Chapter 2 Revised

Her parents tried.

Her mother tried gently.

Her father tried loudly.

Neither approach worked.

Anita withdrew.

Before the accident, she hadn't possessed much of a social life to begin with.

First there had been school.

Then residency.

Then surgery.

While other people spent weekends dating, traveling, or meeting friends, Anita spent hers studying charts, reading medical journals, or accepting another shift.

She never regretted it.

Nothing had compared to walking into a waiting room after surgery and seeing the exact second a terrified family realized their loved one was going to survive.

Those moments were addictive.

Anita had pulled people back from death.

What could a nightclub possibly offer that compared to that?

Unfortunately, once surgery disappeared, Anita discovered just how little she had built outside it.

Some friends called at first.

Coworkers checked in.

Relatives offered advice.

Become a professor.

Teach medical students.

Consult.

Work remotely.

Write.

Research.

Do anything.

But Anita wasn't ready to hear any of it.

Every suggestion sounded like another reminder of what she couldn't do anymore.

So she pushed people away.

Some left quickly.

Others lasted longer.

Eventually, even the stubborn ones stopped calling as often.

Anita couldn't entirely blame them.

There were only so many times a person could knock on a locked door before they finally stopped expecting it to open.

So Anita became a shut-in.

Her bedroom became her entire world.

Her parents brought pieces of the outside world to her.

Her computer supplied the rest.

She scrolled endlessly.

Videos.

Forums.

Articles.

Social media.

Anything that kept her from thinking too hard about hospitals, Wendy, or the life she had planned for herself.

Then one afternoon, something unusual appeared on her feed.

Anita's finger stopped scrolling.

“Hmm...what is this?”

A friend had recommended a novel.

The cover alone made Anita raise an eyebrow.

It was unmistakably an adult romance, darker and considerably more provocative than anything she usually read.

Anita stared at it.

Then she glanced toward her bedroom door.

Then back at the screen.

She wasn't a virgin.

She wasn't completely naïve either.

But there were entire corners of romance and relationships she had never explored, partly because she had spent most of her adult life married to medicine.

Curiosity won.

“One chapter,” she muttered.

One chapter became three.

Three became ten.

Ten became an entire book.

And one book opened the door to another.

For the first time in months, something managed to hold Anita's attention for reasons that had nothing to do with grief.

She discovered fictional worlds built around trust, control, vulnerability, and people willingly handing parts of their lives over to someone else.

The concept fascinated her.

Not because Anita wanted more control.

God knew she had spent most of her life controlling everything.

As a surgeon, control had been mandatory.

People depended on her decisions.

One mistake could cost someone their life.

There were days when dozens of people waited for Anita to tell them what came next.

She had carried that responsibility willingly.

But now?

The idea of not being responsible for everything sounded almost intoxicating.

A sharp knock interrupted her thoughts.

Anita glanced toward the door.

Her father's voice followed immediately.

“Anita, I think it's time you came downstairs.”

She sighed.

Here we go.

“You've been stuck in that room for weeks reading those books,” Don continued through the door. “You need sunlight. Fresh air. Something. Sitting in there isn't going to change what happened.”

Anita grimaced.

Her father's bedside manner could make a drill sergeant look nurturing.

Before she could answer, her mother's voice came from farther down the hallway.

“Leave her alone, Don.”

“Amena, I'm trying to help.”

“You're lecturing.”

“I'm talking.”

“You don't know the difference.”

Anita covered her face.

Perfect.

Now they were arguing again.

Her mother continued, “It's only been three months. She lost her dog, her career changed overnight, and she's still recovering. Give her time.”

“She is almost healed physically.”

“Physically,” Amena emphasized.

Don released a frustrated breath.

“You keep babying her.”

“And you keep rushing her.”

“I am not rushing anybody!”

His volume suggested otherwise.

Anita could practically picture her mother's expression.

Don loved his family.

That had never been the problem.

Expressing that love without making it sound like an order was where things tended to fall apart.

To him, Anita had survived.

That was the important part.

His daughter could walk.

She could recover.

She could build another life.

He couldn't understand why the women he loved seemed determined to mourn everything that had changed instead of celebrating everything that remained.

Unfortunately, his relief often came out sounding like impatience.

Anita's mother understood him.

She simply didn't excuse him.

“She will come downstairs when she's ready,” Amena said.

Silence followed.

Then footsteps moved away from the door.

Anita stared at her laptop.

Her parents had been arguing more since the accident.

And she knew, whether she wanted to admit it or not, that she was part of the reason.

She looked back at the website she had been considering.

DomFound.

She had stumbled across the community after weeks of reading.

For several days, Anita had done nothing but stare at the registration page and close it again.

The idea fascinated her.

Her entire professional life had required her to command operating rooms. Nurses, residents, technicians, and assistants waited for her decisions.

She had always assumed that if she ever explored a power-based relationship, she would naturally take the dominant position.

Except she didn't want to.

That realization surprised her.

When Anita read about those relationships, it wasn't the person giving orders who captured her attention.

It was the person choosing to trust someone enough to relinquish control.

That fascinated her.

Anita had spent years being responsible.

Responsible for grades.

Responsible for patients.

Responsible for medical teams.

Responsible for life-or-death decisions.

The thought of being able to say, for once, I trust you. You decide, possessed an appeal she hadn't expected.

Of course, the novels probably romanticized everything.

Anita wasn't stupid.

Real people were more complicated than fictional characters, and trust wasn't something she intended to hand to a stranger because he knew how to write an attractive profile.

Still...

Maybe exploring something new wouldn't hurt.

Her cursor hovered over the registration button.

Anita took a breath.

Then clicked.

“Okay,” she murmured. “We're apparently doing this.”

Creating the account was easy.

Looking through the people on the site was considerably more overwhelming.

There were far more profiles than Anita expected.

Some she rejected immediately.

Others earned a skeptical squint.

A few made her laugh.

Eventually, Anita narrowed the possibilities to thirty men in her general area.

Then she started reading.

And reading.

And reading.

One profile immediately disappeared from consideration because the man somehow managed to mention himself seventeen times in a paragraph containing six sentences.

“Nope.”

Another described himself as an “alpha among alphas.”

Anita stared at the screen.

“No.”

Click.

Another seemed perfectly reasonable until she reached a paragraph complaining about every woman he had ever dated.

“Absolutely not.”

Click.

The process took nearly an hour.

Anita approached each profile with the same critical focus she once used while reviewing medical histories, except these diagnoses were much easier.

Potentially interesting.

Too arrogant.

No.

Definitely no.

Why would you put that on the internet?

Eventually, thirty became five.

Five men whose profiles seemed interesting enough for Anita to consider speaking with them.