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“Wow, nothing slips by you.” she said dazedly, staring down at her bloody hand. It was hard to see around the Braveheart-worthy puddle of blood, but it looked like a major gash was running along her index and middle fingers right below the knuckle.
“You’re going to need stitches,” Gray muttered.
“Just get me a Band-Aid,” she said, humiliation beginning to sink in around the queasiness. “It’s only a little nick.”
But Gray had grasped her wrist and wrapped a towel around her fingers. “Into the car, now. We’re going to the ER.”
“Are you freaking kidding me? Just get me another glass of wine and another towel or something. Maybe some tape.” Her hand began to throb. “Actually, make that wine a whiskey. But I’m not going to the hospital because I cut myself chopping parsley.”
“I can see your bone, Sophie,” he said as he ushered her out of the apartment, down a stairwell, and into the garage. Throbbing finger or no, she wasn’t so out of it that she didn’t notice the careful way he tucked all of her limbs into his black BMW or the way he quickly ran his hand over her hair.
Then again, that could have been the woozy at work.
“Just great. I’m even a failure at cutting herbs,” she muttered, throwing her head back against the headrest and clutching the towel more closely around her fingers. The blood had soaked through the folded dish towel and she was beginning to realize the sheer stupidity of what she’d done. She couldn’t even blame the wine. Sure, she’d had a glass, but most of her intoxication had been from watching the man next to her.
Distraction by lust. It happened to the best of women, right?
Through the haze of pain and humiliation, she realized that Gray drove just like he did everything else. Quickly, quietly, and with no unnecessary movements.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, glancing over at her.
“I’m feeling really great, Gray. For the first time ever I was getting the impression that maybe you didn’t hate me, and then I go and ruin the night by nearly slicing off the fingers of my dominant hand. So yeah, I’m great. Maybe later we can go shoot puppies at close range.”
“I never hated you,” he said quietly.
And then he reached over and briefly set his hand on her knee before he jerked it back to the steering wheel.
Despite the fact that her hand was wrapped in a blood-soaked towel, and that she was about to spend her Friday night in a hospital waiting room, she couldn’t hide a giddy little smile.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Somehow Gray had never imagined that his personal version of hell would include an emergency room waiting area, the frantic parents of his secretary, and her scarily stressed-out sister, who also happened to be an ex-girlfriend. Will Thatcher had shown up as well, although he at least seemed calm.
Resisting the urge to press his fingers against his temples, he turned to Will, the only one of the group not either wringing their hands or scowling at him. “Would you please explain to me how it is that you all ended up here for a very minor finger injury?”
Will shrugged good-naturedly as he dug into his second bag of peanut M&M’s. “Soph’s dad used to run this emergency room. There’s no way you could have snuck beloved Dr. Dalton’s youngest daughter through here without the whole fam finding out. M&M?”
“No. Thanks.”
“Tell us again how this happened?” Sophie’s mom asked, shredding her thumbnail to pieces with her teeth.
“Calm down, Marnie. Dr. Hoyne said it was nothing a few stitches wouldn’t fix,” Sophie’s dad said while rubbing his wife’s back.
Marnie hissed. “Oh, and what does Richard Hoyne know!”
“True, med school teaches those docs nothing these days,” Will said.
“I heard that, William,” Marnie said.
“Dr. Hoyne is a fine ER doctor. I trained him myself,” Chris said soothingly.
“So she’s not going to lose her fingers?”
Oh Jesus. Gray pinched t
he bridge of his nose. Of all women, the one who had to go and slice her finger was an employee. And of all the employees, he had to end up with the one whose dad was a retired doctor and had apparently handpicked the entire emergency room staff.
“I just don’t understand how this happened,” Marnie asked.
