At the pinnacle of her career, orthopedic surgeon Ava King conquers the lucrative medical field of London.
A wild and intimate night with competitive Formula One driver James Ellis ends with Ava being stood up. The rejection leads her straight into...
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Beep
Beep
Beep
I can hear the distant yet familiar beeping, immediately placing me in a hospital setting. The dimly lit room still stings my eyes as I struggle to come to. The eye sting triggers every other sense, followed closely by the dryness in my mouth, the smell of disinfectant and the ringing in my ears from the... holy fucking shit... ear splitting headache.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I squeeze my eyes shut in an attempt to block out the pain but even with my eyes shut I can feel my head spinning, spinning, spinning. Wait, that's my stomach lurching—
Fuck I'm going to —
I turn to throw up, the nurse at my bedside is quick to grab a paper barf bowl and I hurl all the contents of my stomach into the horrible cardboard bowl. I cry out in pain; each gastric spasm shoots a searing pain through body. My head feels like it's cracked open, my ribs feel like they're going to rip out of my chest at any moment, and the contents of my bowel feel like they're going to come spluttering out... from which end I don't know.
That's gross.
"Who the fuck gave me tramal?" I gasp and the nurse holding the barf bowl chuckles. Except his chuckle is low, and almost like a grunt. It's familiar. And he smells nice too. It's a soft, citrusy scent mixed with more tobacco than I'm used to. I look up at the person holding back my hair, as I cling onto his other forearm and a pair of piercing blue eyes slowly come into focus.
"Jamie?" I croak. My throat feels scratchy and burns. Was I intubated?
He looks at me with a fake, forced smile; relieved that I'm awake, but clearly horrified that I look the way I do.
"You alright, love?" His voice shakes, as he wipes the sweat off my brow and tucks a stray strand of hair behind my ear. He cups my face in his hand, rubbing my cheek. Great, my cheek hurts like a motherfucker, too. But I don't flinch. It feels oddly comforting.
My eyes feel puffy as I try to bring his eyes and face into more focus and he duly reaches across for my glasses. But I soon notice the bags under his eyes and as if it was even remotely possible, his pale Scottish skin is paler and whiter than before. There's definitely more of a tobacco whiff to him. Jamie looks like shit. And even though he is opaque, unshaven, hair disheveled, and could do with a shower and a proper meal, he still looks like Christmas morning. How annoying is that?
James chuckles. "Really? Christmas morning, eh?" He smiles, the real one this time, the one that makes his eyes crinkle and my heart flutter.
Fuck did I say that out loud?? How strong are these meds?
"Let me ring for the doctor, clearly the concussion is more severe than we thought." He raises his eyebrows and kisses my forehead. "I'm glad you're awake, Ava."
