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?”
“Some discomfort keeps me sharp, rebooting my system instead of lying in drug-induced comfort, which might mask some deterioration in progress. What about that doesn’t make sense to you?”
He scowled. “I was wondering what kept you up and running.”
“Now you know. And I vividly recall my medical training. I may be amnesic but I’m not reckless. I’ll take every precaution, do things by the post-operative, post-trauma book…”
“I’m keeping you by my side until I’m satisfied that you’re back to your old capable-of-taking-on-the-world self.”
That silenced whatever argument she would have fired back.
She’d had the conviction that he didn’t think much of her.
So he believed she was strong, but despised her because she’d come on stronger to him? Could she have done something so out-of-character? She abhorred infidelity, found no excuse for it. At least the woman who’d awakened from the coma did not.
Then he surprised her more. “I’m not talking about how you were when you were with Mel, but before that.”
She didn’t think to ask how he knew what she’d been like before Mel. She was busy dealing with the suspicion that he was right, that her relationship with Mel had derailed her.
More broad lines resurfaced. How she’d wanted to be nothing like her mother, who’d left a thriving career to serve the whims of Cybele’s stepfather, how she’d thought she’d never marry, would have a child on her own when her career had become unshakable.
Though she didn’t have a time line, she sensed that until months ago, she’d held the same convictions.
So how had she found herself married, at such a crucial time as her senior residency year, and pregnant, too? Had she loved Mel so much that she’d been so blinded? Had she had setbacks in her job in consequence, known things would keep going downhill and that was why she remembered him with all this resentment? Was that why she’d found an excuse to let her feelings for Rodrigo blossom?
Not that there could be an excuse for that.
But strangely, she wasn’t sorry she was pregnant. In fact, that was what ameliorated this mess, the one thing she was looking forward to. That…and, to her mortification, being with Rodrigo.
Which was exactly why she couldn’t accept his carte blanche proposal.
“Thank you for the kind offer, Rodrigo-”
He cut her off. “It’s neither kind nor an offer. It’s imperative and it’s a decision.” Now that was a premium slice of unadulterated autocracy.
She sent up a fervent thank-you for the boost to her seconds-ago-nonexistent resistance. “Imperative or imperious? Decision or dictate?”
“Great language recall and usage. And take your pick.”
“I think it’s clear I already did. And whatever you choose to call your offer, I can’t accept it.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“Fine. If you insist on dissecting my refusal. I won’t.”
“It seems you have forgotten all about me, Cybele. If you remembered even the most basic things, you’d know that when I make a decision, saying no to me is not an option.”