Page 3 of Elf-ish

I reach for the cantilever, intending to return it to his nose and mouth region, but Jude lifts his arm, limp and jerkily, before catching my hand.

“Don’t move,” I warn, attempting to remove my hand from his grasp.

He’s surprisingly strong and ignores my request, dragging my hand to his bare chest and flattening my palm over his heart. Then he grouses, “You shouldn’t have. . .”

I shouldn’t have what? Saved his life?

“But I did,” I counter, without pride. This is what I do.

With my hand plastered beneath his larger one, pressed firmly against his chest, the coolness of his skin prickles through my latex glove. My arm strangely tingles from the sensation.

A beat passes before I ask him, “Is there anyone I can call for you? Let them know which hospital we are taking you to?”

Those cold eyes shift away, looking confused, almost lost. He rolls his head once before he states low, “There’s . . . no one.”

The quiet admission pierces my soft heart. This big, powerful, wealthy man has no one to call in the case of an emergency? The thought makes me feel sorry for him.

He closes his eyes while his frigid hand remains over mine, like he’s afraid to let go of me. Despite the inappropriateness, I allow our position—my hand over his heart—assuming this is a rare gesture of gratitude from Jude Ashford.

The well-known millionaire. The society playboy. The retail tycoon.

Who, at the end of the day, is only a man, albeit probably a selfish one.

chapter 2

[Angelica]

The truth about Jude Ashford is that I knew him in a previous life where scholarship kids got free rides to private high schools. I was the scholarship kid. And Jude was that guy. The one too slick for high school hallways; too smooth for classrooms. And the one driving a fancy sports car at sixteen.

He wasn’t just part of the upper crust; he was the decoration on the top layer of icing. Like the bride and groom on a wedding cake, only Jude stood alone, apart from the rest.

Oh, he had friends. Followers more like it.

He was mean and cruel and defined the slur dick.

But there was also something about his aloofness that always seemed lonely to me. Like he wasn’t set apart from the crowd as much as playing a role to disappear within the populars. Like he was an outlier and a leader when he might not have wanted to be either.

His family was picture perfect. Just check out his mom’s Instagram from back then. She had been a major influencer promoting lifestyle perfection with so-called candid images of their family and their magazine-worthy home. Personally, I always thought their smiles looked a little forced. Especially Jude’s, where dullness lingered in his icy eyes.

Our history—his and mine—is the excuse I tell myself to check on the patient I’d brought to the ER yesterday morning. Not that Jude and I have any history, per se. We went to the same high school, and that’s the closest proximity we’ve ever shared.

I shouldn’t be here. I don’t have any business checking up on someone. Get in, do my job, and move on. There were always more casualties and tragedies. Jude Ashford should have been no different than any other emergency call.

Still, I wander through the telemetry unit seeking Jude’s private room. The hospital kept him overnight for observation.

The panic attack I’d misdiagnosed turned out to be stress cardiomyopathy.

Broken heart syndrome.

The condition happens when the heart muscles weaken as a result of rapid and sudden surges of adrenaline, often caused by the onset of a stressful event. However, up to thirty percent of people who experience this condition have no triggers prior to the instant symptoms.

Not surprisingly, this condition happens more often in women.

Why Jude flatlined is beyond me and my medical training level. Checking on him is above my pay grade, yet here I am opening the door to his private hospital room because something in his voice yesterday spoke to me when he told me he had no one.

Invisible string theory perhaps. Or maybe just a thread of holiday good intention.

“Knock, knock,” I cheerfully call out.