LITMIR.BIZ

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your fault, you know,” she’d shouted at him, her eyes redrimmed. “You’re the reason he’s dead. He should have never hung around with you.”

      He’d tried to apologize, but Scott’s mother had just started screaming. Screaming like a woman whose heart had been ripped out of her breast. There wasn’t anything he could say.

      He shut down that day, purging every drop of emotion from himself. Barring its return as he focused on what he needed to do. What he swore at Scott’s grave site to do.

      But every successful operation he performed didn’t bring a feeling of triumph that lived beyond one moment. Most of all, none of the successes tendered, in some small form, a feeling of absolution.

      It truly was as if everything had shut down inside of him the day Scott died. Because Scott had been his only friend in a world that, for him, had been largely dysfunctional due to abusive, self-destructive parents, and when Scott had given in to despair and killed himself, the light simply went out of everything, leaving him standing in perpetual darkness.

      A darkness he had, since that day, resisted leaving, despite the efforts of various people who came and went in his life.

      He made no attachments to anyone. Instead, he coexisted, which was far easier. To become involved, even in the slightest way, was risking far too much and the only risks Ivan was willing to take, the only ones he actually ever took, were in the operating room. There he performed daring surgeries that other neurosurgeons would never even contemplate.

      He did them because neurosurgery was the terrain that the gods traversed whenever they took their constitutionals. And it was the terrain that he, Ivan, habitually crossed with long, confident steps. And no one ever knew about the insecurity that still resided inside.

      Finished, his clean hands raised in the air, ready to have gloves drawn over them, Ivan pushed the swinging door that separated him from the operating room with his shoulder. The little-resident-that-could was already there, Ivan noted. He recognized her eager eyes above the blue surgical mask she, like the others in the chilled room, had donned.

      Maybe she could keep up, after all. And then again, maybe she couldn’t. Either way, that wasn’t any of his concern. There was only one thing he cared about and it was lying, prepped and draped, on his operating table.

      “All right, people,” Ivan announced to the staff that closed in around him. “Time to make a miracle.”

      CHAPTER 8

      “Oh my God, that was incredible,” Bailey cried.

      It was difficult to keep from shouting out the words as she walked from the operating room to the back area where the sinks were. Trying to steady her racing pulse, she took in a deep, measured breath. It didn’t help. Everything inside her had kicked into high gear. It was the closest to high she had ever felt.

      Bailey looked at the man she had been assigned to with genuine awe. “You were incredible.”

      Ivan spared her a glance that could only be described as “disinterested.” The other members of the staff walked by, oblivious to the scene, trying to put distance between themselves and Ivan the Terrible.

      “Yes, I know.”

      The sound of his voice, utterly devoid of any sort of emotion, penetrated the wild rush she was experiencing. Bailey could only stare at the neurosurgeon incredulously. He’d performed nothing short of a miracle. “How can you be so calm?”

      One shoulder moved in a vague shrug. “Low blood sugar.”

      “I’m serious.” She tugged her mask down lower until she could undo the ties at the back of her neck. “Don’t you feel a rush, a surge?” She searched his face for a hint of what she was describing. “Isn’t your heart just pounding?”

      The disinterested glance only deepened. Flattery, even sincere flattery, which he presumed this was, was neither accepted nor rejected. It was allowed to float free through time and space, like an untethered balloon until it faded away. “I performed surgery, DelMonico. I didn’t make love to the man.”

      The words threw her completely off. Bailey looked at the man whose fingers had performed nothing short of magic in the room behind her. Mild surprise gave way to amusement. “I didn’t know you made love.”

      He threw his gloves away and removed the bland surgical cap he’d worn during the six-hour operation. Other surgeons, once they had endured and surmounted all the various trials and obstacles to get there, selected a cap in colors that had some sort of significance to them. Ivan’s was the same color as it had always been. Blue. He didn’t believe in donning peacock finery. He believed in surgery.

      One tug separated the mask’s ties at the back of his neck and he threw the mask into a bin. “There are many things about me, DelMonico, that you don’t know.”

      Interest sparked in those deep blue eyes of hers. “I’m willing to listen.”

      “I’m not willing to talk.” He figured that was enough of a put-down. Instead, her mouth curved even more. Ivan flashed one of his more deflating looks. “Careful, DelMonico, or someone’s going to have to tie a rope around your ankle to keep you earth-bound. Why are you so exhilarated, anyway?” he asked, unable to understand her reaction. “You were just on the sidelines.”

      Sidelines or not, she was right there, where everything was happening. “But I got to see—” she cried, then abruptly switched sentences, so pumped she was unable to finish one thought before leaping to another. “You had half his skull off—His brain was exposed!”

      “They call it ‘brain surgery’ for a reason, DelMonico.” He shook his head, as if not knowing what to make of her, sincerely doubting that she was for real. “Maybe you should review your notes from Neurosurgery 101.”

      It was her turn to shake her head, but unlike him, her smile was wide. “You’re not going to do it.”

      Despite the fact that he wanted to change out of his scrubs, he paused a moment to ask, “Do what?”

      “You’re not going to deflate me.” She was far too excited about what she had witnessed, far too enthused about the work that lay ahead of her, to become just like him. She’d never believed in aiming low.

      Ivan clucked his tongue. “Pity. There goes my fun for the afternoon.”

      Turning away from her, Ivan was surprised when he felt her hand on his forearm. He glanced over his shoulder and waited for an explanation for the detainment.

      Self-consciously, she dropped her hand to her side. “How long?” she asked.

      His patience was pretty well stretched to the limit with her. “How long what?”

      She pressed her lips together. “How long before I can do something like that?” She nodded her head back toward the O.R.

      “Oh, I don’t know.” He paused, pretending to think. And then his expression was dismissive as he raised his eyes to hers. “If you study very hard—maybe a century or two. Maybe longer.”

      A slam like that might have sent her reeling—or spoiling for a fight. But she was beginning to read between the lines and get a handle on him. The insults were a smokescreen. No one was that nasty for no reason. “You don’t want me to like you, do you?”

      His eyes narrowed, telling her how insignificant she was in the scheme of his life. “I really don’t care how you feel about anything, DelMonico.”

      He believed that, she thought. But she didn’t. She’d been taught never to focus on the bad, only the good. And if an animal swiped at you, it was only because he was wounded. The challenge here was to discover what Ivan the Terrible’s wound was.

      She folded her arms before her. “Well, you won’t get me to dislike you.”

      Ordinarily, he would have turned and walked away without bothering to

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