her life to save riot victims…
“And I wasn’t in Buenos Aires to report you.”
Her forceful statement jerked his attention back to her. His gaze slid off the road and over her. Took her all in. Glossy, rain-straight hair, the perplexing blend of black, blue and indigo, pulled into that down-to-her-waist, unflattering braid. The unique bone structure and drained tan of a face that spoke of her brush with death. Bluish-yellow bruises, spreading like leaking ink stains from beneath her dressings. Lips, usually dimpled, flushed bows, now a taut, colorless line. And eyes. Those eyes! Sooty-lashed chameleon emeralds, now murky jades set in fragile purple. A body that had gone from luscious to almost skinny.
And she still sent his hormones raging.
He swore.
“Boy, I knew you were…many things. I’m adding plain crude to my list!”
“Your Spanish is taking off if you understood that.”
“Swear words are a must-know-first in any foreign language. A universal defense against locals who enjoy insulting you to your face, counting on your ignorance!”
“That was a strictly inner debate, not intended for your ears. Sorry I blurted it out loud.”
Her eyes lightened, becoming emerald again with suspicion. “It’s too late to pretend, Salazar!”
“I agree. It is too late. You’ve called me Armando at last, so you can’t go back to calling me Salazar.”
“I used to call you Dr. Salazar, and I called you Armando…” She stopped, shook her head, looked away.
“Only because you thought I’d been shot,” he completed for her. “I always did wonder at your insistence on calling me Doctor, even when we were meeting socially, daily, when I’m on a first-name basis with everyone. You are, too. Why do you find it so hard to say my name?”
Was the man for real? He didn’t realize she’d rather not call him anything, not be near him at all? That he made her feel defensive, vulnerable, useless?
That first time Diego had dragged her to Armando’s house, to show her off to “the Salazar patriarch”, Armando had taken one look at her, one hard, drawn-out, enervating look, then, thankfully, had dismissed her. He’d looked at Diego as if he’d lost his mind, getting mixed up with her. He hadn’t said anything, though. A month later, he’d made it equally clear he thought GAO crazy to give her the aid operation reins. This time he’d done something about it.
One day she’d been head of GAO’s mission in Argentina, the next, for all intents and purposes, his subordinate. He’d swooped in and snatched it from beneath her feet, then shoved her out of the picture.
He wasn’t only local and a medical jack of all trades, a surgeon/emergency doctor/search-and-rescue operative all rolled into one; he was also director of La Clínica—Argentina’s most revolutionary medical facility. He’d established it after Argentina’s financial collapse had torn apart all systems, the medical system being the paradigm of disintegration.
She’d met Diego when he’d been in the US recruiting medical personnel for his cousin’s project. And before she’d met him, she’d thought it the most exciting, enterprising medical endeavor ever. If it hadn’t been for her previous commitment to GAO, she would have loved to have joined herself.
But then she had met him.
It had all gone nightmarishly wrong. Coming to Argentina was supposed to have been the start of her new life—the love she’d never had, the work she’d always dreamed of and people who really needed her. So many expectations, so much advance work and plans.
But no amount of logistics or fantasies could have prepared her. Not for the reality of the situation at ground zero, or for the meteoric deterioration of her relationship with Diego. She’d needed time. To sort out her mess with Diego. To start becoming effective in her job.
But Armando had denied her that time. He’d talked GAO’s administrative body into making La Clínica GAO’s base of operations in Argentina. And in La Clínica he made his own rules and dispensed them with an iron hand.
He stopped at nothing to achieve his goals. Distorting truths, manipulation, outright lying. He hadn’t needed her team’s expertise as he’d said, he’d only needed GAO’s resources. In the month they’d been in La Clínica, he’d totally excluded them and was dispensing GAO’s resources whichever way he pleased, throwing its agendas and protocols out the window. No wonder he felt he deserved to be reported.
What infuriated her more was her own reaction. She’d taken his abuse lying down. It didn’t make her feel any better, wailing that her personal mess had drained most of her stamina. An excuse worse than the offense. Weak, foolish, stupid!
But it was over now. Diego was dead, and her love for him long before that, and she wasn’t needed in any other way here.
Time to put her expertise in cutting her losses to use.
“Well?”
So he was still waiting for an answer! “I’ll call you whatever I like, not what you like.” Her words were cool, tight. “And I will continue to recuperate. Just not at La Clínica.”
“Oh, no?” He slowed down and shoved his face closer to hers. Space shrank and air disappeared. “Where else will you have your operating surgeon, the only one really qualified to follow you up? To handle any complications that may yet develop? To remove the stitches all over your face? Or do you intend to do it yourself back in your villa before your posh welcome-home party?”
An involuntary hand went to her facial dressings. “I can remove my own stitches.”
“Even the ones you can’t see without the help of a mirror?”
His persistence finally wore her nerves down. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to dwell on my injuries, on the accident, on…on… I want—I need closure.”
“Who doesn’t? But you think you’ll ever have it if you have scars to remind you every time you look in the mirror? Maybe every time you take a breath?”
“I’m sure you did a great job putting me back together, that there’ll be no complications…”
“Is that your informed medical opinion, Dr. Burnside?” His generously shaped lips twisted, and suddenly she felt something new towards him. The need to physically strike out at him. To wipe off that abrasive superiority written all over him.
Stupid urge. You can’t afford more of those. Just shut him up.
She breathed in. “Listen, if anything happens, I’ll seek immediate help. But right now I’m not going to La Clínica. Not as a patient. Haven’t you demoted me enough already? I’ll just get on with my life. I don’t need your permission to do that.”
His fleeting, severe look hit home. Then he spoke the three words, slow and distinct, “Yes, you do!” A few strands of his hair caught the sun that had bleached them copper as he took a turn into a road she recognized, the road leading to Santa Fe and La Clínica. “Going back for your full postoperative period is non-negotiable, Laura.”
“I—”
