It was as if the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle fell into place. Except it didn’t slot in quietly, it slammed in, as if banged by a hammer. Realisation dawned on his face and he looked around again. ‘I did this?’
Samantha appeared at his side. ‘Mitchell, it’s time you and I had a talk.’
This time he erupted. ‘I don’t want to talk! I want to know what the hell happened here!’
But his nurse didn’t jump at his outburst. She didn’t seem at all surprised. She just folded her arms across her chest as if she were some kind of immovable force. ‘From this point onwards you do exactly what I tell you. If I tell you we’re going to talk then...’ she paused ‘...we’re going to talk.’ She pointed over towards the sofa. ‘So get your butt over there, Mr Brody, and sit down!’
The heat in the kitchen was stifling. Samantha yanked off her goose-down jacket and flung it over a chair. If she kept this on much longer she would be roasted like a chicken. Her face must be scarlet by now.
This was definitely a baptism of fire. She looked at the clock—it was almost midnight and Dave had already told her he didn’t stay in the house. ‘Dave, why don’t you go on home to bed? I’ll be fine. I’ll need to talk to you in the morning though, it’s important you understand how to deal with things.’
Dave gave a grateful nod and disappeared out of the door as if he were being chased by a herd of zombies. All of this was definitely new to him.
Mitchell hadn’t moved—probably from the shock of someone talking to him like that. What was she thinking? But she was his nurse. It was her job to take charge. ‘Mitchell, your blood-glucose meter, where is it?’ He was in shock, she could tell. It looked like he’d just experienced his first full-blown hypoglycaemic attack and was totally confused.
After a few seconds he turned to face her.
Wow. He was just inches from her, and Samantha had just experienced the full Brody effect—those dark brown eyes and perfect teeth. It didn’t matter that his face was gaunter than normal and his body leaner. Teenagers all over the world would give their eye-teeth to be in this position. She was trying not to focus on the bare skin on his chest and scattered dark hair beneath the loosely fastened shirt. Trying not to lower her gaze to get another look at his abs.
She was beginning to feel a little hot and bothered again. He hadn’t moved. His brown eyes were fixed on hers. Sucking her in and making her forget what she was supposed to be doing. What on earth was he thinking?
Then he blinked.
He pointed over to a blue plastic box nestled behind the sofa. ‘It’s there.’
The moment was completely lost and Sam mentally kicked herself.
It snapped her back into focus. She was here to do a job. Here to get this man well again. She couldn’t stand around, mooning like some teenager. It was embarrassing.
She walked over, picked up the box and gestured to him to sit down again, but he shook his head and moved over towards the huge dining table instead.
As the minutes progressed he was getting more and more back to normal—whatever Mitchell Brody’s normal might be. The dining table was more formal than lounging on the sofa. She was kind of annoyed she hadn’t thought of it herself. She had to keep this on a professional level.
He slumped down into one of the chairs, his handsome face skewed by a puzzled frown. It wasn’t familiar. She’d never seen a picture of him looking so dejected. It made things crystal clear for her. She had to take rock star Mitchell Brody, and what she knew of him, out of this equation.
This was a twenty-nine-year-old guy who’d just been diagnosed with a life-changing disease—and by the look of his body the diagnosis had taken a long time.
She reached out and touched his hand before she spoke. He flinched a little at her touch. ‘Mitchell, I’m going to help you with this. Everything will be fine. It’s still early days. We’ve got three weeks to try and help you get a handle on your condition.’
He groaned and shook his head. ‘I don’t have time for this right now. I’ve got a tour starting soon. I need to focus all my energy and attention on that.’
She squeezed his hand but he pulled it away again. He clearly didn’t like being touched—she’d have to remember that. It was plain he had a lot on his mind, but she had to bring him back to the immediate future. ‘No, Mitchell. You have to focus on this. If you don’t, there won’t be any tour, because you won’t be able to perform.’
‘I won’t?’ It was almost as if his stronghold tower was wobbling all around him and about to come crashing down. There was real confusion on his face and it was the first time she’d seen him look a bit vulnerable. Maybe Dave was right, maybe she shouldn’t believe what was in the press.
She flipped open the box and pulled out the blood-glucose meter. Although there were numerous kinds on the market, they were all very similar. She handed it to him. ‘Let’s start at the very beginning.’ She gave a little smile. ‘A very good place to start. I take it someone at the hospital showed you how to do this?’
He smiled, and opened his meter. ‘Yeah, Dragon Lady was very bossy.’ His head tilted to the side. ‘Shouldn’t you be doing this for me? Isn’t that why you’re here?’
The words were said more curiously than accusingly but it made her realise it was time to be very clear about what her role was.
‘This is your condition, Mitchell, not mine. You need to learn how to manage it.’ She held out her hands towards the still messy kitchen. ‘We can’t let things like this happen all the time. You need to learn how to control things. No one else can do it for you.’
She bit her lip. She was praying he wasn’t about to have a monster-style, rock-star temper tantrum on her and start ordering her around. It would be so easy to tell him what to eat, check his blood-sugar levels and tell him what insulin to take, but it wasn’t safe. He had to learn how to do all that by himself.
Children as young as five were taught how to manage their diabetes. And for all Mitchell was a millionaire rock star, he was still an adult with a condition that needed to be controlled.
She gave a little smile. She had the strangest feeling that Mitchell Brody wouldn’t take kindly to being told what to do anyway. She was probably going to have to tiptoe around him.
He zipped open the fabric case and pulled out the meter, slotting a testing strip into place. The meter turned on automatically and she watched as he hesitated just for a second before placing the automatic finger-pricking device over the pad of one of his fingers. Seconds later he put a tiny drop of blood on the testing strip and the machine started its ten-second countdown.
Samantha said nothing. She just watched. He’d obviously paid attention when Dragon Lady had shown him how to use this and he seemed to manage it with no problems. One less thing to worry about.
The machine beeped and she looked at the reading. Four point two. She pointed at the screen. ‘Do you know what a normal bl
ood-sugar reading is?’
He nodded and sighed. ‘It’s supposed to be between four and seven, but mine was much higher than that in hospital.’ She wanted to smile. He could obviously remember what he’d been told. Things were beginning to look up.
‘It would have been. You’d just been diagnosed with diabetes. It takes a bit of time to regulate things.’
He leaned back in the chair. She could see the release of pent-up muscles, the fatigue that was common after a hypoglycaemic attack, practically hitting him like a wrecking ball. ‘So what now, genius?’ One eyebrow was raised.
It was too late to do anything but the basics right now and she had to prioritise because it was clear he needed to rest. She stood up and walked over to the kitchen, rummaging around to find some bread and pop it in the toaster that had probably cost more than her car.
‘Right now we’re going to give you something else to eat. Although your blood sugar is in the normal range, you’ve probably been running a bit higher than normal for the last few days. It makes you more prone to hypo attacks. The smoothie will have given you a burst of sugar—the last thing we want is for that to fall rapidly in the middle of the night. I’m making you something a bit more substantial to eat.’ She glanced in the fridge. ‘Cheese or ham on your toast?’
Both eyebrows went up this time. ‘You’re making me something to eat?’
She wagged her finger at him as the toast popped. ‘This is a one-off. My priority is to get you safely through the night. I take it you’ve still to take your long-acting insulin?’
He scrunched up his face. ‘Yeah.’
‘Then you can do it after this. We’ll talk in the morning about how best to handle things going forward.’ She leaned back into the fridge and came back out with cheese in one hand and ham in the other. ‘You didn’t say which you prefer.’
‘Ham, with a little mustard on the side.’ She nodded and quickly made up the sandwich. ‘We need to talk about food choices tomorrow,’ she said, as she sat the plate down in front of him.