Selena lifted her gaze from the file she’d been reading to the man standing at the door of her office.
He sure knew how to fill a doorway. And he always made her heart do a funny little lurching thing that she hated and denied each time she saw him. His shaggy honey brown hair and gold-green eyes gave him the look of some sort of modern-day pirate but the precisely tailored lightweight navy suit he wore today gave him the look of a corporate raider. Selena knew he was neither of those things.
He was worse.
Brice pushed off the doorjamb and settled into a squeaky old chair across from her battered metal desk. Loosening his silk tie, he said, “Selena, it’s been a couple of weeks now. You don’t call, you don’t write. You’re breaking my heart here.”
Selena slammed the file into a folder and shoved it in the drawer of the old desk. The drawer stuck, so she tried slamming it again, pretending it was Brice Whelan’s head instead. The drawer squeaked in protest while she flushed a mortified pink all the way down to her toes. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her have a hissy fit.
She didn’t have to. He got up and with one deft whack, shut the drawer tight then settled on the edge of her desk to stare down at her, the crisp crease of his pants every bit as edgy as the tension slicing through her stomach.
“You need some stress management, cara.”
“What I need,” Selena said, tired and ready to go home to her quaint Midtown apartment and a nice bath followed by a cup of hot herbal tea, “is for you to leave. Now.”
“You can’t stay mad at me forever,” he said, not moving. “It’s me, Brice, remember? I’m just too lovable for you to stay angry. And I’m not leaving until you smile at least. You’ve such a pretty smile, cara.”
Selena’s breath grabbed onto her rib cage, searching for release. He was too close. Which meant she was trapped since he was between the door and her. And that was the way Brice always made her feel—trapped in the intensity of his eyes, in the hold of his innate code of honor. Brice was too forceful, too unwavering for her. Just to prove he couldn’t get to her, she gave him a brutal frown. “Go away.”
He held his hands out, palms up, his big signet ring that bore the Whelan family fleur-de-lis crest dazzling her with flashes of gold. “I had to do it. You know that. Your father—”
“My father is still trying to control me, only this time he went too far. I called you down to Día Belo to help me solve the problem, not bring me home. His command for you to do that was the last straw.”
“He cares about you.”
“Yes, I know that. But he also hovers over me much in the same way you’re doing right now. And I’d really like you to just leave so I can go home. I’ve had a horrible day and I just want some peace and quiet and maybe a sappy movie on the cable channel.”
“How about coming to my house for dinner with me instead?”
Selena let that idea slide over her like warm rain dripping off a rhododendron leaf and for just a second, considered it with a full intensity—candlelight, soft classical music, the comfort of Brice’s loyal considerate staff at her beck and call. But then she snapped out of that daydream. “What part of ‘peace and quiet’ did you miss, Brice? I don’t want to have dinner with you.”
He put a hand to his heart. “‘Fate slew him, but he did not drop.’”
Emily Dickinson—her favorite. “And don’t start reciting poetry to me. That won’t work either.”
She’d play dead before she’d admit that she loved it when Brice quoted poetry to her—it was just the Irish accent, nothing more, that made those moments so special. But then, there were a lot of things about her old college friend that Selena didn’t want to acknowledge. Especially now, after he’d betrayed her trust by forcing her to leave the village in northern Argentina where she’d worked for more than two years.
He stood, looking exasperated, staring down at her with those lion-like eyes imploring her, his silence shouting more than his poetry ever could. “You have to forgive me sometime, you know.”
Selena put her head in her hands. “If you’ll just let me go home, I’ll consider it.”
He huffed a sigh at that. “How are things, now that you’re back here at the clinic?”
She let out a dry chuckle, not daring to answer that with the whole truth. “Do you actually care?”
He bent his head, his eyes slanting up toward her. “Of course I do, darlin’.”
She lifted a hand in the air. “Well, then I’ll tell you. Mrs. Parker has diabetes but she can’t afford her medication and the closest hospital won’t honor her insurance but we can’t get her on Medicaid—too much red tape to explain. And I had to call in reinforcements this morning because there’s a nasty spring virus going around this neighborhood and…a woman died right here in one of the exam rooms from a heart attack before we could get a transport to the hospital. She was taking the heart medication Dr. Jarrell prescribed—so we don’t know yet what happened with that. The first responders don’t have us on their priority list.”
Before she could let out a sigh, he had her up and in his arms. “That does it then. You need nourishment. You’re coming home with me.”
Selena had to work hard to hide her breathlessness. “I am not.”
“Yes, you are, too.”
She retracted herself, the warmth, the nearness of him, too much for her to handle on this rainy Friday afternoon. “No, Brice. You can’t fix things this time. We’re not in college anymore. And this isn’t a broken window or a flat tire or you rescuing me from my ex-boyfriend. You forced me to leave a place that I love, to leave the people that I love, and come back home to…to even more despair and sickness.” Whirling to grab her battered leather tote bag, she shook her head then hurried to the door. “You can’t fix this. So just go away.”
Brice never listened to reason. It was his shortcoming, his downfall. He was too stubborn for his own good, really. Or, as his dear deceased grandmum used to say—bómánta—stupid. If he were a smart man, he’d do as Selena had asked. He’d just leave.
But he wasn’t that smart. Not when it came to this particular woman. He’d known her since they were both young students, since the day he’d started college in a new city in a new country and was terrified down to his knickers, so to speak. And when it came to Selena Carter, or rather when it came to keeping Selena out of trouble, he was still terrified.
For her.
So instead of going away as she had requested, he marched after her and took her by the arm again. “I might not be able to fix this situation so you can go back to Argentina, but I can fix you a decent meal. Or at least, someone at my house can. So don’t argue with me on this. Selena?”
She whirled, the scent of jasmine and sweet pea floating around her, her expression sharp-edged and full of resentment. “You, of all people, should understand how I feel. I didn’t want to come back here. I wanted to stay in Día Belo because I made a commitment to those villagers and because I cared about them.”
Brice lowered his head, his whisper just for her. “And you, of all people, should know that I could not leave you down there in danger. It’s a matter of honor.”
Hitching her tote onto her shoulder, she grabbed a pile of files off a hallway table and headed for the double front doors of the inner-city clinic known as Haven Center. “Yes, right. CHAIM honor. I know all about that. Remember, I’ve lived it and breathed it since birth. My father’s honor, your honor—”
“The Lord’s honor,” Brice said, fighting to keep from grabbing her arm again. “C’mere.” Reaching for the files, he shifted them to his other arm as he guided