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“What? Being surgeons?”
Emilio snorted. “Gulnar doesn’t look at social status or money or perceived life-role importance.”
Dante believed that. In her eyes, in her arms he was his basic self. She valued him, not what he did or was or had. She was the first one who ever had.
Emilio went on. “Gulnar doesn’t have one shallow or covetous bone in her body. No, she has only one rule about the men she takes to her bed—figuratively speaking in your case. They have to be safe. And I’m not safe.”
“Safe? What are you talking about?” An ugly suspicion detonated in his mind. “Heaven help me, Fernandez, if you’ve ever even thought of hurting her…”
Emilio waved him away in total boredom. “Don’t be ridiculous, Guerriero. I don’t hurt women, not in any way and not even if they drive me crazy and tear my heart to pieces like Gulnar has been doing for the last two years. Oh, OK, so she hasn’t meant to, and it’s my fault that she has, but anyway I’m not safe because I love her. She went after Lorenzo because she believed he couldn’t care about anyone, not in an emotional, monogamous way. That made him safe. But even when he proved her wrong and fell for Sherazad, she still used him to drive her point home to me, to keep me away.”
Gulnar had come between Lorenzo and his wife? Hadn’t cared that Lorenzo was in love, had seduced him, not caring if she would have wrecked his relationship, or broken another woman’s heart?
No. He had to take Emilio’s words with a pound of salt. A thwarted man wasn’t the best source of information. And he had to trust the Gulnar who’d risked her life, who would have died for others. Who couldn’t risk the possibility of his continued involvement and had almost walked away from him, making him lose his mind and every shred of inhibition. No. She wouldn’t have done anything to deliberately and carelessly hurt another.
He scowled at Emilio. “But you just won’t be driven away, will you? You just shadow her like a lost puppy, forcing your presence on her, trying to emotionally blackmail her into surrendering to your obsessive emotions!”
“I don’t follow her around. We work together.”
Dante barked an ugly laugh. “Oh, you have to be here? You can’t ask for reassignment if you wanted? Or haven’t you lost hope yet that she will respond to your persistence?”
Emilio drove his hands deep in his pockets, shook his head in resignation. “Oh, I know she won’t. She’s made it beyond clear. It
’ll probably take me going on an extended promiscuous spree to make her consider me.”
“You don’t have a very good opinion of her, do you? And you say you love her.”
“I love her because, apart from this aberration, she is everything I can love. And because I can only presume to judge her if I lived anything like the life she has. And whatever happens to me, I’ll never suffer a fraction of what she’s suffered.”
“Big of you.”
“It took some doing, believe me.”
Gulnar appeared at the other end of the spacious hospital reception area. Everything inside Dante rioted at the sight. Impatience tightened his head, his voice. He wasn’t losing one second with her for anything. “Fernandez, if we’re done here…”
“We are, Guerriero. Goodbye. Don’t get yourself killed.”
Dante had to laugh. “Don’t you mean, get myself killed?”
Emilio half turned to him again, something like a smile shadowing his lips. “I don’t want you dead, Guerriero. It’s not your fault, what Gulnar is doing, what I’m feeling. And you’re a hell of a surgeon and you do a lot of good. Believe it or not, you’re one of the last people I’d like to see wiped out from this world.”
“This is big of you. Seriously. I don’t think I’d be so charitable in your shoes.”
“Just pray you never are.”
Dante’s heart itched with regret. What a mess. In other circumstances, he would have liked to be Emilio’s buddy. Not in this life, it seemed. He stopped Emilio, extended his hand. Emilio shook it in silence then turned away.
Two nurses stopped Gulnar’s eager advance towards him. They kept looking over at him, interrogating her, no doubt, to judge from the blush radiating from her. He now knew it blazed all the way to her toes, spreading that incredible peach throughout the lush cream as he merged with her, watched her scaling satisfaction, writhing in his arms…Distract yourself. “Fernandez…” He cleared the covetous rasp from his tones, tried again. “You never told me what Gulnar finds so safe about me?”
Emilio half turned, shrugged. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“I’m asking you. After all, you volunteered the information.”
“Listen, Guerriero, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It just—After what happened all through the night I was raw, and I had one of my infrequent spiteful episodes. Just let it go. Tomorrow you’ll be gone and there’s no reason for us to be at odds.”
“We aren’t.”
“We will be if I answer your question. When I walked up to you a few minutes ago, I wanted to hurt you.”
