The Doctor's Forbidden Temptation
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Tina Beckett
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HarlequinChapter One
THE VIEW WAS SPECTACULAR. At least from where he stood. And not at all what Dr. Adam Cordeiro expected when he opened the door to the exam room.
Instead of eighty-seven-year-old Delfina Benton, who was confined to a wheelchair, the figure in front of him stood on her own two feet. Although all he could see of the person at the moment was a pair of frilly fuchsia panties. And since she was facing away from him and bent over at the waist, trying to force her foot into a pair of black jeans...
Meu Deus do céu.
He glanced at the electronic file in his hand. Room 206. And the placard on the wall beside him read...204. Damn. Wrong room.
Slowly backing away, he was just getting ready to close the door when the figure straightened and then whirled around with a couple of hopped steps until she’d moved far enough to look at him. Her face turned the color of that lacy undergarment. “Adam! What are you trying to do? Give me a heart attack?”
Him? Give her a heart attack? He didn’t think so.
“You are very lucky it wasn’t Sebastian who opened this door.”
“I thought I locked it.”
One leg was still half-buried in the leg of the jeans, while the other impossibly long limb was completely bare. And sexy.
And...hell, no!
Where was the pale, skinny little girl he’d practically grown up with? Not here, that was for sure.
The woman standing before him was all feminine curves and dark-lashed eyes. And...
Off limits.
Completely off limits. His comment about Sebastian wasn’t totally misguided, because if someone happened to come into this room and see them, both he and Natália would have a whole lot of explaining to do. Besides being his best friend, Sebastian Texeira was pretty damn protective of his little sister. With good reason.
“Well, you didn’t lock it.” Realizing the door was still open, he swung it closed, shutting off the view to anyone else who might happen by. It took more strength than he expected, but he somehow managed to pivot to face the door. “You might want to finish what you started.”
Except what she’d started was a small fire in the pit of his stomach that was growing bigger by the second. And higher.
Shuffling sounds behind him told Adam that she was taking him at his word. “Thank you for at least turning around.”
“There is a staff dressing room, you know.”
There was a pause. Then her voice came from behind him. “I was in a hurry. And the floor was practically empty.”
Speaking of empty, he was supposed to be seeing a patient right now. “Anyone could have walked in on you, Nata.”
Why had he never realized that the shortened version of Natália meant “cream” in Portuguese? And hell if it didn’t fit her perfectly right now. A thought that made him brace his hand against the doorjamb.
“Good thing it was you, then.”
If she could read his thoughts, she might not be so blasé about saying that. Because while she might view him as an annoying big brother, kind of like she saw Sebastian, Adam wasn’t feeling very brotherly right now. Instead, his reaction was something quite...different.
He gritted his teeth. “Are you done yet?”
“Almost.”
He tried not to let his brain wander down any more side roads.
This was Natália, Sebastian’s baby sister, damn it! But his mind just would not let go of the picture of Nata standing there in a pair of tiny skivvies and a matching bra that barely held her curves at bay. Well, they were even then, because Adam was barely holding some things at bay himself.
He waited a second or two longer, and then she murmured, “It’s safe.”
It wasn’t. Not by a long shot. But that didn’t stop him from turning around to face her once again. This time she was fully dressed, her close-fitting jeans topped with a dark green tunic that she’d belted around her waist. Her sleeves came down past her elbows, a habit she’d adopted in her teenage years and still preferred, even on the hottest days of summer. Her hair was a dark disarray of curls that bounced past her shoulders, and he knew from memory that they slid all the way down to the slope of her lower back. She’d always kept those dark locks long.
And he’d never thought of that as sexy before. Until now.
He was in trouble.
“Is Sebastian here?”
Natália glanced around, eyes wide in what had to be fake fear. “I don’t know. Did he come sneaking in too?”
“I didn’t come sneaking. And you know what I mean.”
“No. I really don’t.” She slung a purple bag over her shoulder, the silver chain matching the color of the belt links. “But I never knew you were the peeping Tom type.”
“I’m not.” He scowled to cover the fact that he’d done exactly that for the first five seconds after entering the room.
No, you tried to leave as soon as you realized what was happening.
And if Natália had been doing something other than changing? This time it was his face that was growing hot. Not in embarrassment, but in anger. He’d never even seen her hanging out with a man, much less caught her in the act of getting it on with one.
Why would he even care?
Because Sebastian wouldn’t approve.
And you, Adam? Would you approve?
Hell and double no. He and his friend had always tag-team protected Nata.
“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date.”
A date? Adam swallowed. Was that why she had on those sexy undergarments? Because she had always seemed the type to lean more toward utilitarian selections when it came to clothes. Or was he just remembering Nata as a kid and forgetting that she was now a grown woman?
She had a date.
Well, good for her. Adam might not have found happiness at the altar of so-called love and matrimony, but that didn’t mean that someone else couldn’t find a partner who would honor their vows.
Or at least not cheat on him with someone from the same hospital.
Priscilla had remarried almost before the ink had dried on the divorce decree.
Bile washed into his gut. If someone tried to do that to Natália after everything she’d been through, he would put a fist down their throat.
“Adam?”
His gaze jerked to her face to note that her head was tilted and she was staring at him as if he’d grown horns. “Sorry, did you say something?”
“I was asking if you were going to keep blocking that door.” She tugged her left sleeve down just a little bit lower. He’d always hated it when she did that.
Despite her veiled request, he didn’t move right away. And he almost didn’t move at all. He wanted to know where she was going in all that pink lace. “So you have a date, do you? Does Sebastian know?”
“Yep and no. My plans for tonight are none of my brother’s business.” The smile she threw him was one he recognized all too well. Full of mischief and laughter, it said she wasn’t about to tell him what he wanted to know. Instead she arched her brows in a very feminine move that Adam would have never pictured her doing. Before panty-gate, anyway.
Panty-gate? Oh, brother. He rolled his eyes and stepped to the side, gripping the door handle and pulling the door open in one swift move designed to let her out so that he could finish his day and see his last patient. And try not to think about what else he had seen or what Natália was going to do that she didn’t want her brother to know about. In the meantime, he was going to mind his own business and forget—or at least try to forget—that this unfortunate encounter had ever happened.
* * *
Natália Texeira swished down the hallway, trying to look a lot more confident than she felt. In reality, her legs were shaking and her heart was pounding. A date? Well, that was a great line.
Not so great was the look of shock on his face. Did he think she couldn’t get one? Well, he could just go and...
Better not to even think that. Because while he might have been surprised about her so-called date night, his reaction to seeing her undressed had been totally masculine.
And totally hot.
She’d dreamed about him looking at her like that for most of her teenaged and young adult years. But since he was six years older than she was, he’d always thought of her as a little kid. Those days were long gone. They were both adults now. He’d been married and divorced. They’d moved past childhood infatuations.
Not that Adam had ever had a crush on her.
She wanted to look behind her. Was dying to know if he was still staring at her. There’d been something in those deep brown eyes that had made her insides sizzle. Of course she’d kept her scarred arm facing away from him, although she had no idea why. He had to have seen it at some point over the years. More than once, despite all her efforts to keep it hidden.
“Nata? Did you forget something?”
His voice sounded from right behind her. Not only was he looking. He’d followed her. She couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. Heart in her throat, she spun around to face him.
In his hand he held something brown and shiny and... Her barrette.
The tiny zing of anticipation died a hard death. Ugh. What had she thought he was going to say? That she’d forgotten to kiss him goodbye? Not in this lifetime.
“Thanks.” She forced a smile, hoping it was bright and cheery. She gave her sleeve a tug and then held out her hand for her errant hair ornament. In her haste to get away from him, she hadn’t realized she’d left her hair down.
“Why do you keep doing that?”
She blinked. “Doing what?”
“Pulling at your sleeve. Is your arm hurting you?” His brows puckered in... Concern. Oh, God, no. Not again.
Her smile disappeared. “No. This shirt is just snug.”
Liar. Her top was a stretchy, flowy material. The opposite of snug.
“When was the last time you had it checked?”
“Are you kidding me, Adam?” This time it wasn’t anticipation that tingled up her back until it hit the base of her skull but raw anger. “I’m a doctor. I think I would know if my prosthesis was giving me trouble.”
His wince was unmistakable at her bald words. Well, what she’d said was true. Her prosthetic device might not be visible to the world, but it was there just the same. And for him to ask her about it after the encounter they’d just had was almost unbearable. So much for feeling sexy and confident. He’d just transported her back to when she was sixteen and woken up in a hospital bed with seven inches of her left humerus gone, replaced by a shaft of metal. She found herself bending her elbow, a subconscious response to thinking about the osteosarcoma that had almost taken her arm. If she’d never gotten sick, her life would be very different now.
And maybe Adam would have looked at her through different eyes.
But it was what it was.
“I’m sorry.”
The man actually looked penitent, something she couldn’t normally say about the handsome orthopedic surgeon. He’d had a reputation as a playboy back in high school, college and for most of med school. All that had changed when he’d gotten married and then divorced a couple of years later. Women still threw themselves at him, but from all accounts those advances were ignored with a quick smile as he went on his way.
Except the way he’d looked at her in that exam room... If she’d wrapped her arms around his neck would he have rebuffed her?
Um, yes, if this conversation was anything to go by. And she would be mortified to have him set her aside like a child. She wasn’t a child. And she was going to show him that once and for all.
Only she had no idea how. Or why.
Up went her chin. “You and my brother need to get it through your thick skulls that I do not need protecting. I’m a big girl with big girl panties, and I’ve been wearing them for quite some time.”
“So I’ve seen.” The words were muttered in a low pained tone. At first she thought she’d misunderstood him, but since he was now avoiding her eyes like the plague, she was pretty sure she’d heard him correctly.
Well, then. Maybe she hadn’t been wrong about his adult male reaction after all. “That’s what you get for walking in on someone—”
“In an unlocked exam room. What if I’d been the hospital administrator?”
“You weren’t. Karma wouldn’t do that to me.”
At least she hoped not. She tried to be nice to those around her. Except when a certain overprotective brother and his hunky cohort started to meddle in her affairs.
Not that she had any affairs worth meddling in.
“Oh, I think karma has a pretty twisted sense of justice.”
Was he talking about his divorce? She’d heard his ex-wife had not only married another doctor but she’d gotten a hefty settlement during the divorce trial. Due to some ridiculous lie about how he withheld himself from her emotionally after she’d told him she didn’t want children.
Adam was no cold fish. And surely his wife had known how much he wanted a large family. Natália remembered him always talking about wanting lots and lots of kids. Of course, he would tweak her nose as he said it, adding something along the lines of hoping all his little girls were as cute as she was. Only that was never going to happen. Not now. And unlike his ex-wife, it wasn’t because Natália didn’t want children. “Maybe it does, since you happened to be the one who caught me. Someone who is practically family.”
The dig was meant to get a reaction out of him, but she was sorely disappointed. He merely nodded.
She flexed her elbow again, then stopped mid-movement when his eyes followed the gesture. “It’s fine. Just a bad habit.”
Kind of like her crush on Adam had been. A bad habit that she’d had the hardest time breaking. But she had. Finally.
Right?
Absolutely. Maybe karma really did have a twisted sense of justice. She couldn’t give him what he wanted. In more ways than one.
“If you’re sure,” he said.
“I am.”
He glanced at her face, lingering there for what seemed like an eternity before his gaze brushed down her nose...across her lips. She swallowed, then his index finger came up and tapped under her chin. “I like your hair down, by the way. I don’t think I’ve seen it that way in...well, a long time.”
Her mouth popped open, but before her sluggish brain could even think of a response he’d dropped his hand to his side with a lopsided smile. “I’d better go. I have a patient to recheck before I clock out. And you evidently have a hot date.”
That’s right. She was supposed to be going out on a date with someone besides a bowl of yakisoba from a nearby takeout joint. If her food was hot, it counted, right? Why had she ever concocted that lie? Maybe because she’d been so flustered to have been caught there in her underwear by the very man she’d fantasized about for so many years. “Yep. I’d better go and get ready then.”
He started to say something, and then gave his head a brief shake. He took a step or two in the opposite direction and then threw a single line over his shoulder without looking back. “Call me when you get home from your date.”
What? Oh, no!
She would be home in a half-hour. Forty-five minutes, tops. And then she would have to come up with a plausible reason why her “date” hadn’t lasted longer than it had. She could ignore his order. And have him call Sebastian and very possibly the police?
Not if she could help it. A slow smile curved her lips. That was fine. She’d call him. But she’d wait a couple of hours and make him sweat a little.
He rounded the corner, leaving her standing alone in the hallway with nothing more than her thoughts—which were now running wild with all sorts of possibilities.
But one thing she did know. When she finally put that call through, she was going to have a tale to tell that beat all tales. Of being wined and dined long into the night. She could pick up a bottle of wine with her takeout and watch a romantic movie. So it wouldn’t be a total lie. Right?
And he would stay on the other end of that line and listen to the whole darned thing. After that, it was doubtful that Adam Cordeiro would ever try to play big brother to her again.
* * *
She was stranded.
Dammit. She turned the key in the ignition of her small car again, only to hear the same ominous click she’d heard for the last five minutes. She’d tried to call three of her girlfriends, including Maggie, but so far two of them had gone to voicemail. The other was working the graveyard shift and Natália hadn’t had the heart to ask her to leave the nurses’ station right after she’d gotten to work.
She could call Sebastian. And have him give her a lecture about having her car serviced regularly? She tried to remember when the last time had been. But life was so busy with all these hot dates and everything...
She rolled her eyes. Natália had had one serious relationship in her life. And in reality she was too self-conscious about her scar and the questions that would invariably come up. Plus the fact that her chemo treatments meant she could develop lymphoma at some point in her life. And, really, how did one bring up subjects like that with someone you were just getting to know? And yet to not talk about the realities she faced seemed dishonest somehow. To let someone fall in love with her and then suddenly spring it on him: “Hey, I had cancer. And chemo. And a complicated surgery that included having most of my arm bone removed. Oh, and by the way, I’m sterile and might not live to a ripe old age.”
Her lungs went tight all of a sudden at the thought of not ever having a baby. Dammit, Nata, you hold babies every single day.
But it wasn’t the same. She sighed in exasperation.
So, yeah, she never could figure out how to deal with any of that so she just did the next best thing. She didn’t date. Or at least she rarely dated. Her boyfriend hadn’t even lasted long enough for her to think about The Talk. Maybe because she’d been an uptight neurotic mess the whole time they’d dated. Undressing in the dark had been a huge turnoff for him, and she hadn’t wanted him to see her scars so that she didn’t have to go into explanations... And, well, it had just been too exhausting to keep up the act.
It was easier just to deal with eating takeout and sleeping alone.
She was going to have to do what she’d vowed not to do. But at least she had the great story she swore she’d have before she talked to him—she had her bottle of wine right next to her. Ugh! She could just catch one of the many buses that came through the area, but in São Paulo, leaving a car unattended was just asking to have it stolen. Or at least stripped down to almost nothing.
Kind of like she’d been in that exam room.
That got a smile out of her.
He had told her to call him, right? And she had wanted to make it uncomfortable for him, hadn’t she? Well, what could be more uncomfortable than having to come and give her a ride back to her apartment—after calling for a tow truck to have her car transported to her place, at least until she could find a service station that had time to fix it.
Securing the carton of yakisoba behind her purse on the seat so it wouldn’t dump out all over her floorboards, she fished out her cellphone. She didn’t bother wondering if his number had changed since the last time she’d called him, because she was pretty sure it hadn’t. Adam had had the same phone number for the last several years. He didn’t deal well with change.
So his divorce had probably not been the easiest thing for him to deal with. But he’d survived. Just like she’d survived a life-changing illness. His ex had been bad news. In Natália’s book he was much better off without her.
She took one deep breath and then two, her lips moving as she went through the story she was going to give him when he answered the phone. Then she found his number in her list of contacts and hit the dial button. The phone rang. And rang. And rang again before clicking to voicemail. Natália ground her teeth. Okay, so maybe Adam wouldn’t get the satisfaction of rescuing her after all. There was no choice. She had to call Sebastian. Just as she punched in the first two numbers, the cellphone began to ring. She glanced at the screen.
Adam.
Only now she was all frazzled, the planned words swept away.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Adam, it’s me, Natália.”
“I know who it is. Sorry, I was in the shower and didn’t hear the phone right away.”
The image of Adam standing on a bathmat with water streaming down his chest was something that made her brain freeze even further. “I know I said I’d call you when I got home, but I’m...um...kind of stranded.”
“Stranded? What do you mean, stranded?” There was silence for a second or two, then his voice came back. “Meu Deus do céu. I want a name, Nata.”
The low quiet tone held a wealth of menace. How humiliating was this? But she’d called the man. She could hardly pretend she hadn’t said the words. “I’m at the yakisoba place down in Santo Amaro.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. But I’m still waiting for a name.”
She gulped. “Okay. Palácio de Yakisoba.”
“Not the name of the restaurant. The name of your date.”
The name of her...
Deus!
That’s right, where was that story you thought up?
Not in her head, that was for sure. She did not want to admit that she didn’t have a date after all. For some reason she thought he would be far too pleased with that news. And the last thing she needed was for Adam to turn into Sebastian and go all big brother on her. She didn’t need two of them. So she decided to hedge.
“It doesn’t matter. I just need to be jumped.”
Another pause. Longer this time. “Jumped?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand.”
Did she have to spell it out? “My car died at the takeout place. I think it’s the battery.”
A low chuckle came through her phone. “I see. For some reason I thought jumped meant...”
“You thought it meant what?” Natália was thoroughly confused.
“Never mind. So you were the designated driver this evening?”
Well, since she’d designated herself to drive to the restaurant, this question she could answer fairly truthfully. “Yes, yes, I was. It didn’t work out quite like I was hoping.”
“I’m glad he didn’t just leave you without transportation. Not that I approve of him leaving you there with a car that is quebrado. Did he find another way home?”
She gulped. “There is definitely something wrong with that picture, isn’t there?” Mainly because it wasn’t true. Not at all.
“Don’t worry, Nata. I will be there in fifteen minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”
Exactly where was she supposed to go? Her car was stuck here and so was she. “Please don’t say anything to Sebastian about this.”
“Your brother has a right to know.”
“Um, not really. I’m a grown-up, remember?”
“Then you should be grown-up enough to tell him yourself.”
Her brother would freak out if he thought some man had abandoned her at a restaurant. She was going to have to tell Adam the truth, dammit. But it could wait until just before she closed the door of her car and left the parking lot. She didn’t want to have to endure the expression on his face. Or listen to some kind of quippy comment. Yes, that would be the best route. “Don’t worry. I’ll let my brother know you turned into my knight in shining armor.”
A low dark sound tickled her ear. “I’m no knight, Nata. Remember that. I’ll see you soon.”
With that he was gone, and she was left standing next to her useless car with an even more useless sense of longing. Why could Adam never see her as an adult?
Maybe because they’d grown up together. Maybe because she had been someone he’d had to be careful around because of her cancer. Whatever it was, he had never seen her as an equal. Even after coming back to Brazil after furthering his training in orthopedic surgery in the United States. That had been after his marriage had taken a wrong turn.
If anything, Adam was more cynical and guarded now than he’d been as a young adult. Who could blame him? His wife had cheated. None of it could have been easy for him.
Shaking her head, she opened the door to her car and got back in. If she could just get the darned thing started, she wouldn’t have to face him at all. Her momentary thrill at having gotten a reaction out of him in that exam room had changed to flat-out embarrassment. She’d been mistaken about the expression on his face. She had to be. Her conversation a moment ago confirmed that.
She turned the key in the ignition and heard the same sluggish growl the vehicle had given for the last half-hour. Something was definitely wrong with it.
Another car pulled up beside her. It wasn’t Adam, and the young man seated in the passenger seat made her slightly uneasy. Dark hair and hard eyes surveyed what he could see of her, from her hands clenching the steering wheel to the window that was half-open to let in a little cool air. Maybe she should have waited in the restaurant rather than sitting around in the open with her car in obvious trouble. This wasn’t a particularly dangerous part of São Paulo, but there were always people out there who were willing to take advantage of a vulnerable situation. Her parents had been robbed at gunpoint twice while stopping at night at a traffic light. People had learned to just run the lights if it was late at night, rather than risking a problem.
“Precisa ajuda?”
His words were nice enough, asking if she needed help.
“No, I’m good. I have someone coming. They should be here any minute.”
Instead of discouraging the man, his door clicked open and one scrawny leg appeared followed by another as the man stood. “Maybe I should take a look at it.”
“No, I really am okay. I think I’ll just—”
Her words were cut off when another car pulled up between them, the sleek front bumper coming within inches of the intruder’s knees. The man’s head turned so fast that strands of his lank hair fell over his forehead as he shouted, “Oi, cara, quase me atropelou.”
Oh, damn. That was probably the wrong thing to have said to the owner of this particular vehicle, whose occupant emerged, one hand resting on his door, the other on top of his sports car. “You’ll get a lot more than run over, if you take one more step toward her.”
The driver of the original vehicle called to his buddy, who scowled for a second or two before ducking back inside. The two then peeled out of the parking lot, a cloud of burning rubber filling the air.
Adam slammed the door to his car and crossed the few feet until he was standing next to her little clunker. “If I try the handle to your door, I will find it locked, will I not?”
Her fingers itched to punch the button that would do just that, but he would hear it. “No, because I was just trying to start it one more time before going back into the restaurant. And I have a pretty powerful scream, if you remember.”
One side of his mouth lifted, the anger in his eyes dimming. “I do at that. I also remember how you used to like to shriek right in my and Sebastian’s ears.”
“Only when you were being really mean. Like setting my dollhouse on fire.”
His smile widened. “You never liked that dollhouse.”
She shrugged. “It didn’t matter. Besides, if anyone was going to burn it down, it was going to be me.”
Instead, her parents’ fighting had burned down her whole childhood. Sebastian’s too. She had made the decision that she would not marry someone unless they could be friends outside of the passion. The problem was finding the right balance. It was either friend/friend. Or passion/passion. So far the terms seemed to be mutually exclusive. Maybe she was looking for a unicorn—something that didn’t exist.
“You never did, though.” His grin faded just a little. “So, now that the excitement is all over, what seems to be wrong with your car?”
“I think it’s the battery. Sometimes it acts like it wants to turn over, but other times it just clicks.”
“Try it now.”
Natália obliged, turning the key and giving it her best shot. She had no better luck now than just before those thugs showed up. “See? Do you think a jump will work?”
“No. I bet it’s your starter, which means it will have to be towed to the shop.”
She groaned. “I have to work tomorrow, how am I supposed to get there?”
“We do work at the same place.”
No. That was not an option. “I can take public transport.”
“Have you seen the subways at rush hour?”
“Yes. I used to ride them to school. We all did.”
“That should be reason enough for you to want to avoid them.” He motioned for her to give him a minute and then held his phone to his ear. Once he started talking, it was obvious he had a mechanic on the other end of the line.
Perfect. This was all she needed. Her day had gone haywire from almost the moment she got up that morning.
He was off the phone within seconds. “I have a friend who’s sending a truck. He said he should be able to have it fixed by tomorrow afternoon.”
Not soon enough to avoid having to ride into work with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Ridiculous. Why was he taking over and making decisions for her? “What if I had my own mechanic?”
“Do you?”
“Not really.” The misery she felt must have shown on her face because he reached down and opened her door. “Come on, Cinderella. We’ll leave your keys with the owner of the restaurant and I’ll take you home.”
“Public transport.” But the words came out as a sullen mutter, because she already knew it would do no good to suggest it. There was nothing to it but to let Adam take her home.
But if she had her way, it was going to be the shortest trip in history.
