Page 13 of Her Desire (Pulse Medical #3)
GIANNA
G ianna was in the middle of trying to convince herself that everything was fine when she walked into the pediatric ward. Unfortunately, her mind had other plans. She kept thinking about Holly and what she had said: This shouldn’t have happened. I’m not like you.
The second she’d heard those words, the second she’d seen that shock on Holly’s face, it had felt like the ground had shifted beneath her feet, as if her world was being torn apart.
Holly’s expression had been filled with so much anxiety, so much panic, that Gianna thought it might actually break her. No matter how hard Gianna tried to shake that memory off, she couldn’t. It seemed to stick to her like a second skin.
“Lucy is so excited to show you her newest dinosaur,” said Nurse Clara from behind the nurses’ station. She eyed Gianna with an amused smirk as if she knew a secret. “Dilophosaurus. And guess what she called it?”
Gianna had barely even noticed her there, just like she’d barely even noticed that she had made her way over to the nurses’ station to check on Lucy’s chart. Which, given the gravity of her role as a surgeon, that was really, really bad.
“Um,” Gianna started, trying to focus her brain on the present. “I really don’t know.”
“Gianna,” Clara said, still smiling. “She called her new dinosaur, Doctor Gianna Rossi. You should be flattered.”
On any other day she would’ve laughed, eager to check out Lucy’s new addition to the collection and possibly convince her to give the dinosaur a cooler name, but today her mind was having a hard time remembering what it felt like to be happy.
Gianna flipped Lucy’s chart closed and forced a smile. “Well, I guess that’s an honor, isn’t it? I’ve always wanted to be immortalized as a tiny, carnivorous theropod.”
Clara chuckled, resting an elbow on the counter. “Dilophosaurus were technically scavengers. At least the toy is pretty.”
Gianna smiled and rubbed the back of her neck. “So, how’s Lucy doing this morning?” she asked, because if she didn’t focus on something—anything other than Holly’s face as she ran from the bedroom—she was going to start spiraling right there and then.
Clara glanced at the chart in Gianna’s hand.
“She’s doing well. Vitals are stable and pain is manageable.
Though, fair warning, she’s been very chatty this morning.
You might want to keep her for the end of your rounds.
And be prepared for a dinosaur lecture. This new toy comes with a horde of facts”
“Good,” Gianna said. “I could use the distraction.” She took a breath in, adjusted her stethoscope—bubblegum pink tubing—and headed toward Lucy’s room. When she walked in, Lucy was sitting in bed, her eyes glued to an iPad screen.
Gianna cleared her throat which got the little girl’s attention.
“Doctor Rossi!” she exclaimed, waving a small hand at Gianna. Her voice was bright and chirpy, like sunshine bottled up in a tiny six-year-old body, and her face was decorated with a smile so wide it could’ve cracked her cheeks. “I have something to show you.”
“You do?” Gianna asked, pushing back all those thoughts about Holly into the very far reaches of her mind.
A place she’d only go meander off to again when she walked out of the pediatric ward and into the breakroom.
She had to keep things professional. It was her job after all, and tiny people’s lives depended on Gianna keeping her head screwed on her neck.
“A new dinosaur,” Lucy said, cheerily. She stroked her finger across the plastic head crests of her new toy.
“Did you know a Dilophosaurus has these things on its head and people thought it could spit venom out of it like in the movies? But that’s not true.
” She turned the dinosaur around and around with her fingers.
“And did you know they lived like 190 million years ago?”
“I didn’t,” Gianna said, pressing the cold diaphragm of the stethoscope against Lucy’s chest. The familiar rhythm of Lucy’s heartbeat thrummed in Gianna’s ears—steady and strong.
A relief, considering she’d undergone surgery just a few days ago.
“Deep breaths for me,” Gianna instructed.
To which Lucy obeyed, inhaling exaggeratedly.
“And they only eat meat,” Lucy added when she exhaled. “Which makes them a carnivore. Just like Velociraptor and Giganotosaurus,” she said proudly.
“You’re getting very good at pronouncing all those names,” Gianna said, leaning against the side of Lucy’s bed and folding her arms over her chest. “So, how are you feeling, Luce?”
“Better,” Lucy said, her eyes practically sparkling. “My heart feels super strong. Does that mean I can go home?”
Lucy’s mother, Jenny, sat up straighter in the chair, smoothing her hands down the front of her sweater as if bracing herself.
She looked tired, which was to be expected.
“I was actually going to ask you the same thing, Doctor Rossi.” Her voice was careful, hopeful, but not too hopeful.
Parents who spent plenty of time in hospitals learned quickly not to get ahead of themselves.
Gianna turned to her and smiled. “Lucy’s doing remarkably well. Her recovery is right on track and if everything keeps looking this good, she’ll probably be able to go home in a few days.”
Lucy let out a far too dramatic sigh for such a little human being and flopped back against her pillow, her dinosaur still clutched tightly in her hand. “So not today?”
“Not today,” Gianna said, gently shaking Lucy’s blanket-covered knee. “We just need to keep an eye on you a little longer, make sure everything is healing up perfectly.”
Lucy huffed but quickly recovered and picked up another dinosaur she kept beside the bed—a dinosaur Gianna didn’t recognize but assumed was also a carnivore given its ferocious-looking teeth—and marched it over her stomach.
“Okay, Doctor Rossi,” she finally said, not looking up.
Behavior that was completely normal for a kid who was trying very hard not to be disappointed.
Tiny shoulders squared up like they could hold the weight of bad news without crumbling. It was impressive. And heartbreaking.
“We’ll have you home and playing with your friends soon, Lucy,” Gianna said, backing up a step. “I’ll be back later to check on you again.” She waved goodbye to Lucy’s mother and headed out to finish up the rest of her rounds.
As soon as she stepped out of the pediatric ward, that awful, suffocating weight settled right back into her chest.
Holly .
She’d fucked Holly.
Sex that Holly had instigated, or at least, she’d been the one to kiss Gianna first. That part Gianna remembered clearly.
But Holly wasn’t to blame. No. Gianna could’ve stopped it.
She could’ve at least really stopped and made sure, but instead, she’d been too caught up in the heat of the moment, in the way Holly had looked at her, the way their naked bodies had fit together so perfectly, and the way she had tasted.
Gianna had spent many nights wondering what Holly tasted like, how her body felt under her touch, how her nipples would swell in her mouth, and honestly, the real thing was so much better than any dream.
But that was two days ago.
Two whole days had passed, and Gianna couldn’t get hold of Holly.
She wasn’t answering her texts. Her calls.
She wasn’t showing up at the cafeteria in the morning, or the breakroom like she usually did.
And she’d even switched out of a surgery she was supposed to attend with Gianna yesterday afternoon.
It was becoming painfully obvious that Holly was avoiding her.
Gianna probably should’ve expected it, should’ve known that whatever had happened between them would lead to something so… complicated
And that was fine, Gianna didn’t mind giving Holly some space—even though the silence was killing her—but it was the possibility that whatever had happened meant nothing at all.
Which, if Gianna was honest with herself, was the real fear gnawing at her ribs like some rabid animal.
What if Gianna had just been an experiment for Holly, a one-time curiosity she’d decided wasn’t actually that great and now she wasn’t sure how to be in the same room as Gianna without feeling regretful or ashamed?
Gianna suddenly felt like she couldn’t breathe, like her lungs were somehow going on strike. She needed air. And she needed it now.
Without another thought, Gianna rushed for the open elevator and pushed her thumb against the ground floor button. The doors were just about closed when a hand slid through the gap.
“Hold up!”
Giana looked up to see Bette Bridge, the physical therapist, standing there with a clipboard tucked under her arm and her salt-and-pepper hair looking more salty than peppery.
They didn’t know each other well, in fact, they only ever crossed paths when Bette was working on a referral in the pediatric ward, but Gianna did know one thing for certain and that was that Bette was gay.
And that she and Dr. Emily Sharp, the orthopedic surgeon, had fallen in love and moved in together sometime last year.
A perfectly adorable, perfectly happy ending.
Not that Gianna could even imagine a happy ending for herself anytime soon. On the contrary, after everything with Holly, she was probably doomed to a life of lonely TV dinners and solo baths watching reruns of Friends while she gorged herself on sea-shaped box chocolates.
“Morning,” Gianna mumbled, rubbing a hand over the back of her neck. Her traps were so tight, that they felt like they might snap off like elastic bands that had been stretched too far.
Bette stepped into the elevator and seemed to study her for a moment. “Tight traps?”
“You have no idea.”
The elevator came to a stop, the doors opening up with a soft chime. Bette walked out first. “Come by the rehab center any time. I can help loosen those up for you and give you some exercises that will make you feel like you’ve been reborn.”