Billionaire Boss MD

So their marriage had been healthy. Until then. Which gave credence to Rodrigo’s claim that they’d been planning a honeymoon. Maybe to celebrate her pregnancy.

So how come her first reaction to his death was bitter relief, and to her pregnancy such searing dismay?

What kind of twisted psyche did she have?

There was only one way to know. Rodrigo. He kept filling in the nothingness that had consumed most of what seemed to have been a maze of a life. But he was doing so reluctantly, cautiously, probably being of the school that thought providing another person’s memories would make reclaiming hers more difficult, or would taint or distort them as they returned.

She didn’t care. Nothing could be more tainted or distorted than her own interpretations. Whatever he told her would provide context, put it all in a better light. Make her someone she could live with. She had to pressure him into telling her what he knew…

Her streaking thoughts shrieked to a halt.

She couldn’t believe she hadn’t wondered. About how he knew what he knew. She’d let his care sweep her up, found his knowledge of her an anchoring comfort she hadn’t thought to question.

She blurted out the questions under pressure. “Just how do you know all this? How do you know me? And Mel?”

The answer detonated in her mind.

It was that look in his eyes. Barely curbed fierceness leashed behind the steel control of the surgeon and the suave refinement of the man. She remembered that look. Really remembered it. Not after she’d kissed him. Long before that. In that life she didn’t remember.

In that life, Rodrigo had despised her.

And it hadn’t been because she’d led him on, then wouldn’t leave Mel. It was worse. Far worse.

He’d been Mel’s best friend.

The implications of this knowledge were horrifying.

However things had been before, or worse, after Mel had been disabled, if she’d exhibited her attraction to Rodrigo, then he had good reason to detest her. The best. “You remembered.”

She raised hesitant eyes at his rasp. “Sort of.”

“Sort of? Now that’s eloquent. More skeletal headlines?”

There was that barely contained fury again. She blinked back distress. “I remember that you were his closest friend, and that’s how you know so much about us, down to the hour we had a procedure to conceive a baby. Sorry I can’t do better.” And she was damned if she’d ask him what the situation between them had been. She dreaded he’d verify her speculations. “I’m sure the rest will come back. In a flood or bit by bit. No need to hang around here waiting for either event. I want to be discharged.”

He looked at her as if she’d sprouted two more sets of eyes. “Get back in bed, now, Cybele. Your lucidity is disintegrating with every moment on your feet, every word out of your mouth.”

“Don’t give me the patronizing medical tone, Dr. Valderrama. I’m a license-holding insider, if you remember.”

“You mean if you remember, don’t you?”

“I remember enough. I can recuperate outside this hospital.”

“You can only under meticulous medical supervision.”

“I can provide that for myself.”

“You mean you don’t ‘remember’ the age-proven adage that doctors make the worst patients?”

“It has nothing to do with remembering it, just not subscribing to it. I can take care of myself.”

“No, you can’t. But I will discharge you. Into my custody. I will take you to my estate to continue your recuperation.”

His declaration took the remaining air from her lungs.

His custody. His estate. She almost swayed under the impact of the images that crowded her mind, of what both would be like, the temptation to jump into his arms and say Yes, please.

She had to say no. Get away from him. And fast. “Listen, I was in a terrible accident, but I got off pretty lightly. I would have died if you and your ultra-efficient medical machine hadn’t intervened, but you did, and you fixed me. I’m fine.”

“You’re so far from fine, you could be in another galaxy.”

It was just wrong. That he’d have a sense of humor, too. That it would surface now. And would pluck at her own humor strings.

She sighed at her untimely, inappropriate reaction. “Don’t exaggerate. All I have wrong with me is a few missing memories.”

“A few? Shall we make a list of what you do remember, those headlines with the vanished articles, and another of the volumes you’ve had erased and might never be able to retrieve, then revisit your definition of ‘a few’?”

“Cute.” And he was. In an unbearably virile and overruling way. “But at the rate I’m retrieving headlines, I’ll soon have enough to fill said volumes.”

“Even if you do, that isn’t your only problem. You had a severe concussion with brain edema and subdural hematoma. I operated on you for ten hours. Half of those were with orthopedic and vascular surgeons as we put your arm back together. Ramón said it was the most intricate open reduction and internal fixation of his career, while Bianca and I had a hell of a time repairing your blood vessels and nerves. Afterward, you were comatose for three days and woke up with a total memory deficit. Right now your neurological status is suspect, your arm is useless, you have bruises and contusions from head to toe and you’re in your first trimester. Your body will need double the time and effort to heal during this most physiologically demanding time. It amazes me you’re talking, and that much, moving at all and not lying in bed disoriented and sobbing for more painkillers.”

“Thanks for the rundown of my condition, but seems I’m more amazing than you think. I’m pretty lucid and I can talk as endlessly as you evidently can. And the pain is nowhere as bad as before.”

“You’re pumped full of painkillers.”

“No, I’m not. I stopped the drip.”

“What?” He strode toward her in steps loaded with rising tension. He inspected her drip, scowled down on her. “When?”

“The moment you walked out after your last inspection.”

“That means you have no more painkillers in your system.”

“I don’t need any. The pain in my arm is tolerable now. I think it was coming out of the anesthesia of unconsciousness that made it intolerable by comparison.”

He shook his head. “I think we also need to examine your definition of ‘pretty lucid.’ You’re not making sense to me. Why feel pain at all, when you can have it dealt with?”