Page 100 of Bellini Bound

I chuckled softly to myself. Of course she was.

But there wasn’t a single part of me that was upset about it—even after all I went through to secure her ultra-specific request for comfort food—because if she was unconscious, at least she wasn’t feeling any pain. And I would count that as a win. Plus, she looked really fucking pretty in her sleep.

Putting the pint of sorbet in the freezer in the kitchenette of the suite, I stripped down and crawled beneath the sheets, dusting a kiss over my wife’s cheek.

Feel better in the morning, baby.

Chapter 25

Allie

Thechargenursethrusta tablet into my hands. “Patient in Bed Six is yours.”

“On it.” I immediately headed in that direction.

Gripping the privacy curtain between beds in the open section of the emergency room, I was already pulling it back when I peeked down at the chart on the screen. “What seems to be the problem, Mr.—“ I frowned, pausing when I saw there was no last name listed.

As far as I was aware, the system wouldn’t allow for an incomplete registration. It would kick back with an error, indicating that a missing field needed to be filled out before the chart could be submitted to our internal network.

Shaking off my confusion over a clerical issue, I brightened my smile, lifting my eyes to the patient—an overweight white male in his early seventies, complaining of abdominal pain. “Sorry, it doesn’t appear whoever did your intake caught your last name.”

His lips twisted into a smarmy smile that made my skin crawl. “Just Dario is fine.”

“Uh, okay then.” It wasn’t worth arguing when he needed medical care, but I’d make sure someone from admin stopped by his bed before discharge to get his full information. “My name is Allie, and I’ll be the nurse taking care of you this afternoon. Why don’t we start with what brings you in today?”

He pressed a palm to his rounded gut. “Been getting these shooting pains, right about here.”

“I see, and—“ My words were cut off when my colleague, Delaney, poked her head inside the curtained space.

“Bellini Book Babes still on for tomorrow night?” she asked, referencing the ridiculous name Summer had given our newly expanded book club.

Widening my eyes, I tilted my head toward the patient on the gurney I was in the middle of treating. “Little busy here, Del, but yes.”

Her cheeks pinkened. “Oops, sorry. I’m just so excited! The book wasamazing!”

“It was,” I agreed. “And we’ll talk about ittomorrownight.”

She took the hint and disappeared from view, so I turned back to the older gentleman, assessing his condition before calling in a doctor. “When’s the last time you had a bowel movement, Mr. Dario?”

“Bellini. That’s a pretty name,” he remarked.

I gave him a tight-lipped smile. “It’s my husband’s. Have you been experiencing any nausea or vomiting?”

He made no effort to conceal his leering gaze. “He’s a lucky man.”

“He’s something,” I muttered. “On a scale from one to ten, how would you rate your pain?”

Uninterested in my questions, he asked one of his own. “Trouble in paradise?”

I blew out a heavy breath. Clearly, this guy wasn’t going to let me treat him without hearing my life story first. Best to get it over with so I could get back to actually doing my job.

“No, it’s just that our relationship didn’t get off to the most conventional start, and we’re opposites in a lot of ways.”

A wheezing laugh sounded. “I’ll say.”

That comment, as if he knew anything about me or Enzo, had me rearing back. “Excuse me?”

Acting like he hadn’t just done a deep dive on my personal life, Dario said, “Hurts more when I press right here.” There was an exaggerated wince as he pushed on his lower abdomen.