When their fellow passenger got off on the tenth floor, AJ took an unsteady breath. I am me. AJ Reynolds. I am not the broken product of those awful people. I have a sister who loves me. I have friends. I am smart. I love animals. I don’t cheat or lie. I’m a good person.
So would a good person manipulate and seduce to get what she wanted?
Matt gently urged her forward, breaking into her thoughts. She glanced up to see they’d reached the top floor just before the doors quietly opened onto the long plush hallway.
Sweat popped out in the small of her back. She could feel the tickle as it slowly slid down, down, until her dress eventually absorbed it.
“AJ?”
She squeezed her eyes shut as his hand cupped her hip, the familiar firmness creating alternate bursts of doubt and desire in her belly.
You can do this.
The corridor was way too long, its walls adorned with exclusive hand-drawn Versace designs in gilt frames. Then finally they were at his door, a huge, dark wooden thing emblazoned with a fresco of classic Greek gods and a gold number three. He opened it with his card and she caught her first glimpse of the amazing decor inside the cavernous penthouse suite along with a sliver of blue sky from the huge patio windows. As she hesitated at the threshold, he gently pulled her against him. Her bottom connected with his groin and his lips went to her nape.
She gasped. With one hand braced on the door frame, he looped the other low across her belly.
“I want you in my bed, Angel,” he murmured in her ear, his hot breath and rough stubble sending tiny waves of longing over her skin. “I want to have you beneath me, above me, around me.”
He shifted, the truth of his arousal solid against her butt.
Sinful memories flooded in to hijack her senses. In his pool, slick and hot in the moonlight. On the beach at sunrise, a scratchy blanket against her bare back. And late one night in the kitchen, naked and laughing when they’d realized they’d left the blinds open so anyone walking past could catch an eyeful.
Yet she couldn’t ignore the overwhelming resonance of the final few months.
You can’t do it, not like this.
Her eyes flew open and she jerked forward, breaking the warm contact of his lips on her neck before quickly turning to face him. She saw confusion in his eyes.
Her fingers dug into the wood door frame, holding her up and keeping her steady while everything inside groaned in abject disappointment.
“I’m sorry, Matt. I...I can’t.”
“What?” He frowned as his hand slowly slid from the frame. “I thought—”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated lamely.
No! No, no, no. Her hands tightened on the door, breath caught in sudden hesitancy. He was right there in front of her, her memories a pale comparison to the reality of his warm body, skilled lips and practiced hands.
No. This wasn’t right.
It took all her willpower to steel herself against those seductive eyes and take a firm step past him, into the hall. “I can’t do this. I’m... Goodbye, Matthew.”
Then she turned on her heel and practically sprinted to the elevators.
It was Thursday, surgery roster day. It was always odd walking the halls of Saint Catherine’s as a visitor and not rushing on his way to surgery, post-op or a meeting. Matt had passed reception and greeted the nurses, their unspoken questions creating a tiny frisson of discomfort as they returned his smile and nodded. The corridors held that familiar polarizing smell—people either loathed the mix of antiseptic, antibiotics and clean linen or found it comforting. For him it was about adrenaline, the scent of new scrubs, the weird soapy smell in the washroom. The jitters that always hit him a second after he gowned up. Then the rush of complete and utter calm as he scrubbed, studied his notes and prepared to cut.
He automatically glanced at the door numbers, then turned his focus down the hall. Katrina’s office was at the end and, as always, he had to go past the Blue Room to get there.
He picked up the pace, studiously ignoring the innocuous door with its private sign. He’d always hated that room: a room where bad news got officially delivered, where parents learned their child’s illness was terminal, where brothers, sisters, husbands and wives broke down and cried. The other surgeons called it “the grief room” in private.
A room he associated with so many names—Kyle McClain. Denise Baxter. Eli Hughes. Valerie Bowman. And the rest. He remembered them all.
Head cloudy with memories, he barely heard his name being called until he spotted a middle-aged couple heading down a corridor on his left.
“Dr. Cooper?” the woman said again, and he paused as they approached. “I thought it was you. It’s Megan Ross,” she added with a smile. “This is Jeremy. I don’t know if you remember us—”
“Of course,” he said, shaking Jeremy Ross’s hand. “I operated on your son, Scott.” Matt paused, then asked cautiously, “Is he okay?”
“He’s perfect.” Scott’s father waved away his concern with a reassuring smile. “We’re just visiting a friend.”
He nodded, relieved. “Good. Scott would be what—fourteen now? Oh, okay—” He paused as Megan Ross enveloped him in a huge hug.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, face flushed as she let him go. “But it’s the least we can do for the man who saved Scotty’s life.”
He smiled. “That was my job, Mrs. Ross.”
“Oh, no, you did more than that. You walked us through the procedure, answered all our questions and reassured us we were doing the right thing.” Her voice wavered and she gulped in a breath, giving her husband a shaky smile when he reached out to rub her back. “You gave up your time, sitting with us, talking about silly, inconsequential things and keeping us occupied while we waited for Scotty to come out of post-op. We were here for a month and you were there for us every time. Not many doctors would do that.”
Matt’s heart squeezed for one moment, remembering the little boy with the brain tumor, one of his very last cases at Saint Cat’s. “You are quite welcome.”
“We’ve just come back from Greece, went to all those places you told us about that night,” Jeremy Ross added. “Scotty loved it.” He stuck his hand in his pocket and withdrew a small drawstring bag. “We got you something.”
He put up a hand, alarmed. “Oh, you didn’t have to—”
“Don’t you go refusing it,” Mrs. Ross chided. “Scott picked it out especially for you.”
Could he feel any more awkward? Yet as the parents beamed at him with gratitude, the feeling fragmented. He took the velvet bag Mr. Ross held out and tipped the contents onto his palm.
“It’s Saint Luke,” Mrs. Ross said. “Patron Saint of Physicians. We got it on Naxos. They make them from the crumbling stones of the Gateway to the Gods.”
“It’s beautiful,” he said, turning the cool stone figurine over in his fingers. Intricate carvings detailed the ancient saint’s intricately folded robe and beard. He had a beatific expression on his lined face and he held a thick book in his hand.
A wave of emotion hit the back of Matt’s throat. “Tell Scotty it’s perfect.”
“We will. You know he wants to be a doctor when he grows up?”
He nodded. “He’ll make a good one.”
After