In His Corner. Vina Arno
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WORK OUT
No sex for almost a year could kill a guy, but when you’re the boxer known as the Juggernaut, it’s the price you pay for turning pro. Tommy’s fully dedicated to his craft, until he meets the incredibly gorgeous Dr. Siena Carr. Now he’s looking forward to taking on this prim and proper lady in a wet and wild work-out…
KNOCK OUT
Siena has seen many patients come through the ER, but none as sexy as Tommy Raines. With a nasty cut over his eye, she knows he needs stitches, but after he takes off his shirt, she needs some air. With rock-hard abs and taut biceps, it’s clear this man takes care of his body. And all Siena can think about is letting him take care of hers…
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Books by Vina Arno
In His Corner
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
In His Corner
Vina Arno
LYRICAL PRESS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
Copyright
Lyrical Press books are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2014 by Vina Arno
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First Electronic Edition: April 2015
eISBN-13: 978-1-61650-672-8
eISBN-10: 1-61650-672-5
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
To Corinne DeMaagd, my extraordinary editor. To paraphrase the Juggernaut, I lucked out in the Wheel of Fortune of editors.
Chapter 1
He walked into the Emergency Department as if he owned it. Dr. Siena Carr was struck by his swagger—part gigolo and part caveman. Total alpha male. Even the automatic doors swooned at the sight of him, making a sighing sound as they closed behind.
She stood at the back of the receptionist’s counter, cradling the phone receiver between her ear and her shoulder, the ringing phone on the other end of the line forgotten as he approached.
His appearance screamed tough guy: torn jeans and faded hoodie, tall build—around six feet—broad shoulders, and cropped dark hair, like he had just gotten out of a military boot camp. Although he was clean-shaven, his lips were raw and swollen. And he had a bloody gauze bandage above his left eye.
Stitches. He had a nasty cut that would require stitching. His face was battered, and yet handsome, dangerously so. Like he was up to no good.
“I need a doctor,” he told Nancy, the ED clerk.
His voice was gruff, a tad loud, considering he was the only patient at the counter. At seven in the evening on Tuesday, the ED at the Golden State Medical Center was almost deserted. The peak hour on weekdays was around one in the afternoon. More than a dozen people had arrived at the same time that day, their complaints ranging from food poisoning to flu-like symptoms to kidney stones. Siena had been tied up until five. There was usually a lull in the evening before it got busy again late at night.
Nancy bolted up from her chair. She gave him a clipboard, a pen, and a form to fill out. He murmured a thank you and displayed his alpha-male strut once more as he proceeded to the waiting area.
The man must have come in by mistake. Golden State was a private hospital in the affluent neighborhood of Pacific Heights in San Francisco. Patients who were rushed here included yuppie women delivering premature babies, wealthy middle-aged men suffering from dehydration after running the San Francisco Marathon, and spoiled brats who were injured after crashing their parents’ Jaguars. A CAT scan cost more than nine thousand dollars. It was not the hospital for brawlers or the uninsured, which this guy could very well be, judging by his clothes and facial injuries.
Nancy turned to Siena, mouthing, “Oh, my God!”
Siena put the phone receiver down. Her mentor, Dr. Helen Liu, hadn’t answered her call. She approached the clerk. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, my God! That’s the Juggernaut!”
“The what?”
“The Juggernaut! He’s sooo cute.” Nancy, who was in her late forties, was behaving like a starstruck teenager.
“He looks like Scarface, not a juggernaut.”
“He’s more handsome in person than his pictures in Sports Illustrated.”
“Sports Illustrated? That guy?”
“Oh, Dr. Carr, really.” Nancy curled her lips into a frown. “The Juggernaut was all over the place last summer—Sports Illustrated, ESPN, CNN, all the newspapers. He was the first American boxer to win a gold medal at the Olympics in twelve years. He seriously kicked some butts in London. He’s famous for his brutal knockouts. That’s why he’s called the Juggernaut. He won the Global Amateur Boxing championship when he was just nineteen years old. Can you imagine that?”
No, Siena couldn’t. She was clueless about boxing or any kind of sport.
“After the Olympics, he began training full time because he’s turning pro. He has an upcoming fight in Las Vegas. A huge deal. We’re talking a one-million-dollar purse and full pay-per-view coverage—the whole nine yards. It’s all over the news. Didn’t you know that?”
Siena shook her head. Was she supposed to? As if reading her mind, Nancy continued, “The Juggernaut is our homegrown superstar. Everybody in San Francisco is rooting for him.”
Everybody but Siena. She was an East Coast transplant, who was still learning new things about her adopted city after six years of living there. “I didn’t know you were so interested in boxing.”
“Not so much boxing, but the Juggernaut, himself. Everybody in this town loves him, and I’m just like everybody.”
Siena glanced at her wristwatch and sighed. “Did he have to come here fifty minutes before my shift ends? He could have gone to San Francisco General.”
As an ED attending physician, a ten-hour shift was common. Between her job and her volunteer activities, she’d been working twelve hours every day the past week. She was exhausted.
“I think it’s a blessing in disguise that he came here,” said Nancy. “The Juggernaut is hot, and his Facebook relationship status shows he’s