his preoccupation, was even glad for Deakin’s diligence.
“She’s never been one to take orders easily. But she must’ve been tired, because she got a ride with Theo a few minutes ago. Either that or she just really wanted to get away from you. How did you make her leave?”
“I told her I didn’t want her here,” Ares answered. He could be truthful about that at least. It fit their pattern.
“Harsh.” Deakin’s one-word pronouncement came with a frown.
“I wanted to sleep for a year at the end of my residency, but she arrived in a crisis and was immediately drawn into emergency surgery.”
Ares listed what he knew, leaning back, trying to will the tension from his frame.
“She needed to go and rest, and making her mad was the fastest way to assure she went.”
“So it was for her own good?”
And his.
“Is there something you want to say, man?” he asked Deakin directly.
“Just trying to figure you out.”
“She’ll thank me tomorrow.”
They both knew that was a lie, and Deakin’s arched brow called him on it, but Ares ignored it.
“You’re grouchy as hell.” Deakin printed a short record of the EKG, dated it and went to slip it into the chart. “You sure you don’t want someone else staying with the patient?”
Not sure. The only thing he was sure of was that he needed to get off the island—even if it meant going to the tiny adjacent island where his family’s estate was. But that baby—let alone the mother—deserved his diligence. And it would be one less thing to quarrel about with Erianthe tomorrow if he stayed.
“I’m sure.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, sloughing off some of his weariness but none of the lingering agitation. “This is a walk in the park after the Sudan.”
“Unconvincing...” Deakin said.
He needed to work on his poker face as badly as Erianthe did. “Tough. I don’t need you to be convi—”
Jacinda stirred, shutting down the grumbling between them. Ares stood over her, took her hand and said her name. She woke and he repeated what Erianthe had told her—anesthesia had amnesiac qualities.
“The surgery went very well. You’re doing great. Both of you did really well.”
“The baby’s okay?” she asked, her words still a little slurred, but her confusion might be the first thing not to annoy him today.
“The baby is fine. I’m staying with you to keep an eye on you, but all I expect to see is you sleeping peacefully. Okay?”
She nodded, squeezed his hand and then was already drifting back off.
“Don’t stay up all night,” Deakin said more quietly at his side, reminding him of their previous conversation, “Get her past recovery from the anesthesia, then get some rest yourself. We’ve got a breakfast meeting at Stavros’s Taverna. That’s what I actually came here to tell you.”
“Breakfast meeting? Why?”
“Because for some reason we want to see you there with the rest of us. Full group.”
“With girlfriends?”
“No. Just us.”
Staying up all night with a pregnant postsurgical patient would be a perfectly acceptable reason to skip that land mine. He’d met with all the guys since his return, but doing it again with Erianthe there... Bad idea—at least before they’d had a chance to work out how to be normal around one another. In fact, it was the worst idea he’d heard all day.
He couldn’t even imagine them pretending to snipe at one another and squabble, in order to keep anyone from suspecting they had genuine painful issues and memories to be raw about.
“I’ll try to make it, but I’m not making any promises.”
“Barring emergencies, you’ll be there.” Deakin gave his head a small, affectionate shove from behind as he passed on the way for the door. “You should also think about shaving, if you don’t want all of us thinking you’re suffering from exhaustion. Logic says that anyone with even a small amount of extra energy would have tamed that thing as soon as they could. And it will have to be gone by the time the auction comes around or we’ll be paying someone to take you.”
“Just because you and Theo got out of being auctioned off to bored socialites, it doesn’t mean Chris and I have to carry your weight.”
There was a lot Ares would do for the clinic and Mythelios after the quake, but there had to be a line drawn somewhere. Perhaps he could buy himself...
Deakin’s soft laughter creaked through the closing door, and he added something rude about posing for the next calendar.
That bullet he had dodged, by being so far removed from civilization they hadn’t been able to find a photographer to come meet him. And he’d made a bit more of a donation to the clinic to make up for it. But the charity bachelor auction was still a few weeks away.
He’d be gone by then, if anything in the universe could go in his favor where Erianthe was concerned.
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