A Million Different Ways to Lose You (Horn Duet 2)

It was almost midnight when I heard the sound of the alarm beeping. Ten minutes later he walked into our bedroom tugging on his tie. I placed the book I was reading on the bedside table and examined the handsome man standing before me. Hair disheveled like he’d run a worried hand through it, shoulders sagging under the enormous burden he carried, jaw tight and lines of fatigue written across his face.

“Come here,” I said. Without a word of objection, he walked over to me. I rose out of bed and made quick work of his clothes, peeling each article away from a body a Greek God would envy. “What’s wrong?”

Without mincing words, he came right out with it. “Your father was most likely innocent, and mine was a crook.” Then he chuckled humorlessly.

“Tell me.”

The sound of his tired sigh said more than I needed to know. “In ten years they nearly doubled the three hundred million. It’s not a huge sum but enough to cover any bad trades they may have made––enough to keep the balance sheets in the black.”

“Not a huge sum?” I mumbled.

“I don’t know why I didn’t see it immediately,” he murmured, his expression forlorn. “My father was a total control freak.” He said this as if this should surprise me, as if he was admitting some big family secret. I swallowed the snort desperate to erupt out of me. “He knew every move we made at the bank before I told him.”

“Lay down.” I knew then how drained he was because he did exactly as he was told. I grabbed the lotion from the drawer in the bedside table and began on his injured knee. “Nobody wants to believe the worst of their parents. Take it from me.”

The arm covering his face muffled a primitive growl loud enough to wake the neighbors. “Jesus…that feels almost as good as you riding my cock,” he mumbled.

My eyebrows nearly reached my hairline. “Charming––Did you eat?”

“Not hungry,” he answered, moaning as my skilled hands worked on his thigh.

“Darling, I know you’re tired, but I need to talk about a job that Dr. Rossetti mentioned before we went to Italy.”

“Hmm.”

“For a physician’s assistant at a free clinic.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m going in tomorrow for the interview.”

“’Kay.” Ten minutes later, I glanced at his face and found him asleep. His sensual lips softly parted, the lines of worry now smooth. The satisfaction I felt knowing I could do that for him was ridiculous. Enveloped by a new sense of ease, I crawled in beside him, covered us up, and fell soundly asleep. At dawn the feeling vanished when I discovered the bed empty.

The clinic was located in a modest neighborhood. I actually checked the address twice before giving it to Bear, who drove me. The building looked freshly painted and the waiting room cheerful. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. Whoever was organizing the fundraising was obviously doing a very good job.

Inside, the sound of patients crowding the waiting room, I’m ashamed to admit, excited me. This was what I was meant to do. With all the drama of the past few months, I’d lost sight of what was really important to me.

At the check-in desk, I stood quietly waiting for the twenty something receptionist to notice me. With her attention completely fixated on the mess piled on top of her desk, it looked like that would be a while.

“I’m here for the physician’s assistant interview.”

“Muller, Muller…where the bloody hell is that file,” she mumbled to herself while she searched under stacks of paper, an index finger with a broken nail tapping anxiously at her bottom lip.

“What are you here for?”

I took her in. The untidy bun, the fraught expression she wore––it was clear she was in way over her head.

“The interview.” Still nothing. She hadn’t looked at me once.

“Agnes!” bellowed a deep, masculine voice from one of the examination rooms. The receptionist––Agnes, I assumed––jerked at the sound. “Where the bloody hell is that file I asked for a decade ago!”

She became frantic in her search, piles of paperwork falling off her desk in the process.

“For the interview,” I repeated. Then I pulled the Muller file she was looking for out from under one of the stacks and handed it to her. Agnes finally glanced up, her brown eyes wide, her mouth at first pursed then curving into a hesitant smile. She took the file out of my hands.

“Shit––I mean, thank you.” Getting up quickly, Agnes flew to the examination room, her bright red, corkscrew curls tumbling free of the haphazard bun.

In her absence, I glanced around the over stuffed waiting room and grabbed a pen and clipboard from the desk. One by one, I went from patient to patient, writing down names and symptoms, what time they had arrived at the clinic. I was so immersed in what I was doing that I lost track of time. Until I heard that deep masculine voice once again––only this time it was right behind me.