Millionaire Under The Mistletoe: The Playboy's Mistress / Christmas in the Billionaire's Bed / The Boss's Mistletoe Manoeuvres. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
she croaked hoarsely.
‘I could do with a hand here.’
Darcy almost choked when she realised he was talking about his zip. Eyes wide, she mutely shook her head. The alarmed backward step she took brought her into abrupt contact with a second person in the tiny cubicle, who until that moment she hadn’t even been aware of. No, I was too busy leching over Reece Erskine, she thought shamefully.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled incoherently.
‘No harm done,’ the white-coated figure assured her cheerfully. ‘Just a few cracked ribs, lots of bruising and the dislocated shoulder, of course.’
‘What?’
The doctor looked bemused for a moment by her alarm, then he grinned. ‘I see what you mean…no, I’m talking about your husband, not me.’ Chuckling over their crossed lines, the doctor held an X-ray film up to the light.
There was that husband thing again. Darcy waited expectantly, sure that Reece would take this opportunity to correct the error—he didn’t, and her confusion deepened.
She felt obliged to respond. ‘A few seems a bit vague.’ Even as she spoke, she was overpoweringly aware of the tall, scantily clad figure who had moved up behind her.
‘Point taken.’ With an unoffended grin, the medic clipped the film onto an illuminated screen and pointed out the defects with his pen. ‘One, two and here’s number three.’
‘I thought he might have broken his collar-bone.’
‘I can see how you might, but no. It was a dislocation. Agony to pop back, of course.’ The disgusting, bloodthirsty popping noise he made to illustrate the point made Darcy shudder.
‘It sounds awfully painful,’ she protested.
‘It was,’ Reece volunteered.
‘We offered him an anaesthetic, but your husband insisted we do it right away.’ The doctor hastily defended his actions. ‘A few days and the shoulder should be back to normal,’ he promised. ‘Actually, it’s on account of the head injury we’d like to keep him in overnight, Mrs Erskine, but he doesn’t seem too keen.’
‘I’m not…’
‘She’s not surprised, are you, darling?’
The warm, caressing note froze her to the spot without the added trauma of hearing her addressed again as ‘darling’. ‘She knows how much I hate hospitals.’
She felt a large competent hand push aside the hair from the nape of her neck. Darcy’s hair was plentiful and incredibly silky, but very fine and inclined to go kinky when exposed to moisture—it had definitely been exposed and right now it was a mass of crinkly curls.
Her breath expelled in a soft hiss as she felt the unmistakable touch of cool lips against the sensitive flesh of her exposed nape. Her eyes closed and the strength drained from her body.
The doctor only gave a slightly benevolent smile as he watched them. ‘Of course, if he hadn’t been going home in the care of an experienced nurse I’d have insisted…’
Darcy’s eyes flickered open. He’s married, married to a nurse, was her first thought. Then it clicked— Me, he’s talking about me!
‘Where are you working at the moment, Mrs Erskine?’
‘I…I’m…’ It was bad enough realising she had a whole new identity created by this madman without being expected to act in character too!
‘Darcy is staying at home. Making a home is a full-time job as far as we’re concerned, isn’t it, darling…?’ A firm hand beneath her jaw turned Darcy’s head so that she was exposed to the full intensity of his green eyes. No desperate appeal for her co-operation there—on the contrary; if anything, there was a hint of challenge.
‘You’re a full-time job!’ she breathed incredulously.
The doctor laughed. ‘I’ll send a nurse in to suture up that head wound,’ he explained, scribbling rapidly on the sheet in front of him.
Darcy waited until he’d gone before she exploded.
‘Are you mad?’ she seethed. Why hadn’t she just told the doctor he was lying through his teeth when she’d had the chance?
‘Hush, darling, or they’ll hear you.’
She saw that he was looking well pleased with himself—and why not? Her anger escalated rapidly as he calmly began to shrug on his shirt as if nothing had happened. The man had the gall to stand there looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, when… Her train of thought skittered to an abrupt full stop—it had been a bad mistake to think mouth; she could still feel the tingling area on her neck where his lips had been moments before.
‘Let them!’
He directed a mildly irritated glance in her direction.
‘I don’t know what you’re playing at…’
‘Sure you do; you’re not that stupid.’
Darcy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Let’s pretend for the sake of argument that I am,’ she suggested sweetly.
‘I think I can just about make that giant leap. They were highly reluctant to discharge me without assurances I have someone responsible to take care of me. Whilst I could have just walked out of here, it seemed less stressful all round if I was married.’ The longer he was here, the more likelihood there was of someone recognising him and then it was only a matter of time before the local Press showed up…in his experience these things snowballed pretty fast.
‘And you thought of me. Naturally I’m deeply flattered,’ she spat sarcastically. ‘Why on earth did I have to be a nurse…?’ she wailed.
‘I thought that was a nice touch,’ he agreed complacently. ‘If the doc had been on the ball he’d have realised you’re not old enough to be experienced.’
‘You’re mad…quite mad!’ she announced with conviction.
‘You’re not a nurse, then?’
‘Of course I’m not a nurse!’
‘Just when your father said you were a great little nurse I thought…’
‘I’ve got brothers—I can stick on a plaster. I’m not Florence Nightingale…!’
‘True. Nobody with an ounce of caring in their body could stand there watching me struggle like this.’ He stood there, one arm inserted in his shirt, wondering what to do next.
‘If that was a hint, you’re really pushing it!’ she growled. ‘What if someone asks me to do something…nursey?’ she worried hoarsely.
‘Is that likely?’ he drawled, managing to project the distinct impression he found her complaints slightly hysterical.
It occurred to Darcy that they were drifting away from the real cause of her simmering anger. ‘Don’t try and change the subject,’ she growled.
One slanted dark brow quirked. ‘Which was…?’
‘I’m not your wife!’
‘This is true,’ he conceded with an expression that suggested he was mightily relieved about this. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind—it’s not like I’m actually asking you to marry me or anything drastic.’
‘For your information, I’ve been proposed to several times!’ she felt goaded into unwisely boasting.
‘Congratulations,’ he drawled, looking amused.
Darcy’s cheeks were burning with humiliation as she discovered a major flaw in his manipulations. ‘What were you going to do if I’d driven straight off?’
‘I knew you wouldn’t do that,’ he stated confidently.
‘How