Chapter 6: A Prescription for Danger

POV: Dr. Clara Bennett

I pushed the card deeper into my lab coat pocket, the heavy cardstock feeling like a hot coal against my hip.

“Nobody sends three crates of exotic orchids and artisanal coffee to an ER without a reason, Clara,” Sophie said, her eyes narrowing in dark suspicion. “That is not ‘nobody’ money. That is ‘I buy the building’ money.”

“It’s just an anonymous donor,” I lied smoothly, picking up a patient clipboard to avoid her gaze. “You know how high-profile trauma cases get. Some wealthy patient probably felt grateful.”

“Uh-huh,” Sophie muttered, clearly not buying a single word. “Well, if your anonymous grateful donor turns out to be six-foot-two with stormy gray eyes and a billion dollars, make sure you ask him if he has a brother.”

I shook my head, fighting off a sudden, betraying flush on my cheeks, and headed down the corridor toward Trauma Bay Two.

For the next four hours, I buried myself in work. I stitched a deep laceration on a line cook’s forearm, set a fractured wrist from a slick ice spill on Michigan Avenue, and reviewed three sets of thoracic scans. Work was predictable. Medicine made sense. In a trauma bay, blood flowed, hearts beat, or they stopped. There were no hidden motives, no high-society lies, and no dark-eyed men coming back from the dead to claim things that didn’t belong to them.

At two in the afternoon, the hospital overhead speakers clicked with a low static hiss.

“Dr. Bennett, please report to the Chief of Medicine’s conference room. Dr. Bennett to the administrative floor.”

I sighed and took my stethoscope off my neck. I assumed it was Harrison’s public relations team calling again, anxious to script my response to the press.

I took the elevator up to the fourth floor and pushed open the polished mahogany doors of the administrative suite.

“Ah, Dr. Bennett, come in!” Chief Miller called out, rising from his leather desk chair with a massive, gleaming smile. “Just the person we were looking for.”

My heart stopped cold.

Standing by the floor-to-ceiling glass window overlooking the snow-covered skyline of Chicago was Tristan Sterling.

He had traded his charcoal gala suit for a sharp dark navy overcoat and a charcoal turtleneck that hugged his broad shoulders. He looked utterly commanding, holding a porcelain teacup with lazy, dangerous grace.

“Dr. Bennett,” Tristan said, turning his stormy gray eyes toward me. His baritone voice was smooth, cool, and entirely unbothered. “Good to see you again.”

“Mr. Sterling is here on official business, Clara,” Chief Miller explained eagerly, practically beaming at the sight of the Sterling heir. “He has just authorized a three-million-dollar private grant from the Sterling Foundation to fully endow our trauma wing. Brand-new equipment, expanded bay space, fully funded surgical fellowships.”

I stood rooted to the doorway, my hands clenching into tight fists at my sides. Three million dollars. He was buying his way right into my sanctuary.

“How generous,” I managed to say, keeping my tone as cold and professional as ice. “Though I was under the impression the Sterling Foundation was currently managed by Harrison Sterling.”

A faint, sharp smirk flickered across Tristan’s jawline. He took a slow sip of his tea, setting the saucer down on the glass table with a quiet clink.

“Harrison was merely looking after my assets while I was indisposed,” Tristan murmured, stepping toward me with a slow, deliberate stride. “The board reinstated my primary signatory access at eight o’clock this morning. I am taking a very hands-on approach to where my money goes from now on.”

Chief Miller glanced between the two of us, sensing the thick, lethal tension rising in the room, even if he couldn’t read the history behind it.

“Well,” Chief Miller said quickly, clearing his throat. “I will go retrieve the final endowment paperwork from legal. Dr. Bennett, why don’t you show Mr. Sterling down to the doctor’s lounge? Give him a short overview of our current trauma inventory needs.”

“I am quite busy with patients, Chief…”

“It won’t take more than five minutes, Doctor,” Tristan interrupted, his voice dropping into a velvet command that left no room for debate. “I would hate to think my presence makes you uncomfortable.”

Chief Miller hurried out the door, leaving us alone in the heavy silence of the suite.

The moment the mahogany door clicked shut, I stepped closer to him, my voice dropping into an angry whisper. “What are you doing here, Tristan? You can’t just buy a hospital wing to trap me in a room!”

Tristan slowly walked up to me until he was standing so close I could feel the heat radiating from his chest. He looked down at me, his gray eyes completely stripping away my professional defense.

“I didn’t buy a wing to trap you, Clara,” he said softly, reaching out to gently touch the edge of my white lab coat. “I bought it so Harrison couldn’t cut your funding if you decide to break off your engagement.”

My breath hitched. “Harrison wouldn’t do that.”

“Harrison controls three members of this hospital’s board,” Tristan said, his voice turning dark and lethal. “The moment you walk away from him, he will try to take your career to hurt you. I am making sure he never gets the chance.”

I stared up at him, torn between absolute fury at his arrogance and a terrifying, deep thrill at his fierce protection.

“I didn’t ask you to protect me,” I whispered.

Tristan leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear as he spoke, his voice sending a dangerous shiver straight down my spine.

“You gave me back my breath three years ago, Dr. Bennett,” he murmured. “Protecting you is the only thing keeping me alive.”