Page 17 of Her Desire (Pulse Medical #3)

GIANNA

“ A lright, let’s keep this clean and uncomplicated,” Gianna said, glancing over at the ten-year-old girl lying on the table, already deeply sedated under the anesthesia.

Her face was relaxed and peaceful, probably dreaming about something far more interesting than a tiny appendix about to be removed.

Gianna took a deep, steadying breath, already embracing that familiar rush of focus.

“Scalpel,” Nurse Carol said, sliding the tool into Gianna’s hand.

Carol was a veteran scrub nurse who was fazed by nothing.

She’d seen everything—trauma cases, surgical disasters, residents bursting into tears mid-procedure.

And yet, she never so much as batted an eye.

She was the kind of presence you wanted in the OR.

“Incision, one inch, right along the McBurney’s point,” Gianna muttered, more to herself than anyone else.

The moment she touched the tissue with the scalpel and felt the slight pull of the skin and muscle, her body relaxed.

The OR faded into the background. This—this she could do.

Her hands knew the rhythm of the procedure.

There was no uncertainty there. Just the clean, straightforward work of taking something that was inflamed, that was hurting, and removing it before it could do any more damage.

Healing in its simplest, most tangible form.

But then Holly’s voice cut through that slow, almost meditative flow of the surgery and shattered Gianna’s calm like a pebble thrown into still water.

“Vitals are stable,” Holly said. “BP’s looking good, and saturation is normal.”

Gianna nodded without looking up, thankful that she had layers of tissue in front of her to focus on. “Good,” she murmured, her voice tight, more clipped than usual.

But she couldn’t help it. Her frustration wasn’t even directed at Holly. In fact, she was pointing the arrow at the wrong person. Because if anyone deserved to be snapped at, it was Gianna herself. She was the one who shouldn’t have brushed Holly off earlier when she’d tried to talk to her.

After all, wasn’t that exactly what she wanted?

To talk about what had happened the other night, to figure out if sleeping together had been the worst kind of mistake.

The kind that was sure to ruin their friendship forever.

And then there was also a part of her—smaller and less confident—that wanted to know all the thoughts in Holly’s head.

Because honestly, Gianna couldn’t ignore the little fact that Holly had actually seemed to enjoy when Gianna had gone down on her.

But now wasn’t the time to be thinking of anything besides Stacy Granger.

A ten-year-old girl who loved horse riding, especially show jumping, and who was missing a competition this weekend because of stomach pain.

Gianna had to focus. And so, she did, putting all those other distracting thoughts in a mental box and pushing them to the back of her mind.

She retracted the tissue and worked carefully to isolate the appendix followed by clamping and cutting.

The surgery was done in less than an hour.

Gianna deposited the inflamed little organ into the basin Carol held out for her.

“Stacy should be feeling a lot better after this.”

Carol hummed in agreement. “Closing up?” she asked, already anticipating Gianna’s move. She held out a needle driver and suture before Gianna even had to ask for it.

“Yep,” Gianna said and seamlessly began stitching everything back together.

Many attending surgeons left that part to the residents, moving on as soon as the real work was done.

But Gianna enjoyed the closure—literally and figuratively.

There was something so satisfying about making everything neat again, like tying a bow on a neatly wrapped Christmas present.

Once the last stitch was in place, Gianna stepped back and peeled off her gloves. The rest of the team would handle the post-op routine.

The second she pushed through the OR doors, that mental box from earlier splintered into a hundred tiny pieces.

Holly’s face was all over her mind. Her words the other night were like a song playing on a loop.

The only reprieve she got was that Holly still had another few minutes in the OR to wind down the anesthesia.

It would give Gianna time to collect those thoughts, one by one and hopefully, if she was lucky, incinerate them.

And then, of course, there was the thought of coffee—scalding hot, bitter, and hopefully strong enough to beat this tiredness she’d been feeling all morning after tossing and turning all night.

The kind of coffee only Mikey, the hospital cafeteria’s barista, could make.

Gianna didn’t waste a second before she headed toward the cafeteria.

“Americano,” she said when she reached the counter. “Make it extra strong.”

Mikey chuckled and brushed a strand of curly black hair out of his eyes. “Busy day?”

“Something like that.”

Mikey didn’t press for details. Instead, his gaze flicked past her, over her shoulder at someone else, and Gianna instinctively turned back.

Holly was standing right behind her, barely a foot away. It was surprising she hadn’t felt her presence like ghost breathing on her skin, but then again, Gianna was so in her own head, Angelina Jolie could walk right by and she wouldn’t notice.

“Can we talk a minute?” Holly said, looking Gianna dead in the eye. Her voice was low, and direct, leaving absolutely no room for escape.

Gianna’s stomach did an annoying little drop, not the kind she got when a procedure hit some difficulty, but the kind that came with knowing she was about to head into a conversation she both wanted and didn’t want.

Now, standing there, faced with the reality of it—the two of them, in the middle of the cafeteria, nowhere to run, and Holly looking at her like she actually meant it when she said she wanted to talk instead of just ignoring her like she’d done those first two days—well, Gianna’s fight-or-flight instincts kicked in.

“No,” Gianna said, too fast, too sharp.

Holly’s expression didn’t change, but her fingers did twitch slightly at her sides and all of a sudden Gianna imagined taking Holly’s hands in her own, running her thumb over the silky skin of her palm.

But she quickly cut that thought off before it could grow legs. Because wanting that was dangerous.

“No?” Holly echoed.

“No,” Gianna repeated because that was what she did when she panicked.

“I don’t have time for this right now. I have another surgery coming up and I really just—” she cut the lie off.

Her next surgery wasn’t until that afternoon.

She did, however, have a few patients to see in the ward, so technically, it was a half-lie.

Mikey standing behind the counter very wisely turned to fiddle with the espresso machine, pretending he wasn’t witnessing whatever this was. And thankfully, there was no one else in the line for coffee.

Holly exhaled a slow, measured sort of breath, her blue eye scanning Gianna’s face.

Blue eyes that shimmered like frost catching morning light.

She didn’t look angry. Or even hurt. She was searching for something.

And for some reason that made it worse, since Gianna was doing the same thing, searching for some hint that Holly thought sleeping together was the worst mistake of her life.

“You said it already,” Gianna muttered finally. “It was a mistake. You’re not like me.”

The words felt worsewhen she said them out loud.

Holly seemed to think so too. She flinched.

Gianna saw it, and in that instant, Gianna wished she could take them back, that she could be more civil.

But for some reason her pride—or maybe her fear—wouldn’t let her soften, wouldn’t let her do anything but dig the knife in deeper. It was just easier that way.

“Gianna,” Holly said quietly, almost like a plea.

But Gianna had already decided she wasn’t going to do this, or at least the part of her that had woken up this morning and decided that shutting this down was safer.

That the alternative—letting herself hope, letting herself believe that Holly hadn’t purposefully ignored her for two days—wasn’t an option.

Because if she was wrong and this was a mistake like Holly had said, well, then Gianna wasn’t sure she could handle hearing it twice.

“I’m just here to get my coffee and go,” she muttered, turning back to the counter and ending the conversation for good. “Thanks, Mikey,” she said, grabbing a lid for the steaming coffee he placed down in front of her.

She didn’t watch Holly walk away, but she felt it, like a shift in the air, like a draft blowing, and she had to do everything in her willpower not to turn around and run after her.

Three days later, Gianna found herself stepping out the hospital’s side entrance, exhaling hard, and pressing her fingers into her temples.

The cool night air hit her immediately, sharp but still pleasant against her overheated skin.

She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with something other than the sterile smell of the OR which seemed to cling to her clothes, her hair, and every pore in her skin.

The surgery had been brutal. A fourteen-year-old kid, Mateo, had come in for a repair of an anomalous coronary artery, a condition that was present at birth but commonly not diagnosed until late teens and often, lead to heart attack or sudden death.

Somewhere between clamping and suturing, his heart had stopped.

Gianna and Dr. Patel—who was heading the surgery—had nearly lost him.

She could still hear the alarm blaring in her head, still feel the exact moment panic had clawed up her throat as they tried to get his heart beating again.

Those endless seconds stretched longer than they should ever be, her hands moving on autopilot while her mind had begged, Come on kid, just stay with me.

And he had.