CHAPTER 13: DR. KAVANAUGH
1443 Words
Cillian
The clinic doors opened before anyone knocked.
Eamon Kavanaugh came in carrying the kind of leather case doctors used when they wanted you to remember they were doctors. Charcoal suit. Silver hair. No rain on him even though it had been throwing itself at the windows for an hour.
He looked at me first.
Then the monitor.
Then Valentina.
His eyes stayed there a second too long.
I disliked him for it, which was inconvenient because I already disliked him for several better reasons.
The way his gaze moved over her body made my c**k stir under the thin hospital blanket. He was looking at what I had already claimed with my hands and my voice and my cameras. He was looking at the woman whose cunt I had promised to take, and for one ugly second I wanted to tell him exactly that.
"You ran new blood work?" he asked.
Valentina had the results folded in one hand. "He collapsed."
"I can see that."
"Good. Saves time."
Her voice was steady now. Different from the garage. Different from the car.
Medicine did that to her. Put a floor under her feet.
Eamon set his case on the counter. "Who authorized the tests?"
"Nobody had time to form a committee."
He looked at me. "Cillian."
I was tired enough to hate the sound of my own name.
"She kept me off the floor," I said.
"For which I am grateful." He was not looking at her when he said it. "The results."
Valentina held them closer to her body.
Not dramatic. Just no.
Eamon noticed.
"Miss Romano," he said.
"Valentina is fine."
"The results, please."
"Tell me what you usually give him first."
A pause.
Ronan moved away from the wall. Not much. Enough.
Eamon opened the case. "Two units of packed cells. Antihistamine before the transfusion. Growth-factor injection after. Then rest."
"Which growth factor?"
"It is in his chart."
"Where is the chart?"
"Also not your concern."
Valentina looked at me.
I could tell she wanted to say several things. The fact that she chose one was probably a kindness.
"His hemoglobin is seven point six," she said. "His platelets are low enough that the cut on his leg should still be bleeding. White cells are down too. All three lines. That is my concern if I am the one standing here when he drops."
"The wound worsened an existing condition."
"It didn't cause it."
"I did not say it did."
"You said it like you wanted everyone to stop asking questions."
Eamon took off his coat and handed it to the nurse. She accepted it because people had probably been accepting things from him before he finished reaching for years.
"Start the transfusion," he told her. "And prepare the injection."
The nurse turned toward the cabinet.
Valentina stepped in front of it.
She did not square her shoulders or make a speech. She just stood there with the paper in her hand and tired eyes that had stopped being afraid of the room.
"Not until I know what it is," she said.
"Move."
"No."
There it was.
One word. Not clever. Not pretty. Just no.
That single word from her mouth made my c**k throb. She was standing between another man and my body, refusing him the same way she had refused me in the garage, and the sound of it went straight to my balls.
Eamon looked at me again.
He had done that since I was seventeen. Looked to the nearest O'Malley man whenever a woman became inconvenient.
"She moves when she has the records," I said.
His face changed by almost nothing.
"You are anemic, hypotensive and in pain. This is not the time to let a frightened nurse improvise."
Valentina flinched at frightened.
Only once.
Then she unfolded the lab sheet and pointed at the numbers with one finger.
"These aren't improvised."
"You have known him for less than a day."
"And you have known him how long?"
"Long enough."
"Then where are the last marrow results?"
Eamon did not answer.
"When was the biopsy?" she asked. "What was the cellularity? What did the viral screen show? Any cytogenetics? Toxin panel?"
"You are listing tests."
"Yes. I am asking whether you did them."
The monitor beeped harder because my heart had decided to join the argument.
Ronan looked at the screen.
"Can everyone stop trying to kill him for five minutes?" he asked.
Nobody answered.
Eamon moved closer to Valentina. Not threatening. He was too polished for that. Men like him used proximity because they expected other people to move first.
She did not.
"Your arrival here was upsetting," he said. "I understand that. But this is a patient I have treated for years. Step aside."
Valentina swallowed.
I saw it.
So did he.
"Show me the chart," she said again.
Her voice had gone quieter, not weaker. She was keeping it from shaking and did not want anyone to know.
I knew anyway.
"The injection waits," I said.
Eamon turned to me. "You brought her here to review experimental options. Not to replace my treatment plan after one collapse."
"Then let her review it."
"The records are confidential."
Valentina stared at him. "You had copies of my unpublished work before I knew your name."
Eamon's eyes went to me.
A brief look. Annoyed, not surprised.
She saw that too.
"So you did read it," she said.
"I read many things."
"Did you read the part where repeating a failed treatment is still failure?"
The nurse at the cabinet went very still.
Ronan exhaled through his nose.
Eamon did not react. "Bring the black file."
The nurse left.
"Black file?" Valentina asked.
"The complete chart."
"There is another one?"
"There is a working chart."
"And a real chart."
He looked at her. "You have a habit of making accusations before you have information."
"That is why I keep asking for the information."
The nurse returned with a thin binder.
Eamon opened it on the counter and turned his body just enough to block Valentina's view.
Petty.
She moved to the other side.
He moved the binder.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
It would have been funny somewhere else.
"Last marrow cellularity?" she asked.
"Severely reduced."
"How reduced?"
"Severe."
"That isn't a number."
"It is a diagnosis."
Valentina looked at me. "Does he always do this?"
"Yes."
Eamon closed the file.
I almost smiled.
"His counts improve after treatment," Eamon said.
"For how long?"
"They improve."
"How long?"
Silence.
She rubbed one hand over her face and looked suddenly exhausted again.
"I am not saying you did nothing," she said. "I am saying it isn't working anymore. Maybe it never worked the way you think it did. I need the dates. Doses. Reactions. All of it."
"You need rest."
"He needs a doctor who answers questions."
That landed badly.
Eamon picked up the notes she had left beside the monitor.
Her handwriting. Her calculations. A page with three possibilities circled and crossed out until only one remained.
Valentina reached for it. "Put that down."
He kept reading.
I had known Eamon most of my life. He had stitched my shoulder at nineteen and lied to a detective while blood still dried on the floor. He had seen me angry.
He had not seen me angry about paper.
"Put it down," I said.
He glanced at me.
"These are clinical notes."
"They are hers."
The way she held her body when he touched her notes made me want to drag her into the next room, bend her over the nearest surface, and f**k the last of the fear out of her until the only name she could remember was mine.
Valentina stopped reaching.
The room went quiet enough to hear the transfusion pump in the next bay.
Eamon held the page a moment longer.
"Interesting," he said. "You stole her research, but I may not touch her notes."
"Correct."
He put the paper down.
Valentina gathered everything into a messy stack against her chest. One sheet slid out. She caught it with her elbow and nearly dropped the rest.
Nobody helped.
Good.
She would have hated help right then.
"Begin the blood," I said. "No injection until she reviews it."
Eamon snapped the case shut.
"Declan will have an opinion."
"Declan has many."
"This one may affect more than your treatment."
Ronan's posture changed. "What does that mean?"
Eamon looked at Valentina when he answered.
He wanted her to hear it from him.
"Aoife arrives tomorrow," he said. "We have delayed the marriage date long enough."
Valentina's fingers tightened around the papers.
She did not look at me.
- Writer
