“You needn’t call me sir,” he said.
She waited for him to tell her what she should call him then, but he didn’t bother to say. So she took it upon herself. “Thank you, Edmund,” she said.
Edmund was a name he despised, mainly because it was his overbearing father’s name, but it sounded nice on Maude’s lips. “But neither one of us will be going back there today, I’m afraid.”
Maude was disappointed. “Why not?”
“I want you to have a battery of tests to make certain all is well internally. Some will not be quick turnarounds. You will have to stay another night.”
The anguish on Maude’s face was notable. But it couldn’t be helped.
Edmund looked at her with that contemplative look again. “You don’t like it here.”
“I hate it here.”
“That’s why I’m moving you to the presidential suite. You’ll be far more comfortable there. And treated far better, I assure you.”
She looked at him. And for some reason, she believed him. She nodded her head. “Okay.”
He squeezed her small, upper arm. He knew his touches were unnecessary and something he would never do to anordinary patient. But he’d already decided, as far as he was concerned, there was nothing ordinary about Maude. “I’ll be back later,” he said. “I’m due in the O.R.”
“Thanks so much for coming by,” she said heartfelt.
“No ma’am. Don’t thank me. I don’t deserve it. I am entirely responsible for what happened to you.”
Maude looked at him with suspicion in her eyes. What did he mean by that?Did he hire her attacker? Was he that angry that she showed up at his front door that he hired a guy to take her out?
When Edmund saw her sudden anxiousness, he explained. “I sent you away, at night, when I knew you had no ready transportation. Had I not been so . . . so callous, you would not have had occasion to be attacked.” He squeezed her shoulder. “For that I am sorry. It won’t happen again.” And then he removed his hand from her and left.
Maude felt so many different ways that she could not count them all. Relief, joy, worry, alarm. And all at once. But the one thing she knew to be clear was that he was helping her out of guilt. He was loaded down with guilt. Which wasn’t how she would have preferred his help.
But she learned long ago how to put things in perspective. Because she knew that unlike anybody else on the face of this earth, at least Edmund was helping her. Guilt or no guilt.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ten minutes later and her hospital room door squeaked open. An attractive but kind-looking bulky black man peeped inside. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” a confused Maude responded. “Who are you?”
“I’m Donnell McVay. Dr. Keating’s bodyguard. He’s ordered me to be on guard just outside this door, and the same when they move you to the presidential suite, until he returns to pick you up.”
Now Maude was even more confused. “His bodyguard? Why would he need a bodyguard?”
Don smiled. “It’s formality with people of high net worth, ma’am.”
But that didn’t ease her confusion either. “But he’s a doctor? I never heard of a doctor in need of a bodyguard and still working as a doctor.”
Don laughed. “He’s not just a physician, ma’am. He and his family owns twenty-five percent of the world’s oil tankers. He comes from a long line of shipping magnates.”
“Really?” That was really news to Maude. “You mean to tell me he’s old money?”
Don laughed again. “Very old. But just yell out if you need me, and I’ll be right outside this door,” he added. And then he closed the door.
Maude was floored. She knew the man was rich, but dang! A shipping magnate? That sounded like billionaire money. No wonder he was so oddball-ish. And a man like thatwould be willing to take her all the way back to Georgia? He said it was because of Natasha, but he didn’t have to let her ride along with him so that he could help Natasha.
Besides, he didn’t seem all that enthused about going there to help her last night. What changed? His guilt changed, that was what. And that had nothing to do with Natasha.
But in any event, she was eventually going home. Stop thinking about that highly unattainable man, she decided, and start thinking about how she was going to use Natasha’s unfortunate arrest to finish her investigative reporting. That story, she was convinced, would be her ticket back into the world she loved. The only world she knew. Which reminded her. The phone she thought would have been lost in the chaos of the attack, along with her shoulder bag, had been recovered and were both in her room. She pulled the phone out of her bag to review the notes she kept stored there.
