you with an empty glass because I wasn’t paying proper attention, Dr.—”

“Dante.” He cut her off as he sat, gesturing to the server, to her, and then back to himself. Two mojitos ordered, he focused on her. “When I’m here, it’s Dante.”

“Dante...” she repeated, but her tongue felt woolly and unequal to the task of calling him anything other than what she always called him. Having his first name in her mouth felt dangerous, like she could break all her rules. “Thank you, Dante, for the mojito.”

* * *

Dante inclined his head. “It’s just a drink,” he said. It was in him to say more, but he had time, and her phone started to buzz. Instantly, he picked it up and checked what was incoming. Text. Jefferson.

Dante knew he tended toward suspicion—he’d learned young that suspicion kept him sharp and alert—and sometimes that alertness was the only thing going for him. If her being there was what it looked like, he just didn’t want to have to handle it. Who knew where he’d find another place to relax in peace if his connection with The Inferno was discovered?

“Do you usually answer other people’s phones?” she asked, a hint of irritation in her voice and a billboard of irritation on her eyes. As she spoke, she leaned toward him across the small round table, making it hard not to look down that amazing cleavage.

“When they show up at my club, unannounced, on a night I’m playing. Did you take pictures?” Not recognizing the name Jefferson, he didn’t immediately open the message, but he did pull his eyes back to the screen and flipped to photos.

Focus on the facts, not the astoundingly luscious body she’d kept hidden in baggy scrubs.

“Your club?” she asked, then his questions seemed to sink in and the confused look morphed into a scowl, shadowing her incredibly pretty features. “No, I certainly didn’t take any photos of you.”

The words out, she snapped her fingers and held out her palm for the phone, the jerky arm movements making her jiggle in her well-filled dress.

Which he would ignore.

Stick with the plan. Handle this. If it was something innocent, he could entertain entertaining her after.

The photos tab contained lots of sunset skies and ocean, along with progress photos on a yellow-painted duck-themed nursery.

Huh.

But no pictures of him or the club. “Call or text anyone to say you’d found me here?”

“Why would I do that? Are you in the witness protection program or something? Just give me my phone, Dante.” Her frustration...or her drinks...made her practically sing his name, but in a manner he’d not heard since high school. Annoyed. A bit too pointed. Sarcastic.

He ignored it, but had to remind himself who he was speaking to—the best surgical nurse he’d ever worked with. Not someone usually prone to...well, any displays of emotion.

“I don’t like my professional and personal lives to cross. No one knows about The Inferno, and I plan to keep it that way. If it’s truly coincidental that you’re here, you don’t need to speak of it with anyone at Buena Vista.”

“Don’t tell anyone you’re in a boy band. Got it.”

Boy band. He laughed despite his intention to intimidate her into following through with his demands. Bradshaw always seemed so calm and professional at work—this smart-mouthed and angry version really shouldn’t tickle him.

“You know I don’t sit around waiting to gossip about you anyway.”

Her squinting eyes got nowhere close to convincing him. How many drinks had she had?

The message. If she was reporting to someone...

He lifted the phone again and read the message. “Who’s Jefferson?”

Lise, I’ve heard many good things about you, and that was the reason I initially agreed to our date. But I’ve had second thoughts. It seems unfair to lead you on when I’ve just never been into Large Women.

Unknown name, frankly horrible message—she was telling him the truth. It was only coincidental that she’d happened to come into his club.

“He’s no one important,” she said, but held her hand out for her phone again. Something stabbed him in the gut—he’d say it was guilt, but, with the things he’d done in the past, only one thing had the power to shame him. No, more like vicarious embarrassment. He hit the back arrow to clear the message from the screen and placed the phone in her upward-turned palm.

“You know, you only ever have to ask me for anything once.”

If that. She was his favorite surgical nurse for good reason. He scheduled his most difficult surgeries on Mondays and Thursdays—the days he’d been able to claim her from the surgery rotation. He’d even once bribed another surgeon to get her on a Tuesday.

Even without medical school, he wouldn’t be surprised to hear of her conducting surgery on the side. With her in the OR, it was almost like having a second surgeon on standby. She anticipated his needs.

It was hard to think of this sexy, sarcastic creature as the same person. Even when she got quiet and the embarrassment he’d known was coming wiped the sass right off her face.

“He stood you up?” Dante asked, more gently than anything else he’d said to her.

“He was supposed to be here an hour ago, but it seems he magnanimously bowed out after leaving me to wait for over an hour, so I didn’t meet him and fall helplessly in love...because he’s never been attracted to Large Women. Capital L on that.”

Like he hadn’t read it already.

Large with a capital L. Yeah, that had to hurt.

The mojitos arrived and she took a deep drink. He followed suit, for once not sure what to say. Stood up by someone she’d never met, and she’d worn that dress? That’d have made an impression on the man.

She hit the drink hard and eyed the dance floor again. “They make great mojitos...”

Uncomfortable. Speaking to fill the air with words, any words.

“I always hire good people.” He tried again. “Why were you meeting a man you didn’t know wearing that dress?”

“You haven’t heard the rumor mill?” She leaned forward, elbows on the table, to speak closer. “I’m surprised. Someone questions or lectures me about it nearly every day now.”

“I don’t chat at work, makes it easier to keep things clean.” Which was supposed to make it easier to keep his two worlds separate and ignorant of one another. “So what’s the rumor?”

“I’m being fixed up on five blind dates by the more insistent nurses on Eight Blue.” The neurological unit at Buena Vista. Their unit. “None of them have been all that thrilling, though. The first two couldn’t carry on a conversation if their lives depended on it. Then that jerk, and, you know, I don’t care if he didn’t show up, he counts as number three. They get two more fix-ups, not three. Not my fault they picked so poorly.”

“Why have they focused their attention on you?”

The question she’d been dreading—it had started to feel like a trap anytime anyone asked it—but Lise liked to live her life in the open, so she’d answer. She didn’t hide things. She didn’t keep secrets. She didn’t lie. If someone called a woman Large, Lise would’ve at least made commentary on people being rude. Unlike Dante.

Whatever. She couldn’t waste time working out what was going on in his head. Better to be open, and let the chips fall where they may. It was preferable that people reject her for who she really was than to be fooled into loving her then turn her life inside out when they found out she wasn’t perfect.

“Because I decided to start a family on my own, and they’re all basically horrified that I’m sperm-shopping or, as they call it, ‘giving up on love’ and ‘not waiting for my soul mate.’” She rolled her eyes, and looked back at the dance floor.

Chatting with Real Living Dante was much less satisfying than sharing the sexy imaginary banter that occasionally took place in her head when she wasn’t busy doing something important. Imaginary Dante would’ve already convinced her that she was perfectly shaped and that he loved the way she looked. Imaginary Dante would’ve compared her to Venus, and Venus would’ve come in second.

Imaginary Dante was definitely better.

“I see.” He said it like he agreed, pulling her gaze back to him, and there was a look—not The Look, a judgmental look. “That’s why you have yellow duck nursery photos in your phone?”

“Maybe...”

“Sounds like you’re having a bad evening, Bradshaw.” He leaned his elbows on the table, like they were close friends who talked close. Definitely not like he was about to kiss her, that’d have been an Imaginary Dante move.

So she leaned back again. “Lise. If I’m calling you Dante, call me Lise.”

First he failed to discount the notion that she was overweight, and now dissing her Maternity Manifesto and the awesome, adorable, happy and cheerful ducky room?

Enough.

She didn’t have to sit with him, pretending not to be bothered by Jefferson’s abject failure to arrive, followed up by his text-based slap in the face. This wasn’t the hospital, it was a dance club. Dr. Valentino wasn’t even there. He was probably off being cold and indifferent while heroically and brilliantly saving lives somewhere, and she didn’t like Dante, dance club owner, bar band pianist.

“This night’s getting less thrilling by the minute. If you’re going to try and speed up the evening’s deterioration by lecturing me too, you can...you can just shut it! Because you’re rude, and I was going to tell you how wonderful the music was too. But now I’m not going to!”

Because her good friend mojito said it didn’t count if you said it like that.

“And, for the record...” she lifted a finger when he opened his mouth to speak, shouting over the music from across the small table “...if a woman says someone called her Large, Big, or even Rotund, and she’s not, you’re supposed to say that other person is delusional. And even if she is, you have to say something about the other person being rude. That you did neither means you think I’m a Large Woman too, with all the capitals. I’m not. So...good day, Dante.”

Another song popped onto the house system, perfectly timed. Lise grabbed her purse, slung it back across her torso to leave her hands free for Mr. Mojito, and stepped past him toward the dance floor.

She’d gotten only one foot onto the polished tile floor when a large, warm hand clamped around her free wrist, stopping her escape.

“You’re not a Large Woman, Lise. But you do a good job of hiding in oversized scrubs at work.” She didn’t look back at him, but he spoke the words over her shoulder, so near her ear that goose bumps raced up her arm, away from that warm, talented hand.

Even if he was taking up for Sandy. Sandy, the one who’d picked Jefferson. Sandy, who must’ve been the one to label her Large.

“They’re scrubs. And, if you haven’t noticed, I’m just a little top-heavy.” She turned to face him, and he took the opportunity to catch her mojito before she sloshed the contents on one or both of them, then tilted it back to drain the rest of the minty liquid before dropping the tumbler onto the tray of a passing server.

The man had drunk her mojito. What did someone even say when their mojito was stolen from their own hand?

Keep talking. Being speechless only proclaimed, I’m out of my depth and not smart enough to keep up with this insane conversation.

Anything that would keep her from staring at his mouth, and thinking about the kind of lusty crush fantasies that mouth definitely could fulfill if he were so inclined.

Pathetically adolescent and showing how badly she wanted company—enough to go on blind dates. Enough for drinking-glass-inspired lust. Pathetic.

Just. Say. Something.

“These stupid things affect what sizes I can wear, but the scrub tops are standard design, and everyone—even people who are actually proportionally built—looks dumb in them. Except you, you look good in scrubs for some reason. I’d say you sold your soul for it but we’re both already in The Inferno. Besides, they’re comfortable, so it’s easy to work in them. And if I ever got tops fitting my hip dimensions I’d suffocate in my own cleavage.”

Great. Great visual, strangled by bosoms.

Dante grinned down at her, her second brush with amusement in his eyes, twice in fifteen minutes.

She still couldn’t tell if he was laughing with her, or at her.

Before she could say anything else to embarrass herself, he slipped his arm around her waist and took her newly mojito-free hand, flawlessly maneuvering her into dancing position and steering her backward onto the dance floor.

Breathless, and more than a little gobsmacked, Lise allowed herself to be led. “We’re dancing now? Arguing makes you feel like dancing?”

Maybe it was good he’d drunk her mojito, she’d clearly had too many.

The firm arm around her waist pulled her close enough to demonstrate the need for her admittedly tent-like scrub tops—her lower half didn’t touch his, but her breasts pressed against the heat of his chest, and her still-free arm went automatically around his shoulders.

“That dress is spectacular, and it fits you very well,” He said, hand firm on her waist to turn her into some dance her feet didn’t know. “Follow me.” He slowed down, stepped back enough for her to see his feet, and after she’d mimicked the pattern a couple times, his firm hands were on her again and he steered her in slow steps around the edge of the now much more crowded dance floor.

Why was she going along with this? She’d gone to the dance floor to get away from him. And because she wanted to dance.

But even with that rude phone business, the man was still incredibly sexy, and she’d been stood up. Dante was a satisfactory stand-in for sure.

Don’t overthink it. Just dance with him.

“Why this dress when you don’t know Jefferson?” he asked again, like she hadn’t heard him before and had chosen to answer the other, more important part of his question.

Trying to understand him over the loud music meant she had to stare at his mouth, the corner of which had quirked up.

Everything about this felt out of line.

Stare at his mouth to understand and sound sane. Solid plan.

Pretend to dance like she wasn’t the offspring of an ostrich and a three-legged goat.

Ignore the tide-like sensations rushing up her arms and over her body from having his hands on her.

No problem.

“I did. And it’s new,” she admitted, and, as she’d done, he focused his attention on her mouth as she spoke. “I’ve been thinking of these dates as a kind of last hurrah before motherhood. Because I never really go out. Or date—mostly because it’s just way too much trouble. But I thought maybe if Jefferson played his cards right and wasn’t...”

“Ugly?”

Lise winced, but nodded.

She should definitely stop talking. If she talked, the truth would come out. If she just didn’t say anything, that wasn’t lying, even if it was a slippery-slope sort of deception.

Also, she should stop licking her lips.

No matter that recognizing her before had put a damper on his wolfish expression, Dante seemed to have changed his mind. He looked at her mouth longer than she spoke, but his brows had come down in a completely different fashion, sex-laced anticipation darkening his eyes.

She felt her ankle wobble and released his hand to throw both arms around his shoulders, holding tighter to him. The wobbly ankle added one more thing for her to concentrate on than her frazzled brain could handle.

If she wanted—and if she could rationalize hooking up with him in any way that could be considered safe or sane—Dante would be her last hurrah.

A last hurrah of epic proportions. He might even come with mojitos.

Dante didn’t say anything, he just pulled her a little closer so that his mouth was at her ear and she could feel the slight stubble on his cheek as he sang the Spanish lyrics softly along with the music.

The shivers his song brought rushing forth across her skin made his arms pull tighter, though he leaned back enough to look into her eyes again.

“You should let me take a picture of you then text it back to him. Make him suffer for his bad decision.”

And he wanted her, too. This was actually happening. Dr. Dante Valentino wanted her, even after he’d worked out who she was. Two years of nothing but business between them at the hospital, then they meet once outside the hospital...

Why was he still talking about Jefferson?

“You think that’ll make him suffer? For all we know, he snuck in, got one look at me, and left in a hurry.”

“He didn’t,” Dante said, still holding her close, though he’d stopped steering her around and they now swayed in one place at the edge of the stage, out of the way.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. He’s straight, and if he’d seen you tonight... Trust me.”

Trust him. As if that were the easiest thing in the world. Trust the sexy man who led a double life.

On the other hand, what harm could a picture do? Maybe Jefferson wouldn’t suffer, but he might feel slightly guilty to see that she’d gotten dressed up and waited for him in a nightclub by herself for so long before he actually called it off. Teach him a lesson for the next woman he got fixed up with.

“Okay,” Lise said, pulling back to get her phone from her bag. “But make me look good. Maybe there’s some kind of sexy filter we can use.”

While she pulled the purse off and hung it properly on her shoulder, he stepped back in to murmur something unbearably sexy in her ear. Warm. Playful. And entirely too Spanish for her to understand at all.

Even after three years in Miami, all she’d managed to understand was querida.

But it was enough.

A moment later he’d had her posed under the lights and taken a snap. Before she could even see it, he’d sent the picture to Jefferson.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

He handed the phone back. “It’s better to say nothing. Then all he’ll have is a bunch of questions, and that will make him suffer worse.”

She righted her bag and stashed her phone, then found herself back in his arms as a faster song started.

He pulled in close, that sexy mouth and fantastically gravelly voice still singing by her ear. Pressure at her side had her spinning and he stepped in until she felt him against her back, his hands landing on her hips.

This couldn’t be the same man.

She looked over her shoulder and saw Dr. Valentino, but in nearly every respect he was someone else with only tiny flashes of the man she knew peeking through—like when he did whatever he wanted and expected people to keep up or catch up.

Catch up was all she could attempt. “Is this a salsa?”

“No.” His voice came warm at her ear. “It’s a bachata. Simple moves. Hips, feet. Easier. Step-step-step-tap. Exaggerate the hips with the steps.”

Seduced by dancing. That’s what this was. She could spot the symptoms, name them, and couldn’t bring herself to give a damn.

Strong hands on her hips led her through the steps, the pressure of him at her back steering her as sure as he’d done when facing her, but in this position she could get a lot closer—feel the heated length of him. His thighs brushed the backs of hers, his chest moved against her back. And her bottom...

When her body seemed to have learned the dance, he spun her back to face him and said nothing at all, though the looks he gave her brought back that surge of bold, powerful sexiness she felt.

Heady and fueled by mojitos and bad decision-making, Lise stepped in before the dance was over—breaking step—and leaned up to press her lips to the corner of his mouth. Even side on, he stopped dancing.

He stopped everything.

And he didn’t kiss her back.

CHAPTER TWO

MISTAKE?

Mistake!

Lise broke her half-brave half-kiss and stepped back so swiftly that Dante’s arms broke loose from her waist.

“I’m sorry.” She touched her mouth, remembered her lipstick, looked at his mouth, and then reached up to start smudging it off as best she could. “That was bad of me. I mean, five minutes ago we were fighting.”

Rubbing someone’s mouth was almost as personal as kissing them.

Right.

She snatched her hand back. “Really, I’m sorry. I’m going to...”

Die.

She pointed back at the table and gave up saying words. A pivot and she hurried off in that direction.

“Stop! Why are you so jumpy?” He caught up to her in two strides and slung an arm around her waist again, then took the closest hand as well. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“You didn’t kiss me back.”

“They were signaling me from the stage. Snuck past while we were dancing. There’s nothing I’d like to do more than dance with you and kiss the jumpiness out of you. Don’t apologize for anything but your aim.”

They’d reached the table and he turned her into the chair and scooted it in for her. But when she thought he was going to leave, she felt his hand fist in the back of her hair, heat and awareness spiked her chest. He tugged her head backwards over the chair, arching her neck until she looked straight up at him, the action so sudden, so unexpected, and her rum buzz left her speechless. All she could do was stare up at him. She could feel the pulse in her throat, fast and hard, ever increasing as she watched his expression.

Tight enough to control her movements, but not so tight as to hurt, the tension spreading out over her scalp sent shivers through her.

Swiftly, and with far better aim, he leaned in and covered her mouth with his own.

Lise had never been kissed so thoroughly, so hungrily. So...shockingly. She felt a kind of limpness creep up her spine and straight to her jaw. His tongue plunged into her mouth, from zero to light speed in seconds, coaxing her to stroke against his.

As if she could even consider breaking away from him in that position, his free hand cupping and holding the front of her throat, fingers stroking there without pressure but still burning her skin. It excited her, coiling in her chest so that she couldn’t catch her breath from Dante’s brand of blatant sensuality, fueled with more than a hint of danger. The taste of his mouth, a hint of the mojitos they’d been drinking, and something more thrilling than she could even have imagined before that second, intoxicated more fully than alcohol could, and she lost awareness of how long they kissed, knew only that her hands crept up, aching, empty and seeking.

When someone nearby hooted in appreciation, Dante broke the kiss, lifting his head enough for them to see one another. Promises danced in his deep brown eyes and she couldn’t look away even if she’d wanted to.

“Stay for the next set,” he said, face still inches from hers. “But don’t dance with anyone else unless you want me jumping off the stage and reminding you why you’re waiting for me.”

Mute and breathless, she could only nod. The command in his voice was something she recognized from his way at work, in surgery, and not one piece of her wanted to disobey.

He kissed her again, a soft little kiss as if to seal the deal, then lifted her head back to where it should be. His fingers slid from her hair and stroked down over the back of her head once to right her usually smooth locks, before he returned to the stage.

Oh, she was going to make a mistake. Big mistake.

And it’d be worth it.

Dante hoisted himself onto the stage, bypassing the need to weave past the other musicians to reach his piano. He’d no more sat than the first notes of the next set rang out from the horns to his left.

Thank heaven it was a fast number. His only outlet was his hands right now, and they could only move with the music, not fast enough to deal with the energy surging through him.

From memory, without even needing to think about it by now, he began to play.

For once he didn’t fall into that peaceful place where he felt between worlds. His mind didn’t blank at all.

It filled with Lise. He couldn’t recall the last time anyone had excited him this much.

When he’d first seen her, every drop of blood in his body had hummed, pressure everywhere increasing in a kind of awareness he’d have called supernatural if he wasn’t supposed to be a rational surgeon. He’d immediately known there was someone in the club worth seeing.

But his interest—while authentic and entirely sexual—had gotten a little off track when something about her had struck him as familiar. He’d started clicking through the possibilities as to why.

Slept together before? No. That body would be impossible to forget.

Someone who’d been in the club before? No. He’d only owned it for five years, but if he’d ever seen her there, he would’ve paid attention. Would’ve gotten her number.

Someone he’d known in his past? One of his former marks? No, she wouldn’t have looked at him like that if that was the connection.

Hospital? Family of patient? Staff?

Then it had crystalized.

Bradshaw. This morning’s nurse. He’d seen her not even ten hours ago, and would see her again Monday morning. Would she have this magnetic draw hidden in gray cloth and without the sexy makeup and inferno-red lips?

Not if she went home with him tonight—and the way she blushed and smiled said she would. Things could get messy at work. He was already certain she’d not tell his secret, but this might be too big a hope.

The song ended and another began, but he couldn’t change his thoughts as easily as he changed keys. He wanted her and that was reason enough to engage in a little after-hours fun.

The eye-roll when she’d spoken of marriage told him she wouldn’t take one night out of context. That helped. That made it easy. Why was he still thinking about it?

The lights made it impossible to see her or her table and he wanted to look at her. When the next song rounded out and his hands were free, he snatched a radio from the side, turned away from the crowd. Quietly, he issued an order for Max, Manager of The Inferno, to have the lights lowered to anything but spotlights.

When the lighting shifted to swirls of color over the dance floor, his vision cleared.

Still at the table, he confirmed, but she sat there staring at her phone now, a tiny, satisfied, smug little smile curling one corner of her now naked mouth.

Jefferson had texted back after getting the photo.

Suffering. Good. Just as Dante expected. A little light manipulation of the man who’d humiliated the woman coming home with him tonight. It felt like justice, not that he could really tell the difference between justice and vengeance these days.

Time came for the piano to join in the next song again, and he finally let the music take him. Forty-five more minutes, a half hour break, and then another long set before he could do what he really wanted: drag Lise home with him and peel that dress off her.

* * *

While Dante played, Lise’s courage started to wane. Her desire was there—had been there all the time, bubbling under the surface of her quiet everyday life—since she’d gotten the job in Neurosurgery. Ignored. Designated unimportant—a luxury, a frivolous, stupid luxury that had no business in her daily life. But it felt different now. She’d had the lusty crush for years, and it had never caused her insides to quake.

One night could be amazing, or it could lead to life-plan-altering complications.

As much as she wanted him to jump down from the stage, capture her head and kiss her senseless again, what would it do to their work relationship? Had that kiss already changed their work relationship? Would she already be unable to look at him without imagining his hands in her hair and on her bare throat?

She loved her job. She also loved the money—which had enabled her to buy a little cottage of her very own in pricy Miami. Money had gotten her to the first goal on her list of what a responsible woman would do before having a child.

One kiss could be forgotten.

One night with Dante...wasn’t worth her future plans.

The very idea of losing her unconceived child opened a cavern inside her, refining her focus.

Right.

Remember the plan. Even knocking it off schedule was unacceptable, or would be as soon as she selected the best donor and worked out a schedule of some sort.

Who even knew how long or how many tries it might take to get pregnant once she’d found The One from her database?

Good decision.

While she gave herself a mental pep talk, her cell phone buzzed—another message from Jefferson, this time with an ETA.

* * *

Dante swung the door of his office closed a little harder than he meant to, knocking a jacket off the hooks on the door. He left it. Max usually spent his evenings on the floor, which suited Dante—it meant he could have solitude in the office they shared whenever Dante wanted.

Lise wasn’t there. She hadn’t waited, and he’d been so certain she would. Worse, as much as he’d fiddled with her phone earlier tonight, he hadn’t gotten her number.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d so misjudged someone. He’d given her exactly what she’d wanted, but she’d left anyway.

Had she left when Jefferson had finally decided to come groveling—something he felt confident he’d accomplished for her? He could check security tapes, but it didn’t really matter. Her decision. He was just angry about effectively being stood up by a woman who wanted him.

The phone in his pocket buzzed, interrupting one of his favorite pastimes—analyzing others—and he fished it out before flinging himself on the leather sofa he occasionally napped on between sets.

This wasn’t the emergency ringtone from his answering service or the hospital. He didn’t have to answer it right now—it could wait until tomorrow, or later.

One rule governed his time at the club: don’t violate the sanctuary. Don’t bring the outside in, don’t take the inside out. Lise’s appearance tonight had completely obliterated his rule.

Turning the screen up, he read a text from the latest Valentino wife—Cassie, married to his twin—with a request for a consult tomorrow at Seaside. His day off, but he never turned down those requests and texted back to confirm.

Lise being there had felt like a violation until he’d been completely turned on by her. But even as the thought came, he knew Lise wasn’t the reason he’d answered the text—she didn’t have his number either.

Over the past few months he’d watched all his brothers marry and start families. That was why he’d answered. Why he’d even opened the text after seeing who it was from. They all had bigger lives, which to him meant the possibility more things could go wrong and need fixing. Fixing problems was his primary role in the family.

Wives and kids meant more people to take care of. His circle had expanded from three to seven, with eight and nine still gestating. That kind of serious growth demanded more of his attention—even within the sanctuary.

He must be crazy even thinking about trying to increase those numbers further by finding a wife of his own. Not that he had the first clue as to how to go about it.

Another text came in before he could even drop the phone on the sofa, ripping a sigh from him. He stared at the polished black gadget in his hand for a full minute before he flipped it over and read the next message.

Santiago—middle brother—and his wife Saoirse requested he come to dinner tomorrow.

That one he didn’t have it in him to answer right now. Newlyweds. He was surrounded by newlyweds, and he heard from them all far more regularly than he had before they’d all coupled off. Had they organized efforts to take care of him? Because that was how he felt—irritatingly taken care of, the absolute last thing he needed. It would continue until he married. The last Valentino bachelor must be looked after...

The trauma they’d faced in childhood brought that compulsion out in all of them, maybe most in him, but his care had done the job—they were still together enough for him to feel overly tended.

In their shoes, Dante would’ve been doing the math—he’d never brought a woman to meet them, or dated one woman for any length of time. He’d never given it much thought until they’d all married off, and now he became aware of how he stuck out as single. But marriage was normal, expected. And keeping up appearances was always important.

Dropping the phone on the sofa, he laid his head back and closed his eyes, focusing on the between-sets music that got feet on the dance floor. That had gotten him and Lise on the dance floor.

Someone would knock if he fell asleep before the last set. Or if he lost track of time, fantasizing about stripping Lise of that hot dress.

He just wished he knew her better, knew whether her self-esteem would’ve let her leave with the man who’d stood her up and insulted her when he’d come groveling.

Jefferson had been easy. Lise, apparently, wasn’t as easy to figure out.

Now, what if he wanted to torture her for standing him up, make her regret and come groveling...

* * *

Monday morning, Dante stood at the scrub bay, looking over the team getting things ready for the morning’s surgery.

Lise wasn’t there.

He tilted his head to catch sight of the clock, his jaw tightening enough that he had to open his mouth to relieve it. Walking out at the club he could forgive. But being late for surgery?

“Carrasco. Dónde está Bradshaw?” The words flew out before he’d even fully realized his irritation. She was never late. What had changed? Just the kiss? Had she gone on another blind date then overslept in her last hurrah?

“Spanish today, Dr. Valentino?” She tilted her head, but answered, “I’ve not seen her.”

Spanish. At work. First time for everything.

It surprised him, but he couldn’t even pretend to himself that his irritation was all about her being late. He switched to English—control was important. “Has anyone heard from Bradshaw? She wouldn’t no-show.”

“I can call HR and scheduling, see if she’s called in,” Carrasco said.

Although she’d already scrubbed in to prep, and picking up a phone would mean she would have to scrub in again, Dante said, “Do it.”

A moment later, she was in the scrub bay, dialing.

Again Thursday’s question came: had Lise left with Jefferson?

That was four days ago. If she’d gotten into trouble that long ago...

He fumbled the scrub brush and it fell into the sink. Containing a sigh, he grabbed a new one and started over.

Carrasco spoke with someone, heard her confirm that Lise hadn’t called in.

“Not with HR,” she confirmed, and dialed another number.

He didn’t want another surgical nurse for this procedure. Lise was the best. He wanted Lise. Carrasco technically was also a surgical nurse, but he had Lise for today, it was on the schedule.

“I’m here!”

The sound of Lise’s voice had him turning from the sink, relief tinging his irritation so that he didn’t quite know how to feel, which of course ticked him off. “Couldn’t get out of bed this morning, Bradshaw?”

He took in her appearance, and he felt his neck heat. The too-big scrub top she always wore had been replaced by one with a different cut—one that wrapped over her chest like that dress had done.

She’d made the gray scrubs sexy.

“Nothing so restful as that.” She rushed around the small bay, getting what she’d need to start scrubbing. “I know I’m a little later than usual, but we’re still a good fifteen minutes from the start of the surgery...”

Dante didn’t want excuses. He also didn’t want to cause a scene at the hospital, even if she threw him off balance yet again. He wanted Old Lise, not the one who knocked him so hard she had him wondering if maybe he was the mark here.

She stepped to the open bay beside him and began the process of cleaning her hands.

Hair covered by scrub cap—how he always saw her. No makeup—but no lower face cover yet. He’d like the chance to look at her clean-faced—or grill her for an excuse. But it would have to wait.

If she hadn’t wanted to face him after their brief time at The Inferno, he’d put that straight to her. No reason they couldn’t be professional. It had been a little kissing, not as much as he admittedly still wanted, but they’d survive.

He exited the bay, leaving the nurses to finish scrubbing in. Another tech gowned and gloved him, and he took a moment to make sure everything was as he wanted before the patient arrived.

“Are you going to report in about your date last week?” another member of the team asked as soon as Lise stepped into the OR proper.

“No. It’s really not the time for that. If you want a report, I will be happy to make one after surgery.”

Voice tight. Posture stiff. Happy? Yeah, right. No way could he misread that reaction.

He just didn’t know whether it was Jefferson or their dancing making her unhappy now.

If the date had shown up he hadn’t made a better impression on her. Unless it was their dalliance making her unhappy.

What the devil was wrong with him? He’d never had this much trouble reading someone. At least, not since those early days on the cons that had almost gotten him arrested in his youth. Repetition had improved how well he could read between the lines, except when it came to Lise.

The door opened and in rolled the trolley with his patient on it, a woman in her thirties who had three children.

That was what he needed to focus on, doing well by this patient and her family. Never be the one who broke a family.

He always learned what he could about his patients so he could keep in mind what was riding on successful surgery. He took a moment to check with her, make sure she understood what the neuro-endoscopy entailed, and to reassure her again that he’d do his best. Things he always did for his patients, even those who didn’t have children at home or in the waiting room—or, as had been the case with him, waiting in the chapel, praying it all would go all right.

His gentle encouraging words delivered, he nodded to the anesthetist. The sooner their patient was unconscious, the sooner she’d stop worrying. And, he hoped, the sooner he’d have out the Rathke cleft cyst growing behind her pituitary gland.

One more tally removed from the ledger where he kept memories of his old ways, and he hoped to eventually get out of the red.

* * *

No sooner had Dante left the surgical suite than Sandy Carrasco repeated her earlier demand.

“Tell us how the date went.”

Lise had avoided thinking about the date all weekend, and that had included preparing what she was going to say when inevitably asked.

“Oh, just great, I guess.” Messing with rude people was a bad habit she’d apparently picked up from Dante.

When Sandy laughed, Lise went with it.

“I got a brand-new dress for the evening. Jefferson and I had spoken briefly on the phone a few days before and confirmed where we’d meet in texts—deciding on a club he liked. Since I never go to clubs, I got the new red dress. I arrived, went in on my own as he wasn’t waiting for me outside. Drank a mojito. Danced.”

“He was inside, waiting?”

“Oh, no. He wasn’t there, either. I amused myself. Mojitos. Dancing. Talking with a handsome musician.” Not. Dante. Don’t mention Dante. Then she laid out being stood up, the Large Woman nonsense, and that he’d tried to come after she’d sent him a picture of her red dress.

Confrontation wasn’t usually her thing, though it sometimes came with being truthful and direct about things—or when humiliated and inebriated. But sometimes, like right now, it came in handy.

Before Sandy could do anything but look embarrassed, Lise—having already discarded her surgical gown—gestured to the new well-fitted scrub top and her relatively flat tummy and waist.

“I’m not tiny. But I’m pretty sure Large doesn’t describe me. I tend to wear a ten in scrub bottoms and, of course, a higher size when I require a cut that accommodates disproportionate breasts. And before you get any ideas, I’m still counting that as my third date, so that’s only...”

She paused then and revulsion for the whole experience changed her mind. “Whoever was in charge of picking Bachelors Four and Five should cancel now. I’m done. Be disapproving all you like, but my plans don’t hinge on whether or not my coworkers approve of my decisions. And now, I apparently need to go be yelled at by Dr. Valentino. Please excuse me.”

CHAPTER THREE

THE DOOR TO the office Dante used when staffing the neurosurgery unit swung open. He looked up just as he flipped off his phone, and caught Lise closing the door behind her.

Brows pushed together, mouth actually turning down at the corners in a frown, posture stiff, hands balled into fists... She was either very angry or very worried.

Something other than unflappably calm for the first time ever in his presence at Buena Vista, but she’d also embraced another first—at least as far as he was concerned: No scrub cap. The silky blond locks he’d spent the weekend remembering the feel of on his hand had been braided around her head like a crown. She didn’t keep her hair just tucked up beneath those caps. Still nice.

But not what he should be focusing on.

She stepped in front of the chairs opposite the desk, appeared to think better of it, and moved around until she stood behind them again and dropped her hands onto the seatback.

Rather than question her, he let her get around to it. She knew why he’d summoned her.

When words again failed to come, she stepped around to the front again, but this time sat.

“Do you have a cat?” he asked, unable to help himself.

“Because I’m unmarried and twenty-nine? How many cats am I supposed to have at this point?”

“You just walked all the way around that chair about one and a half times before you sat down. My guess was either cat or a musical-chairs aficionado.”

“You’re funny today.” Yet she neither looked nor sounded amused.

“I was funny on Thursday too. You should’ve stuck around to find out.”

“If you said anything funny on Thursday, it would’ve been in some kind of Spanish purr and I wouldn’t have understood it anyway.”

Quiet Lise had been once more replaced by a snarky copy. She was there to entertain him, it seemed. But he had a plan for this meeting, so he moved past the cat conversation.

“Are you all right? You looked anxious when you came in. Afraid I was going to yell at you for your tardiness?”

“A little. And I just told off Sandy and called off the remaining fix-ups. Told them I didn’t need their approval to live my life. It was really...I don’t know, either empowered or rude. Maybe both.”

“Sometimes you have to be rude to get things done,” Dante murmured, leaning back in the other chair as he tried to decide how to handle this.

“You didn’t need to be rude to get things done.”

Her phone.

“I didn’t know you well enough to trust you.”

Getting off track.

“You’ve worked with me for two years.”

“And yet I barely know you.”

Rarely did he ever do anything in his adult life without having a plan for how it should work out. That was how he’d gotten through the time after his parents’ murders, through college and medical school, fellowships, even to securing a placement at his preferred hospital. His career path still had an ongoing plan. He had plans for the club, and a great manager to make those plans happen. The only goal he was flying blind with was on how to go about finding a wife with his particular marital complications.

It was time he had his own family. And he had to marry if he was to have a happy family.

Lise had a habit of disrupting his plans. When he’d gone to her table at first, his plan had been simple: find out what she knew and make sure she didn’t tell anyone about The Inferno. That plan had lasted all of two minutes.

He’d formed a new plan for the way that evening should’ve ended as they’d danced and the chemistry had grown, and that hadn’t worked out either.

When he’d instructed she come to his office, he’d been planning to demand answers to her tardiness—mostly to make sure she hadn’t overslept after a long sexy weekend with the jerk who’d stood her up.

“Why did you stand me up?” he asked.

And another plan went down the drain. Probably not the best use of a work environment, but his plan to keep his work and his club completely separate had also blazed out when Lise had walked into it in that dress. Besides, how else was he supposed to figure her out but to ask questions?

She looked momentarily confused again, but embarrassed too. “I didn’t think you wanted those places to cross-contaminate each other. Am I supposed to call you Dante or Dr. Valentino right now?”

“Dante,” he answered immediately—he liked it when she said his name. “I didn’t want it, but it happened anyway.”

“You sexy-danced with me and sang Spanish into my ear. That’s not just something that happens.” Her voice had gone up, the same as when she’d yelled at him about being rude in the club. She might not plan to behave differently in the club and in the hospital, but she did.

“You being there happened. Everything that came afterward was a choice, and nothing I regret.” He cleared that up, so she couldn’t think he was blaming her for his apparently clumsy seduction. “So, why did you leave?”

“So I wouldn’t sleep with you.”

“Why? You wanted to. You wanted a last hurrah. I’d guaranteed a last hurrah without complications.”

She all but rolled her eyes at him. “It’s easy to say no complications, but it would’ve messed everything up. It’s already messing things up, and all we did was dance and kiss.”

Dante scooted his chair toward her, then grabbed the arms of her chair to drag her to face him.

She made a face as her chair slid on the carpet, a flash of pain that gave him pause. But it was gone as fast as it had come, so he tried to stay on plan—the new plan, the one that had re-formed without his reasoned intention a moment ago.

“This right now is only awkward because you ran out. Did you think I would force you to do something you didn’t want?”

“No. I wanted it. But it was a bad decision, fueled by mojitos and hormones and because, well, I’ve been lonely, if you must know. And you’re very handsome, and then there was the dancing and the sexy stuff you said in Spanish.” She blew out a breath slowly and reached up to rub her face.

She looked just as frustrated as he was. “If you’re going to storm into single motherhood, you need to get better at handling social interactions. In the future, you can just say, ‘Thanks, but I changed my mind.’”

“Thanks, but I changed my mind,” she repeated, but, despite the sarcastic repetition of his words, not an ounce of it rang in her voice.

“Cute.” He reached out and snagged one of her hands to force her to focus on him—contact with another had a great side benefit of granting the appearance of trustworthiness, and he needed an advantage with her. “I was actually worried about you. Something you’ll become familiar with as a single parent, trust me.”

“What were you worried for?” She didn’t pull away, but her arm had a stiffness that spoke of inner turmoil, and when she met his gaze he felt the balance shift.

“I saw your face during the set. You were smirking at your cell phone. WonderDate texted you back.”

“WonderDate?” she repeated, and then grinned despite herself. “He did. But don’t call him that—he’d have to have shown up to be any kind of wonder. In fact, I didn’t even text him back. You were worried that he’d come for me and I just forgave all and ran off with him?”

“You’d had at least three mojitos, and I’d been doing my best to seduce you, so it was possible I’d contributed to you making a bad decision.”

Mild exasperation had her shaking her head at him, even though she still didn’t pull her hand away. “He texted several times after getting the picture. I never answered. When he finally texted that he was on his way and would be there well before your set ended, I decided to get out before I did anything stupid.”

“Explain stupid.” He kept her hand, kept looking her in the eye. It had a double benefit, as he also got to look at her clean-faced, and the pale blue eyes drew his own gaze.

“You know what stupid is. Stupid is what we were doing. What we were going to do. What we might be doing now!” She wriggled her hand out of his, but the buzzing connection he’d felt lingered.

“That wasn’t stupid. That would’ve been a much-desired reprieve from reality for a while. You feel it.” He gestured to her freed hand. “I know you do.”

“It’s just chemistry. It doesn’t mean that the rest disappears.”

He caught both her hands and stilled, holding her wary gaze while the buzz resumed and morphed to a persistent tingle that either required more touching or none at all.

More.

Dante leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and brought one small hand to his lips to brush a kiss across her knuckles, then turned it until it was palm up, and feathered a trail of kisses from the center of her palm to the tender inside of her wrist.

Her breathing changed, and when he lifted his eyes to hers again, her mouth was open and she had that excited haze settling in her eyes again.

“That connection you feel? Sex with us would be like that—intense and hot. It’s kind of silly that we’re still talking about this when we both know it’s going to happen.”

“You don’t know that.” She breathed, blinking her eyes and pulling her hand free, gently but firmly. She knew it too, but she didn’t want to know it. Why, though, he couldn’t fathom. “And what did you mean before?”

“When?”

“When you said that I would know about worry,” Lise said, grabbing for anything to chase away the charge in the air. Today had been far from her image of a great day at work. It had started out badly, she’d dropped instruments in surgery and new ones had had to be broken out of their sterile packaging. Twice. She never dropped instruments. Now every cell in her body was zinging and she wanted more contact with his skin, with his lips... She wanted to dance, she wanted to argue with him more—probably the weirdest part of the compulsion she felt to engage with him.

The sooner they got past this, the better it would be—as it was, she struggled to resist that sensation, which turned it into that need, that near ache.

Being a sarcastic witch had always been helpful in persuading men that she was entirely not worth the effort, but so far, not Dante. “Is that an implication you worried about me like a parent?”

Lise sat up straighter in her chair, then regretted it. Her neck and right shoulder had started to ache from the accident this morning, and sitting up straighter just put added tension on those muscles.

“I’ve been a parent. I know what it is to worry. And,” he said, mirroring her actions, sitting up but taking it a step further with folded arms, “in no way do I feel parent-like toward you.”

“You have kids?” The image of her ducky nursery swam into her mind.

“Had. Younger siblings. I raised them with my brother when our parents were murdered.”

When our parents were murdered.

The words curdled deep in her belly, but she didn’t see even a trace of emotion on his handsome face.

In surgery, she could read his eyes—she had a context and two years’ practice interpreting his looks to make that possible. Now? His expression had gone as blank and as unaffected as his voice had been.

An innate desire to help and heal had made her become a nurse, but this was so big and his words were so heavy that she couldn’t even focus on them. Shifting sand, that’s what it was like to speak with the man. No direction ever looked safe, but plodding directly for what had to still be a wound felt the least safe.

Talk about the kids. “How old are they?”

“Now or then?”

“Then.” Though she doubted he’d entirely given up those parental feelings, no matter how old they all were now.

“Alejandro is youngest, he was ten. Santiago was fourteen. Rafe and I were eighteen.”

“You have a twin? You mean there’re two of you?” She nudged his foot with her toe and settled her foot beside his, shoes touching when all she really wanted to do was reach for his hand again, and...what? It had been a long time ago.

“Fraternal. Not identical.” He smiled, but despite the little tease he didn’t say anything else.

What comfort could she offer after all these years?

He hadn’t told her because he wanted comfort. Of course it still hurt—she could summon the shock and anguish of losing her father in an instant, but that was different. His had been a double-whammy violence perpetrated by others, not them simply deciding to die.

There was something else he’d meant. Her plan. “You think I’m making a mistake going forward with my pregnancy plan because I have no family.”

That surprised him. That expression she could identify. He really didn’t know anything about her, so why it surprised him, she couldn’t guess.

“You have no family?” Alarm. Identified. “No one at all?”

Great.

Lise sighed. This had gotten too far off track, and she didn’t know how to get it back on track. Not with her contradictory reaction to wanting him, and his single-minded focus on tempting her—either physically or emotionally.

They barely knew one another, even if she knew one really terrible thing from his past. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to let the fact that I don’t have a family keep me from having a family. Don’t go down that road.”

A knock at the door cut off whatever he’d been about to say. Dante stood up, one of his knees between hers, his body so fleetingly close it dominated her personal space and pulled at her like gravity—so like that moment after the kiss to end all kisses, when he’d stood over her, hand fisted in her hair, and the pull between them so strong other people in the club had felt it.

Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and she felt herself craning forward to look up at him, but a shot of pain radiated down her right arm. She lowered her chin again and he stepped around to head for the door.

“Hello, Dr. Valentino. I wanted to check in and see if you’d heard from Lise Bradshaw? Do you want to file disciplinary action against her?” a woman’s voice asked from the other side of the door, sounding entirely too cheerful considering the words she’d chosen.

Disciplinary action?

Who was that? Human Resources?

She tilted her head to try and see past him, but Dante’s body blocked the small opening in the door.

“She arrived just after we hung up with you earlier. No need for disciplinary action. This was her first tardiness, and she had a very good excuse.”

They hadn’t even talked about why she’d been late. Was the man allergic to the truth?

He spoke with her a moment longer, then added a doozy. “But it’s good you stopped by. I want to start paperwork to have Nurse Bradshaw transferred to my team full time.”

He gave reasons—not all entirely true, but mostly. They came to some kind of agreement, and Dante closed the door and returned to sit with her.

“How do you know I had a good excuse? I haven’t told you anything about why I was late.”

“You’re not the tardy sort.” His phone rang and he held up one finger, checked the screen, and said, “It’s Recovery. I’ve got them giving me updates every twenty minutes.”

So he’d assumed, which was different from lying how? Not at all. She could have a terrible excuse for all he knew.

For the most part Lise was confident in her personal life. She might not have been had she known her fellow nurses were judging her for the size of her scrub tops, but generally she felt confident in her abilities, her job, her life plans, her moral compass...

But she wasn’t so confident as to assume she knew everything. Did unreasonable confidence make something not a lie?

Another reason she should run the other direction. Dante hadn’t even asked if she wanted a full transfer to his team, he’d just started the ball rolling.

Dante rang off and dropped the phone back into his chest pocket. “So, you were saying?’

“I was asking why you just lied, because you never asked why I was late.”

“No one will question it. Our secret, then? I was simply giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

“I don’t like secrets. And you admit you had doubts.” Lecturing a grown man about honesty wasn’t a smart use of her time, and yet...prior to this morning Lise would’ve never thought she could enjoy arguing with anyone, and she really didn’t want to examine why she liked arguing with him.

“You’re right. Tell me why you were tardy.”

“Because I was rear-ended this morning on the way to work,” she said. “Which, granted, is a good excuse. But the point is—”

“You had a car accident on the way to work?” He cut her off—much as the driver ahead of her had done, which had ended in her being rear-ended. “You had an accident and you were only about fifteen minutes later than usual? Did you have yourself checked out? That’s why you were dropping instruments and why you keep rubbing your shoulder?”

Muttering an expletive, he didn’t wait for her to answer the questions at all, just stood, rounded her chair, and ran his fingers along her vertebrae. Thumb. It was the pad of his thumb—she could even feel the texture of his skin, the ripple of every ridge of his thumbprint seemed to stand out to her.

The man went from smirking and self-assured to angry doctor mode in an instant. She couldn’t keep up, and moments before smirking and self-assured, he’d been all sexy.

“I’m a little sore. It didn’t destroy my car. They didn’t have to cut me out with the Jaws of Life. My back bumper fell off. I got a jar forward but I’m okay. I’m just a little sore.”

“A little sore deserves to be checked out.” He swore again and once again one hand slipped around the front of her neck, long index finger and thumb cradling the underside of her mandible while his palm and fingers cupped her throat.

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