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She doubted that.
Still a little hazy, Mr Duke nodded.
“Be sure to tell your son about the fund-raiser.” Oz sent a knowing look toward Blair. “If he’s lucky, Blair will bid on him.”
Blair gave Oz a cool glare as she continued preparing her patient for transport to the recovery room. No wonder she didn’t like him. He was a total flirt, prone to insincere flattery, a womanizer, and an incessant tease.
“Pay him no attention,” she advised her patient. “I think he’s sniffed anesthesia one time too many.”
Oz laughed, deep and throaty, and Blair was suddenly overtaken by an acute attack of loneliness. Loneliness at just how long it had been since she’d spent any real time with a man, just laughing and enjoying together time.
What was she thinking?
She didn’t need or want someone like Oz making her question her life. He made her uncomfortable, made her heart pound as if she’d run a marathon in record time, made her lungs feel as if they couldn’t get enough air.
All of which just made her like him that much less.
After she had Mr Duke resting in Recovery, she headed back to the cardiac nurses’ station.
The devil leaned against the counter, looking sexy as sin and flirting with two nurses. No surprise there.
Kanesha Biles was happily married, but the nursing director was far from immune to Dr Oz. Her dark eyes glittering with delight, she slapped at Oz’s arm and giggled at whatever he’d said. Becky stared at him in pure, unadulterated adoration, as if she were ready to sell her soul for a night of his attention.
“Oz Manning, you are bad,” Kanesha scolded, shaking her head with an indulgent look on her face.
“You know what they say about bad boys, don’t you?” Oz asked, his attention shifting to Blair.
She picked up a hospital memo, careful not to look into eyes so blue they’d been known to stupefy even the most staid of feminine souls. Eyes so blue they reminded her of another man who’d once hurt her by his careless use of the charms he wielded like a sword slaying a woman’s defenses. Her defenses.
Just like Chris, Oz knew the effect he had on the opposite sex. He thrived on female attention.
“What do they say, Dr Manning?” Becky urged when Oz let his words hang tantalizingly in the air. “Tell us, please.”
Unable to stop herself, Blair glanced toward Oz. He stared straight at her as if he could look into her soul and know every thought, every desire she’d ever had.
“Deep down, bad boys are really, really good.”
His silky voice dripped with sin.
With suggestion.
With pure seduction. As if he was speaking directly to Blair and no one else in the world existed.
With…oh, Lord, Blair’s lungs threatened to burst. Her knees buckled. She grabbed hold of the nurses’ station desk to steady herself.
She didn’t like him. She knew he was a playboy who broke women’s hearts.
No matter how he wielded power over all things female, Oz was too much like Addy’s father for Blair to ever lower the shield protecting her heart.
Still, thank God she wasn’t hooked to one of the monitoring devices.
Protective shield or not, all sorts of alarms would be blaring at the traitorous pounding against her rib cage.
CHAPTER TWO
READY for a break, Oz made his way through the lunch line. Carrying his loaded tray, he grabbed a bottled water, then gave the hospital cafeteria checkout cashier his badge to scan.
“How’s it going today, Gran?” he asked. The blue-haired lady’s real name was Wanda, but Oz had teasingly called her “Gran.” The nickname had stuck.
