Chapter 3: The Contract

Alice’s POV

"Let go." Firm, calm, professional.

I kept my eyes down, staring at David’s hand, clamped around my wrist.

He didn't budge. If anything, he tightened his hold, his knuckles turning white. Those bottomless eyes were alive with a terrifying, flickering heat, as if he were trying to strip back my skin and read the secrets buried in my soul.

"Dr. Alice, you don't have anything you’d like to explain?" he rasped. His voice was shot to pieces, thick with a desperate, suppressed urgency.

"Mr. Newcombe, I’m a doctor, not your personal trainer. Medically speaking, this is a 'reflexive engorgement.' While it’s certainly sudden for a patient with your level of severe dysfunction, physiologically, it’s a textbook response." I adjusted my glasses.

Inside the gloves, my palms were slick with cold sweat.

The predatory intensity in his gaze was suffocating. It dragged me back to that blackout in San Francisco four years ago — back to that hotel suite and the man who had moved like a wild animal in the dark.

I forced the thought down. It was absurd.

The man back then was raw and brutal, but we were in a world-class private clinic now, and the man in front of me was the head of the Newcombe empire. If he were the ghost I was looking for, why would he have been at a no-tell motel? How could he have vanished without a single digital footprint for four years?

Besides, handsome men are a dime a dozen in California. Camilla’s father was probably just some good-looking drifter, not a West Coast mogul who owned half the skyline.

"Explain?" David finally let go, though he didn't back off. He climbed off the table with a slow, deliberate grace, re-dressing and zipping his custom trousers right in front of me.

He moved like he was putting on a tuxedo for a gala, but the sheer aggression radiating off him made the air in the room feel thin.

"I’ve seen every 'top-tier' doctor in the country. I’ve tried every method known to science. For four years, it’s been a dead zone." He took a step closer, his massive frame drowning me in shadow. His long fingers reached out, flicking the ID badge pinned to my chest just enough to read the name.

"Alice... and yet, you touch me, and the lights come on. You’re telling me that’s just a 'standard response'?"

"Mr. Newcombe, if you'd like to credit my superior medical expertise, f*el free to add a 'specialist consultation f*e' to your bill."

I took a deliberate step back, re-establishing a professional buffer zone, and began typing rapidly into the MacBook on the counter. "Given your reaction, I’m recommending a course of desensitization therapy. Three sessions a week, one hour each."

I needed to keep this ‘whale’ on my hook. He was my best source of steady cash flow. Maybe I could even leverage the Newcombe family's reach to pull private security footage from that night four years ago, or find a ‘backdoor’ to speed up the search in the National Marrow Donor Program.

"Desensitization therapy?" David tasted the words, a low, dark chuckle vibrating in his chest. "Fine. But I want this 1-on-1. No nurses, no assistants. You handle my case, and you handle it alone."

"Done. As long as you settle your invoices on time."

I hit save on his electronic chart and gestured toward the door. "My next appointment is waiting, Mr. Newcombe."

He didn't push it further. He gave me one last look — the kind of look that said this is just the beginning — and walked out.

The moment the door clicked shut, the adrenaline drained out of me. I slumped into my chair, pulling off my glasses to rub the bridge of my nose. My mind was a blur of David’s face and the color of Camilla’s eyes. For a split second back there, the resemblance had been so haunting I almost asked him for a DNA swab. What a silly idea! I was grasping at straws in my search for that elusive one-night stand. I chuckled. No man was safe!

But I knew better. Men like him come with more lawyers than hair follicles. Accusing him of being a ‘ghost dad’ would be a fast track to a defamation suit, and he didn't exactly look like the type to help a random single mom out of the goodness of his heart.

"Dr. Alice!" My nurse burst in, eyes wide with awe. "Mr. Newcombe just... he just pre-paid a million-dollar retainer for his treatment. Oh my God, you’re a miracle worker! That man is notoriously impossible!"

A million dollars.

That would clear Camilla’s outstanding ICU bills and cover the next round of specialty tier drugs that her premium plan refused to touch.

I hadn't even caught my breath when my phone shrieked. It was Cedars-Sinai.

"Alice, get here now! Camilla collapsed — she’s in severe anemic shock!"

My heart stopped. The cold, professional shell I’d maintained in front of David Newcombe shattered instantly. I grabbed my bag, not even bothering to take off my white coat, and sprinted for the parking lot, praying my beat-up used car would actually start.

---

The hospital hallways smelled of stale bleach and bad news.

"Mommy..."

Camilla was a tiny dot on the vast white expanse of the hospital bed. IV lines snaked toward her small arms, her veins tracing blue maps through skin that looked like translucent parchment. She was awake, but her voice was a ghost of itself.

"Mommy’s here, baby. You’re okay." I squeezed her hand, hot tears finally spilling over.

"Mommy, I saw Spider-Man Daddy in my dream." She tried to smile, reaching up to wipe my eyes. "He beat the bad guys and he’s coming to save me. Don't cry, Mommy. I don't hurt."

Every 'it doesn't hurt' felt like a clawed hand tearing at my entrails.

The attending physician pulled me to the end of the hallway, his expression grim.

"Alice, we’re out of time. Camilla’s starting to show resistance to the meds. If we don't get a bone marrow transplant in the next three months, she... she might not make it to spring."