It Hurts When It's True (Affaire de Coeur, #1)

Chapter 2: One must never flirt with nurses

Damian was certainly not in his best condition and he did not like that at all. In his field, he had to be in his most excellent appearance, if not then at least the second most magnificent would do. And being surrounded by the female nurses did not help improve his mood at all 

After the soft rapping on his door, he was provided with a view of seven nurses, three of them still unfamiliar to him. And there was that lady who seemed to be taller than the rest with eyes so dark that they almost seemed like pools of black ink.

And her eyes met his without hesitation, but not entirely the same as how his female fans usually did. Her gaze was filled with a mishmash of amusement, curiosity, wonder…and surprise. Damian should not even take notice as he was used to that kind of attention. And the woman was not what one would call a beauty at all. Then again, she had that distinctive way of looking at others, looking at him.

“Good afternoon, Mr Williams!” Nurse Meg greeted with all enthusiasm.

Like hell, he thought.

“I’m much better seeing you beautiful ladies in my room.” He said along with a small smile on his face.

“Our shift is about to end so we would like to introduce to you the incoming nurses.” Another nurse whose name he could not remember broke in.

“Here are Nurses Hanna and Rose.” The one he identified as the head nurse spoke in her annoyingly squeaky voice. “And this is Nurse Maggie.”

The sick actor looked her over again in a very indiscreet manner and he somehow thought she had her redeeming features as well. However, her physique was more of in the plump side, especially around the hips and the thighs. They could have been attractive except that they exceeded what he thought as sexy.

“Hello there, my angels.” Damian uttered in the most enticing voice that he could muster.

Watching the three incoming nurses, he realized that the one called Nurse Maggie appeared to have been amused with that slight lifting on the sides of her mouth. On the other hand, her eyes showed the opposite given that there was cynicism in her dark orbs.

“We are hoping for your speedy recovery, Sir.” Nurse Hanna said, a tint of red hinted on her cheek. The other nurse nodded in agreement to what the blonde had said.

Looking at the pair, they seemed to be like an inseparable pair in which one is never seen without the other. Nurse Maggie was a different story, it was difficult for him to tell what was going on in that pretty head of hers. Well, studying her face would make one realize that she was not at all ugly but she was not what the society would call beautiful.

“I’m absolutely hoping for that, too, ladies.” He responded, his eyes never leaving the challenging stare of Nurse Maggie.

“Let’s leave Mr Williams to his peaceful rest so he would soon get better.” Maggie told the other nurses, her hands holding on to the waists of the “peas in a pod” nurses.

The brown-haired Maggie ushered her co-workers out of the room. And just before closing the door of the room did she threw him one last look that was devoid of any emotion.

Damian should not even feel embarrassed about his condition, but he was having a hard time accepting that he was at his most helpless state yet. Regretting ever eating some of the leftovers in his refrigerator the night before, he would not be finding himself weak in bed with burning fever. He even felt a little ashamed having to pass watery stools, it was against his cool image.

Silly me, he reprimanded himself.

The worst part of the ordeal was that his stomach just would not settle. He was already given a certain medication through his line when he was admitted earlier that morning. Another wave of nausea had hit him and he cheered himself so as not to get sick again. A sudden realization had suddenly budded in his mind, he was unbelievably good at holding in his stomach contents.

That would not last all throughout the day, would it?

Seconds after hearing a gentle knocking on his door, he was blessed with a view of the dark-eyed Maggie. She smiled a little at him before proceeding to the side of his bed, checking the bottle of intravenous fluid hanging by his bed.

“How are you feeling. Sir?” she inquired, giving all her attention to the ashen-faced Damian.

“Good.” Came his curt response.

She studied his face as if she could read through what was going on in his mind. Thanking all the celestial beings that she actually could not because all sorts of profanities were running lose in his head that moment.

“Terrible.”

“I can see. I’m sorry to hear that.” She smiled that sympathetic smile again.

Taking in that gentle lifting at the sides of her mouth, he realized that though it was genuine, it also seemed like it was something well-practiced. Truth to be told, she had a beautiful smile, the kind that uplifts a sick person’s mood. But he also realized that it was a guarded sort of facial expression, something he had already gotten used to see in the industry to which he belonged to.

“You have a pretty smile.” He started.

“So I’ve been told.” Maggie replied, adjusting something on the machine that was running his intravenous fluid.

Damian had to chuckle at her response, a very candid and unreserved reply for someone who seemed to have been accustomed to displaying well-rehearsed facial expressions. “Not a touch of modesty there.”

It was her turn to snicker, quite short yet unrestrained. “I can say the same for you.”

“It was an honest one, Nurse Maggie.” Damian stated with a mock seriousness on his pale looking face.

Nurse Maggie smiled at him again and went back to observing what seemed to be the drip chamber of his line. She crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes not leaving the machine’s monitor.

A minute had passed until she tilted her body towards him again. “You are a strong one indeed, Sir. You can joke around even in that condition.”

“Looking at you gorgeous ladies gives me the energy I need to recover from my current…indisposition.”

“Well…” Pausing for a couple of seconds, her face broke out in into another gleeful expression.

“Nurse Rose will be coming over in a bit to give you another dose of paracetamol and antibiotic. May I know of any other symptoms you are experiencing right now?” Maggie asked, reverting to her professional-self just like how she was when she entered the room.

“Still feverish. I am feeling queasy as well.” He stopped, thinking a bit of what else he could say. “Ummm…”

He just did not know how to tell her about his diarrhea, although it had considerably gotten better since the morning. She was a nurse but telling her something as intimate as his bowel movement was just too distressing for him to voice out.

“Have you passed stools in the past hour?” There, she finally mentioned about what he was dreading about.

“Well…I have not for the past hour.” He answered.

The brown-haired was about to turn her back to him when Damian reached out to hold on to her wrist. Her face contorted in a way that displays wonder and an almost inexistent indication of exasperation.

Damian attempted to give his award-winning smile when his stomach started to do imitations of simultaneous backflips and rolling. Before he could even display a full grin, his entire face already twisted into uneasiness.

Ungentlemanly as it might have been, he actually retched his guts out onto the front of the immaculately white uniform of Nurse Maggie.