The Heart Surgeon's Secret Son Read online

  Her lashes lowered, she took a deep breath, and met his gaze with a dreadfully faked bravado. “I hear wonderful things about you, Dr. Travis.”

  No wonder she hadn’t gone into the acting business if this was the best she could do.

  “Funny.” He leaned in, resting his hand on the wall a few inches above her shoulder, resisting the urge to touch her hair. Was it as soft as it looked? As he remembered? Lifting an eyebrow, he stared down at her taut expression. “I’ve heard nothing about your exciting acting career.”

  She flinched at his words. Her cheeks reddened, and she flashed a glance at a couple of lingering students who curiously watched them.

  “No.” She didn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t suppose you have.”

  Her quiet words sent thunderous aftershocks through him. Made him feel like a jerk and, quite probably, he was because he’d meant his words to sting.

  Not that he’d expected them to. Ice coated Kimberly’s heart, protecting her from anything he could throw at her.

  At least, it had.

  This wasn’t the feisty, bubbly girl he’d known. She’d have come back spitting fire at him and leaving him whimpering from wounds.

  What had happened after he’d left Georgia that Christmas break?

  The guy she’d dumped him for hadn’t been a Brookes.

  She straightened from the wall, unintentionally putting their bodies in near contact, and met his gaze head-on.

  What he saw in her soulful eyes almost sent him stumbling backward.

  Hurt and betrayal shone in their green depths.

  Why did she look hurt?

  She’d been the one to throw away their relationship.

  Seeming to realize she’d revealed too much, she pasted a smile onto her terse face and held out her hand.

  “As you know, I’m Kimberly Brookes, with Cardico. It’s good to at last meet the great Dr. Daniel Travis.” She spoke loudly enough for the students to hear her professional, aloof tone.

  Daniel’s gaze dropped to her outstretched hand. She expected him to pretend like he hadn’t known her, in the biblical sense known her, all those years ago? Did she think no one would guess by the way he’d greeted her? By their body language?

  He searched her face, but she’d pulled herself together and he saw only what she wanted him to see—nothing at all.

  Longing to touch her and knowing they were being watched, he clasped her hand.

  Her fingers warmed his skin, felt small within his grasp, yet held power over every nerve ending in his body. He would have lingered, investigated the phenomenon of her skin against his, but she jerked away with the urgency of someone being scalded.

  He felt pretty burnt to a crisp himself.

  Just as in the past, skin-to-skin contact between them ignited flames and left him dancing in a hazy smoke cloud, trying to catch his breath.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Not waiting for an answer, he grabbed her elbow, ignored the smoldering lust, and guided her from the cardiac lab.

  “Wait, Daniel,” she protested, digging her heels in the moment the lab door closed behind them. “What are you doing?”

  Hearing her say his name after so long made his stomach lurch.

  “Giving us some privacy.” Which standing in the middle of a hospital hallway didn’t provide.

  “Privacy?” Fear shone on her face. “We don’t need privacy.”

  “You expect to spend the next week with me without us ever being alone?”

  She blinked wide green eyes and nervously chewed on her lower lip. “I’m sure we can avoid being alone for the most part.”

  “Maybe if you’d come when originally scheduled and you’d have had the benefit of another marketing representative with you.” He wanted her to know he had made the connection to the fact she’d put him off and he guessed her reasons. “But as you opted to come at a later date, it’s just you and me.”

  She winced. “I was delayed.”

  He just bet she had been.

  A tall brunette resident Daniel recognized shot him a smile and a flirty wave. “Hi, Dr. Travis. You were amazing, as always.”

  “Hey, Angel,” he absently responded to the young future cardiologist while he tried to figure out what he wanted to say to Kimberly.

  Kimberly’s eyes rolled. “Some things never change, I see.”

  She made it sound as if he’d cheated on her. Wasn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The skin around her mouth paled. “Just you.”

  “Me? You haven’t seen me for fifteen years, so don’t judge me based on what you think you know.”

  His blast of fury surprised them both and earned several questioning glances.

  Kimberly took a step back and looked around the hallway, nervously letting her gaze settle on the closest exit sign. Did she plan to make a run for it?

  Why would she run from him?

  Then again, he had just jumped down her throat.

  Two nurses watched them with unabashed curiosity. Daniel shot them a glare, and they busied themselves.

  Raking his fingers through his hair, he took a deep breath. “Look, I’d rather not have this discussion in the hallway of the hospital where I work. As it is, we’ve given the gossipmongers fodder for the next month. I don’t need any help in that department.”

  “Fine.” Her expression resigned, Kimberly nodded. “Let’s go somewhere private and get this over with.”

  Wordlessly, Kimberly followed Daniel, keeping her eyes focused anywhere other than on the tall man leading her down the path of forbidden thoughts.

  She didn’t know exactly how she’d expected him to greet her, but she hadn’t anticipated the hunger in his eyes.

  Or how just being in the same room with him would send her body into shock.

  During the procedure, she’d literally leaned against the cold wall to keep from sliding to the floor. Her inability to hide her unprofessional reaction had earned her several snide looks from the medical students. No wonder. They’d probably assumed she’d been fighting nausea or dizziness.

  For that matter, she had fought nausea and dizziness, but not because of witnessing the pacemaker placement.

  If only they’d known the real reason her head had spun, her body had sagged, and her heart had raced.

  What had she been thinking to come here?

  She should have turned in her resignation rather than face Daniel.

  Had she really thought coming face-to-face with Ryan’s father wouldn’t destroy the delicately-knit framework of her life?

  No matter how much she’d told herself otherwise, seeing Daniel changed everything.

  And why had she attacked his character with her snide comment? Even if Daniel had whisked Angel into his arms and passionately kissed the resident, she had no right to complain.

  Yet she’d wanted to complain, loudly and with great gusto.

  “This way,” he said, pointing her to the left, where they went through a set of double doors.

  She followed him into an area designated for hospital staff only, a back hallway that ran behind the specialty clinics, allowing the doctors easy access to the hospital without having to go through their patient waiting areas.

  He punched in a security code on a computerized wall panel that caused an audible click.

  They went through the unlocked double doorway, and he led her to an office marked with his name. Unlocking the door, he pushed it open, allowing her to enter first.

  Unable to prevent her curiosity to do with everything about him, she made note of the steel and black décor.

  A bold, black desk monopolized the room, drawing her attention first. Off to the side were an imposing black leather sofa and two chairs with a magazine-littered chrome-and-glass coffee table between them. She could picture Daniel consulting with a patient there.

  Or stretched out, taking a quick nap on the sofa after wrapping up a late-night emergency.

&n
bsp; A bookshelf lined one wall, full of textbooks, a few knickknacks, including several heart models, and a single photo frame. Without taking a closer look, she recognized the woman embracing Daniel.

  Leona Travis.

  Even across the room she could feel the woman’s eyes boring into her, asking what she was doing, bothering Daniel after all this time. Didn’t she know she still wasn’t good enough for her beloved son?

  Daniel’s mother had nothing to worry about. Kimberly wasn’t there to steal Daniel away from his precious career. Far from it.

  She risked a sideways peek at him. He watched her with an odd expression on his face and she winced at the sheer force of pent-up longing that came with looking at him.

  A multitude of emotions hit her. Guilt, panic, curiosity, need, lust.

  Lust.

  How could she feel lust for a man she hadn’t seen in years? And not just lust like “I’d like to do it with you,” but lust like “I’m going to rip off your clothes and have you, right here, right now.”

  Crazy lust that consumed rational thought.

  Oh, she was in so much trouble.

  She stared into blue eyes identical to her son’s and shook her head, backing a few steps farther into Daniel’s office. “I should leave.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” He stepped toward her, all predatory male with his female quarry in sight, making her feel small and claustrophobic.

  Why did he look at her that way? Like he wanted to kiss her? She’d been prepared for indifference or anger or just about anything other than his sexual interest.

  That she’d never dared let herself consider.

  “Why would you leave?” he asked, his long, lean frame dominating the room and drawing her gaze to how his scrubs outlined his broad chest and narrow hips. “You just got here.”

  “I don’t think I can do this.” She fought to keep a businesslike façade, but knew under the circumstances it was a losing battle. In truth, she trembled on the inside and couldn’t decide if from fear or desire.

  “This?” A dark blond brow arched.

  She put her hand to her temple, realized what a tell-tale motion she’d made and dropped shaking fingers to her side. “Work with you.”

  He shrugged, drawing emphasis to the muscles bunching beneath the short sleeves of his scrub top. “It’s just a week.”

  Just a week? Ha. Look at what a mere hour had done.

  Fifteen years’ worth of telling herself she didn’t need him, that she’d imagined how intensely he affected her, crumbled to leave her defenseless and exposed. How was she supposed to survive an entire week of forced proximity?

  As it was, she’d likely spend the rest of her life trying to purge the image of Daniel, all testosterone-oozing grown man, from her mind. Trying to forget eighteen-year-old Daniel had been bad enough. The sexy specimen in front of her would require a full-blown case of amnesia.

  “I’ll contact Cardico,” she thought out loud. “Tell them something has come up, that I’ve got to go home.”

  “Home being Atlanta?”

  Absently, she nodded, then paused. She shouldn’t tell him anything. What if he followed her? Found out about Ryan?

  She was being silly. What reason would Daniel have to follow her?

  Her blood hammered in her ears, making thinking difficult, but she assured herself she had no worries about Daniel following her. Not once in fifteen years had he shown any sign he regretted stepping out of her life. She may have been the one to end things, but he’d let her go without putting up a fight.

  “Surely working with me for one week isn’t that bad? None of the other Cardico employees have had complaints.” He looked all too relaxed for him to have been the one surprised by their meeting. “You might recall that I’m quite adept at teaching you new things.”

  How dare he bring that up? Probably as he’d intended, memories of Daniel teaching her body how to please and be pleased flooded her mind.

  “Just think of all the things I can teach in a week,” he continued in a low, husky voice.

  “I’m not a silly, easily seduced virgin anymore, Daniel. I’m a grown woman.”

  His eyes raked over her, making her acutely aware of her grown-woman body. “Exactly.”

  She took another step back and bumped into his desk.

  Nowhere left to run.

  She’d prepared for this, and yet he had her on the retreat. Had her brain foggy with need unlike any she’d ever known, not even for him.

  He was calm, cool, and collected. Like seeing her was no big deal.

  Life could be so unfair.

  “The wise thing to do would be to have Cardico replace me with someone else,” she reasoned, trying to keep her head above water but knowing she was drowning in the seductive depths of Daniel’s eyes.

  “The wise thing? Since when have you opted to do the wise thing?” His forehead wrinkled, and he leaned closer, so close she could smell him, all musky man with a spicy aftershave that revved her senses into hyperdrive like it had when he’d leaned toward her in the cardiac lab. He smelled divine. “You’re a total daredevil.”

  Not anymore. Not since…him.

  “Besides, why should you be replaced?” he continued. “Because we were once lovers? That’s a ridiculous reason for Cardico to replace you, and you know it.”

  “I should have known better than to come here.” A person had to know when to retreat. The time was now. Before she gave in to the desire to refresh her memory of how he felt, tasted. She craved a taste of those lips. His lips. Her gaze focused on the amused tilt of his mouth, the tilt that said he knew what she was thinking. “I did know better,” she admitted.

  “Why did you?” He trapped her in the intensity of his stare. “You knew you were coming to me, that we’d see each other, and be forced to spend time together. Time doesn’t change some things, like physical attraction. You had to know what might happen. Yet you chose to come. Is that why you’re here, Kimberly? Did you come alone, without your husband? To see what would happen between us after all this time?”

  Her husband?

  She jerked away, paced across the room, focused on the photo of him and his mother on his desk, because the picture provided a dose of cold reality. “Nothing is going to happen, Daniel. Not between us. Not ever again. This is crazy.”

  “So what’s new?” He didn’t sound heartbroken at her revelation. “I’ve always been crazy when it comes to you. Why should now be any different?”

  “Because any physical attraction between us ran its course a long time ago.” A lie if she’d ever told one—she felt his pull as strongly as if he were a powerful magnet and she a cheap scrap of metal. “We’re working together. You’re supposed to train me on the CRT, not seduce me.”

  “Seduce you? Is that what I’m doing?” His voice held a teasing edge, and she hated it that he could find humor in the whole situation when she felt like a helpless mouse, with him playing the tomcat. Sure, she’d seen shock in his eyes in the cardiac lab when he’d first realized who she was, but then he’d relaxed like she was just another memory.

  She probably was just another memory.

  “I’m going home.”

  He laughed, a hearty sound that made her knees weaken and angered her to strengthen her resolve.

  “Running away, Kimberly?”

  “Yes,” she admitted, before thinking better of it. Turning, she found he’d followed her across the room. Inches separated their bodies and she longed for the safety of being hundreds of miles apart.

  “I’ve never known you to run from anything.” He cupped her chin, lifting her face toward him, staring into her eyes. Confusion darkened his gaze. “You’re scared of me?”

  To death.

  He could take away what she held most dear.

  If she didn’t get her act together right now, he’d see she was hiding something, and he wouldn’t let up until he knew the whole sordid truth.

  “Don’t say things like you know me. You don’t,”
she pointed out, much as he had earlier. Only she kept her voice calm, steady, despite his fingers burning into her flesh. “Why wouldn’t I be afraid of you? You’re making my working life hell.”

  His lips thinned to a tight line. “You’ve changed. The girl I knew never ran. She faced her fears, conquered them.”

  “Of course I’ve changed,” she scoffed, wanting to pull free from his hold but knowing that would only reveal how strongly he affected her. “I was little more than a child when you knew me.” Only a couple years older than Ryan was now. “I’m a grown woman and have grown-up responsibilities.”

  “Like to your job?”

  “Yes, to Cardico and to…” She sealed her lips to stop Ryan’s name from leaving her treacherous mouth. Unable to meet Daniel’s gaze any longer, she twisted to free herself from his hold.

  “Go on. To who? Your husband?”

  “I’m divorced.” She could have bitten her tongue for revealing that tidbit. The less Daniel knew about her personal life the better, and she didn’t want to discuss her brief marriage with him. “I was referring to my mother.”

  If her marital status surprised him, he didn’t let his shock show. “I thought she died last year.”

  “You heard that?” Her mother hadn’t been a prominent citizen or anyone important other than to herself and Ryan. “How?”

  “My mother still lives in Peachtree. She mentioned seeing the announcement in the local paper.”

  Kimberly nodded. How many times when visiting her mother had she been tempted to drive up Daniel’s street? To travel down memory lane?

  But she never had. She wouldn’t risk running into Leona. Daniel’s mother had a clear idea of what was good for her son. And what wasn’t.

  Kimberly and Ryan fell into the second category.

  Besides, she’d have had to face the hurt in her own mother’s eyes if she’d sought out Leona in any way.

  “How is she?” she asked of the woman who’d played such an instrumental role in the direction her life had taken fifteen years ago.

  His mouth twitched. “Getting older and wishing I’d move home.”

  All the blood drained from Kimberly’s body and pooled in the pit of her stomach, causing it to churn with nausea, but she kept her expression bland, feigning little interest.