Surgeon Sheik's Rescue. Лорет Энн Уайт

muscle began to work at his jaw.

      She poured the wine, handed him a glass, careful not to connect with his skin again.

      “Will you ever fully regain use of your left hand?” she said quietly.

      Will you ever operate again, play the cello, ride a horse...

      He stared at her, intense, silent. Bella began to feel self-conscious.

      “I apologize—I’m stepping out of my bounds tonight. What I really—”

      “I might regain all the refinement of a wooden club,” he said, taking a deep swallow of his wine. She watched his Adam’s apple move under dusky skin. “If I do the physiotherapy.”

      Madame’s words sifted into Bella’s mind.

      A private ferry came over from the mainland with gymnasium equipment. A woman came with it... I think she had something to do with the gymnasium equipment, perhaps a personal trainer. But she left very abruptly, the next day...

      He’d fired his physiotherapist.

      “You’re not doing the exercises?”

      He turned and strode to the fire, stared into the flames, glass in hand, firelight dancing in the burgundy liquid.

      “To put it simply,” he said, still facing the fire, his voice low and deep in his throat. “The brain-to-limb connection is one of the hardest to regain. Sometimes, I’ll be holding an object in my left hand, then I get distracted, and the thing just drops from my fingers because the neurological connection is missing.”