“So you’re one of the wealthy elite? Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
The way she said it, with a slight scowl creasing her brow, showed she wasn’t the least impressed by his background. “I am blessed in that way, yes. But it doesn’t blind me to the problems here. To the atrocious wall in Lima that runs between shantytowns on one side of the mountain and large homes with every amenity on the other.”
“The wall of shame. It’s awful.” She scrunched up her face in a way that would have been beyond cute if the subject weren’t so serious. “But even though that kind of divide isn’t as physically obvious up here and in other places in the world, the gap is still pretty big. I mean, look at this place.”
He didn’t have to follow the wave of her hand to know what she meant. “True. Sometimes I feel guilty to be staying in this kind of modern hotel, knowing that, close by, some of the families we take care of don’t have running water or electricity.”
“Me, too. But does it make me a horrible person that I’m glad to be able to stay here anyway? I’ve worked in places that didn’t have running water and had generators that only provided electricity part of the day, but I can’t lie. I appreciate knowing I can at least take a shower and that’s what keeps bringing me back to stay more often when I’m working here.”
He had to smile at her earnest expression, as though she felt she really should feel guilty about that. “No, it doesn’t make you a horrible person. It makes you someone from the Western world, and we’re all spoiled by having a light switch we can just turn on, aren’t we?”
“Yeah. If the electric bill’s been paid,” she murmured, before sending him a slightly strained smile. “Anyway, I think I’ll get going on my morning routine then take advantage of that shower before work.”
“Surgery doesn’t start for another couple of hours. Why are you up so early, after having so little sleep because you had to bring that monitor?”
That earned him a narrow-eyed stare, and he mentally smacked himself for bringing it up again. And why had he? He’d been thinking about the gray smudges beneath her pretty eyes, wishing she’d go back to bed for a while so she’d feel refreshed. Not about the stupid monitor or her lateness.
“I’m always up early. It’s important to get mentally centered before taking on the tasks of the day.”
“What do you do to get mentally centered?”
“Meditation. Yoga. I know...” She held up her hand. “Someone like you is probably thinking I don’t have a yoga body, but a person doesn’t have to be thin to do healthy stretching, you know.”
Her words sent his gaze back to her tantalizing figure in that robe and he had to yank it away before she saw him staring. “Someone like me?”
“Yes. A person who thinks it’s his right to judge and criticize others. How they do their job. Where they come from or what they wear. Mostly, it’s obvious you usually decide that pretty much everyone on your medical teams come up short, undeserving of breathing the same rarefied air as you.”
“You have me all wrong.” Inexplicably, her words stung, even as he felt confused as to why she was saying some of it. “I don’t judge people. Didn’t we just have a conversation about how much I care about the have-nots who live here? As for my medical teams, I demand the best for my patients. That was the only thing on my mind five years ago, since that’s clearly what you’re talking about here.”
“I want the best for my patients, too. Except I don’t throw other people under the bus, even when they make a mistake or could do something better. I give them a second chance, and try to help them along the way.”
“Some patients never get a second chance.” The words came out more sharply than he’d intended as memories of Gabriel squeezed his chest. “Which is why I insist on working with only the most qualified people, instead of pandering to anyone’s ego.”
“Well, anyone who could keep their ego intact around you must be made of steel. And it seems to me that maybe you’re the one with the ego problem. Hotshot cardiac surgeon from a wealthy family. A guy with a God complex who thinks he’s better than everyone else.”
“I have many colleagues who ask to work with me, and if that’s because they think I’m one of the best surgeons around, I’m happy about that. If you call that a big ego, so be it.”
She took a swig of coffee and shrugged. “I call it like I see it.”
He took a step closer, his chest burning at her unexpected attack, and after they’d had such a friendly conversation, too. “Maybe the truth is you have a plenty big ego yourself. Attractive enough to land a job in a prestigious hospital. Beautiful enough to have hospital higher-ups go to bat for you, even when you mess up.”
She gasped, taking two big steps forward to jab her finger into his chest, her eyes flashing with blue fury. “That’s just insulting, and if I were a man you wouldn’t dare say something like that to me. I’m not going to stand here and defend myself, because I couldn’t care less what you think about me, other than you have to trust me to do a good job here. You believe what you want about anything else, but I know what I’m doing, and I got my job through hard work and nothing else. You’re stuck working with me and I’m stuck working with you for the next two weeks. We have children to heal and lives to save, and that’s the only thing that’s important to me. So get over yourself and deal with it.”
She swung around and marched to the door. Coffee sloshed from her cup and onto her pink sleeve, trickling to the ground, but she just kept going without another look back.
Daniel blew out a slow breath as he watched the sexy sway of her backside disappear through the door. How had he lost control of that conversation, and why had he let her goad him into verbalizing his questions about why some of the hospital administrators had argued to keep her on?
Normally, he was a man who could hold his thoughts, but there was something about her that got under his skin. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he’d felt so frustrated at her words, and at the same time he’d been mesmerized by her lips as they’d moved, that the comments about her beauty helping her get her job had just fallen out of his mouth, even as he’d known he shouldn’t say anything. Even as he’d spoken, a part of him had wanted to reach for her, grasp her shoulders, and pull her against him. Wanted to drop his mouth to hers to keep her from lambasting him. Wanted to sip the coffee from her lips, experience the taste of her that he knew would be sweeter than the sugar in her drink.
And wouldn’t that have been a giant mistake? What the hell was wrong with him?
He rubbed his hand down his face. The number one priority in dealing with her just became being careful to speak to her, and react to her, with only the utmost professionalism. How ironic would it be for her to lodge a complaint against him about his conduct on this medical mission?
A brisk walk might help him get his equilibrium back. And maybe it was time for him to learn to do a little meditation himself, to purge his brain of any and all peculiar and troubling thoughts about Annabelle Richards.
* * *
Another long day of surgeries left Daniel with an aching back and a sense of satisfaction. The hours spent were worth a little discomfort, since repairing holes in children’s small hearts or addressing hypoplastic left heart syndrome and other critical heart malformations was exactly why he did these missions.
The whole team had worked tirelessly along with him, including Annabelle. He couldn’t deny that she’d shown herself to be a steady hand with the anesthesia, communicating well with the nurses and bringing what he’d learned was her special brand of charm to the young patients. She might not speak very good Spanish but at least she