“Nata? Did you forget something?”
His voice sounded from right behind her. Not only was he looking. He’d followed her. She couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. Heart in her throat, she spun around to face him.
In his hand he held something brown and shiny and... Her barrette.
The tiny zing of anticipation died a hard death. Ugh. What had she thought he was going to say? That she’d forgotten to kiss him goodbye? Not in this lifetime.
“Thanks.” She forced a smile, hoping it was bright and cheery. She gave her sleeve a tug and then held out her hand for her errant hair ornament. In her haste to get away from him, she hadn’t realized she’d left her hair down.
“Why do you keep doing that?”
She blinked. “Doing what?”
“Pulling at your sleeve. Is your arm hurting you?” His brows puckered in... Concern. Oh, God, no. Not again.
Her smile disappeared. “No. This shirt is just snug.”
Liar. Her top was a stretchy, flowy material. The opposite of snug.
“When was the last time you had it checked?”
“Are you kidding me, Adam?” This time it wasn’t anticipation that tingled up her back until it hit the base of her skull but raw anger. “I’m a doctor. I think I would know if my prosthesis was giving me trouble.”
His wince was unmistakable at her bald words. Well, what she’d said was true. Her prosthetic device might not be visible to the world, but it was there just the same. And for him to ask her about it after the encounter they’d just had was almost unbearable. So much for feeling sexy and confident. He’d just transported her back to when she was sixteen and woken up in a hospital bed with seven inches of her left humerus gone, replaced by a shaft of metal. She found herself bending her elbow, a subconscious response to thinking about the osteosarcoma that had almost taken her arm. If she’d never gotten sick, her life would be very different now.
And maybe Adam would have looked at her through different eyes.
But it was what it was.
“I’m sorry.”
The man actually looked penitent, something she couldn’t normally say about the handsome orthopedic surgeon. He’d had a reputation as a playboy back in high school, college and for most of med school. All that had changed when he’d gotten married and then divorced a couple of years later. Women still threw themselves at him, but from all accounts those advances were ignored with a quick smile as he went on his way.
Except the way he’d looked at her in that exam room... If she’d wrapped her arms around his neck would he have rebuffed her?
Um, yes, if this conversation was anything to go by. And she would be mortified to have him set her aside like a child. She wasn’t a child. And she was going to show him that once and for all.
Only she had no idea how. Or why.
Up went her chin. “You and my brother need to get it through your thick skulls that I do not need protecting. I’m a big girl with big girl panties, and I’ve been wearing them for quite some time.”
“So I’ve seen.” The words were muttered in a low pained tone. At first she thought she’d misunderstood him, but since he was now avoiding her eyes like the plague, she was pretty sure she’d heard him correctly.
Well, then. Maybe she hadn’t been wrong about his adult male reaction after all. “That’s what you get for walking in on someone—”
“In an unlocked exam room. What if I’d been the hospital administrator?”
“You weren’t. Karma wouldn’t do that to me.”
At least she hoped not. She tried to be nice to those around her. Except when a certain overprotective brother and his hunky cohort started to meddle in her affairs.
Not that she had any affairs worth meddling in.
“Oh, I think karma has a pretty twisted sense of justice.”
Was he talking about his divorce? She’d heard his ex-wife had not only married another doctor but she’d gotten a hefty settlement during the divorce trial. Due to some ridiculous lie about how he withheld himself from her emotionally after she’d told him she didn’t want children.
Adam was no cold fish. And surely his wife had known how much he wanted a large family. Natália remembered him always talking about wanting lots and lots of kids. Of course, he would tweak her nose as he said it, adding something along the lines of hoping all his little girls were as cute as she was. Only that was never going to happen. Not now. And unlike his ex-wife, it wasn’t because Natália didn’t want children. “Maybe it does, since you happened to be the one who caught me. Someone who is practically family.”
The dig was meant to get a reaction out of him, but she was sorely disappointed. He merely nodded.
She flexed her elbow again, then stopped mid-movement when his eyes followed the gesture. “It’s fine. Just a bad habit.”
Kind of like her crush on Adam had been. A bad habit that she’d had the hardest time breaking. But she had. Finally.
Right?
Absolutely. Maybe karma really did have a twisted sense of justice. She couldn’t give him what he wanted. In more ways than one.
“If you’re sure,” he said.
“I am.”
He glanced at her face, lingering there for what seemed like an eternity before his gaze brushed down her nose...across her lips. She swallowed, then his index finger came up and tapped under her chin. “I like your hair down, by the way. I don’t think I’ve seen it that way in...well, a long time.”
Her mouth popped open, but before her sluggish brain could even think of a response he’d dropped his hand to his side with a lopsided smile. “I’d better go. I have a patient to recheck before I clock out. And you evidently have a hot date.”
That’s right. She was supposed to be going out on a date with someone besides a bowl of yakisoba from a nearby takeout joint. If her food was hot, it counted, right? Why had she ever concocted that lie? Maybe because she’d been so flustered to have been caught there in her underwear by the very man she’d fantasized about for so many years. “Yep. I’d better go and get ready then.”
He started to say something, and then gave his head a brief shake. He took a step or two in the opposite direction and then threw a single line over his shoulder without looking back. “Call me when you get home from your date.”
What? Oh, no!
She would be home in a half-hour. Forty-five minutes, tops. And then she would have to come up with a plausible reason why her “date” hadn’t lasted longer than it had. She could ignore his order. And have him call Sebastian and very possibly the police?
Not if she could help it. A slow smile curved her lips. That was fine. She’d call him. But she’d wait a couple of hours and make him sweat a little.
He rounded the corner, leaving her standing alone in the hallway with nothing more than her thoughts—which were now running wild with all sorts of possibilities.
But one thing she did know. When she finally put that call through, she was going to have a tale to tell that beat all tales. Of being wined and dined long into the night. She could pick up a bottle of wine with her takeout and watch a romantic movie. So it wouldn’t be a total lie. Right?
And he would stay on the other end of that line and listen to the whole darned thing. After that, it was doubtful that Adam Cordeiro would ever try to play big brother to her again.
* * *
She was stranded.
Dammit. She turned the key in the