The Doctor's Forbidden Temptation

Her friend groaned. “Do not remind me. I am ready to pop.”

With that, the conversation thankfully returned to Maggie’s pregnancy and how far behind her friend was in decorating the nursery and making room for the pile of baby clothes she expected to amass at the baby shower Natália was throwing for her. “You can’t have the baby before the shower.”

“How about as soon as it’s over?”

Natália laughed. “Yes. As soon as it’s over I will personally drive you to the hospital.”

She could only hope that the party and all the preparations leading up to it would help take her mind off of a certain handsome orthopedic surgeon.

Or else she was in big trouble.

CHAPTER THREE (#udb6eaff3-bee5-5639-95e3-1eddc75b6049)

ADAM CAREFULLY WASHED the exposed femur of all visible dirt in preparation for debriding. A motorcycle accident earlier this afternoon had resulted in Katia Machado’s bone being forced through her skin and clothing as she slid along a dirt road. As a result, small bits of gravel and red clay had been ground into the wound. The warm, moist atmosphere of his patient’s body would provide a haven to all kinds of pathogens, including tetanus. He needed to make sure the injury site and everything inside was pristine by the time he closed her leg back up.

Examining his incision to make sure it was large enough, he began the complex process of undoing all the damage Katia had done to her leg. Kind of like he needed to do with Natália?

Fixing that problem wouldn’t be as cut and dried as the surgery he was now doing. What had come over him? He hadn’t drunk that much. Neither had Nata. And yet they’d both acted completely out of character. And he’d behaved almost as irresponsibly as he had when...

He gritted his teeth to stop the flow of recriminations.

“Suction, please.” Beads of perspiration gathered on his upper lip in the air pocket beneath his surgical mask, but he didn’t stop to blot them, not wanting to further the risk of contamination to the wound.

He and Nata were eventually going to have to sit down and talk this through, or that ill-fated kiss would hang over their friendship and ruin it. He didn’t want that to happen. And he had been aware enough to realize that Natália had had a little crush on him when she’d been a teenager. Thank God that stage hadn’t lasted long. Then those brown eyes had fixed themselves on someone her own age and off she’d gone.

There’s only six years between you, Adam.

It might not seem like a big deal now, but when he had been twenty-three and she’d only been seventeen and still in the midst of her battle with osteosarcoma and the resulting surgery to remove a large section of the bone in her arm, it had been impossible.

It was still impossible, and not because of the age difference. There were a whole lot more factors in play now. And it was just not worth it. Nata knew the happy-go-lucky boy who’d hopped from one girl to another back then. She did not know the cynical, jaded man he’d grown in to.

Or maybe she did.

He could only hope. He wouldn’t have been good for her back then. And he certainly wouldn’t be good for her now.

As soon as the suction cleared away the blood and fluid that had gathered in the tissues, he used a gloved finger to explore further back, making sure everything was tight and secure, no sign that her bone had ripped through any other tissue. Using a squirt bottle, he rinsed the area again, the loupes he wore magnifying everything and helping him spot anything foreign as the water carried it out.

Too bad those special glasses couldn’t help him peer into Nata’s head and help him repair what he had messed up. Instead, he was flying blind and every word he’d spoken in her apartment afterwards had seemed to make things worse.

He knew she’d hated the way he and Sebastian had treated her like cracked glass, afraid the slightest knock would cause her to shatter into a thousand pieces. She’d surprised both of them, not only by not breaking but powering through her whole ordeal with a lot more grace than he might have done. And she’d come out the other end a beautiful and mostly confident woman. There was still that scar that she kept hidden. Brazilian women liked their clothes and when it was hot, those clothes were designed to help keep them as cool as possible. And Adam had never fully understood why Natália had wanted so desperately to be a neonatologist when she couldn’t have children of her own. Or maybe it was because of that.

He avoided that floor of the hospital, because it might not hurt Nata to work there, but it caused a kind of pang in his gut when he thought about her cuddling those babies every single day—especially knowing the awful truth about himself.

Dragging his thoughts back to the job at hand, he inspected his work and made sure everything was as absolutely sterile as he could and then motioned to his assistant. “Let’s line up the bone, so I can set the pins.” Danielle moved to the knee, while Adam stayed where he was, handing his instruments to one of the nurses. Tugging the bones in opposite directions, they were able to maneuver them so the broken ends joined back together. Then, with Danielle keeping everything in place, he quickly drilled the pins into the bones.

He knew where he’d gone wrong with Nata. He just didn’t know how to rectify his mistake. Not without insulting her. Or, worse, hurting her feelings.

Hell, what if they’d spent the night together? He’d have to do something a whole lot stronger than hurt her feelings if that was the case.

Yeah, things could definitely be worse than they were. The only thing to do was finish this surgery and find Natália. Then together they could come up with a game plan on how to handle this whole thing. Either that or he’d better turn tail and run for the next big city. And if there was one thing Adam didn’t do, it was run.

* * *

Propping the tiny form up on her shoulder, she stared at the familiar figure standing outside the viewing area. Adam? Here in the neonatal intensive care unit?

She could count on one hand the number of times he’d been down here. Actually, on two fingers. He’d come to visit her floor exactly twice. She’d been up to Orthopedics lots of times. She had friends up there. She guessed Adam didn’t have any friends in her department. Except for her, that was.

Unless they were no longer friends.

Her heart shot down her throat, lodging somewhere in her abdomen. Was he here to tell her that he wanted nothing to do with her?

He motioned at the interior of the room in an unspoken question. Can I come in?

More than anything she wanted to shake her head and tell him there was no trespassing. Not on her turf and not in her heart. But she also wanted to know what he wanted.