Flash Marriage To My Royal Commander

"Rosalie, I looked up the NHS pay bands for nurses," Preston Finch said, swirling the Merlot in his glass above the white tablecloth of the Soho French restaurant. "Frankly, in a city like London, that barely counts as a decent living. And yet women on your salary still expect a man with money. Rather a lot of demands for someone bringing so little to the table."

Rosie Bennett paused with her knife halfway through a cold piece of steak. For the fourth time in twenty minutes, her gaze dropped to the scuffed medical watch on her left wrist, calculating how much longer she had to endure her eighteenth blind date. She lifted her pale blue eyes and looked at the financial analyst her mother had forced her to meet, waiting for him to finish.

Mistaking her silence for embarrassment, Preston leaned forward.

"However, if you marry me, you can quit that job wiping backsides right after the wedding and focus on keeping house. I'll provide. You'll do the cooking, keep yourself attractive, and make sure I'm not coming home to complaints. None of this splitting the housework nonsense. If I'm paying for everything, I expect a wife who knows how to show her appreciation."

He glanced at her watch, then at her bare ring finger.

"Your mother said you've had trouble finding someone. You might want to be realistic about your options."

Rosie set her fork down, her thumb brushing the worn bezel of her watch as she prepared a sharp reply. Before she could speak, the old-fashioned A&E pager clipped inside her handbag let out a shrill, piercing beep.

Her spine straightened on instinct. She grabbed her bag and stood up in one swift motion.

"Major incident at the hospital. I have to report in immediately," she said rapidly. "And you don't want a wife, Preston. You want a housekeeper you can sleep with and control with pocket money. I already get paid to deal with shit. I'm not marrying it."

His mouth fell open. At the next table, a woman hastily covered a laugh with her napkin. Preston's face flushed a furious red.

Rosie turned toward the exit without glancing at the bill.

"We haven't even ordered dessert!" Preston snapped behind her.

Rosie pushed through the heavy glass door without looking back, shutting his arrogance inside, and sprinted down the pavement toward the nearest London Underground station. Weaving through the packed evening commuters on the platform, she pulled out her phone to read the red alert flashing in the hospital group chat. A British Army convoy returning from an overseas deployment had been caught in a multi-vehicle pile-up near the M25 motorway. Ambulances were already rushing critical casualties to Royal Saint Anne's Trauma Centre.

When the train pulled in, Rosie rode it three stops, bolted out of the carriage, and ran all the way to the hospital's rear staff entrance. She swiped her badge into the locker room, twisted her long hair into a tight low ponytail, and changed into dark blue A&E scrubs in under thirty seconds.

She shoved open the double doors to the A&E triage bay. The thick stench of blood and antiseptic hit her throat at once, mixed with the crash of rolling trolleys.

Harriet "Hattie" Collins, her closest friend on the ward, was pressing gauze against a patient's chest, her reddish-brown curls sticking to her sweaty forehead. Spotting Rosie, Hattie shouted over the din.

"Rosie! Bay three, open pneumothorax! Give me a hand!"

Rosie rushed to the bed and snapped on sterile gloves, her expression turning cold and focused. She took over Hattie's position, pressing down firmly to seal the sucking chest wound that was hissing with every breath. Hattie immediately spun around to prep the chest drain kit. Without exchanging a single word in the deafening noise, the two nurses passed the clamps and tubing by eye contact alone.

Just as Rosie steadied the patient for the registrar to insert the tube, the main automatic doors of the A&E bay flew open with a bang. Heavy combat boots pounded across the linoleum, cutting right through the chaos.

Several armed soldiers covered in mud and blood raced inside pushing a stretcher. The man on the stretcher wore an oxygen mask, his uniform soaked red. Striding at the front of the trolley was a tall man in British Army combat fatigues. Under the cold white fluorescent lights, his sharp features looked carved from stone. The colonel's rank insignia glinted on his shoulders. His left sleeve was torn open, a deep gash dripping blood onto the floor, yet he showed no sign of pain as his dark eyes swept the room, checking the exits and personnel.

Dr. Cromwell, the A&E consultant, hurried forward with a rare note of respect in his voice.

"Your Royal High-"

Cameron cut him a sharp look before he could finish the title. The meaning of the aborted greeting was unmistakable to everyone close enough to hear it. The bloodied officer standing in the middle of the A&E was not merely Colonel Cameron Sinclair. He was Prince Cameron Sinclair-a member of the Royal Family serving under his military rank.

Cromwell swallowed and corrected himself at once. "Colonel Sinclair, the operating theatre is ready."

Bent over her patient at Bay Three, Rosie missed both the unfinished greeting and the warning that stopped it. The registrar was securing the drain, and she was watching the patient's breathing.

"He's lost over fifteen hundred millilitres of blood. Ruptured spleen," Cameron Sinclair said, his voice low and commanding. "Get him into Theatre 2 now. I want your best surgeon operating."

Securing the dressing on Bay Three, Rosie straightened her back and looked across the beds at the young colonel who had silenced half the ward. Even covered in blood, his orders were crisp, and as the orderlies wheeled the stretcher around a corner, he automatically put a hand over the metal rail to keep the wounded soldier from bumping the doorframe.

Cromwell hurried alongside him, nodding so eagerly that Rosie almost stared. The consultant usually expected people to scramble out of his way. She had never seen him so anxious to please anyone.

Perhaps Sinclair was a decorated officer, someone whose reputation carried weight well beyond his rank. That would explain it. She rarely followed royal news; the faces in palace photographs meant little to her, and this man's face stirred no recognition.

Once the stretcher disappeared toward the lifts, Cameron turned around. His gaze cut across the crowded bay and locked directly onto Rosie's steady blue eyes.

Rosie did not look away like the junior nurses. She stared calmly at his bleeding left arm. Cameron narrowed his eyes slightly at the slender nurse standing straight in the middle of the bloodstained floor, his tight jaw relaxing a fraction.

A young Army medic ran up with a field kit to treat Cameron's arm, but the colonel shoved him back.

"Go help the civilian nurses over there. This scratch won't kill me."

Rosie frowned. She stripped off her soiled gloves, cleaned her hands, and pulled on a fresh pair. She grabbed iodine swabs and gauze rolls from a nearby trolley, stepped over the debris on the floor, and marched straight up to the officer. Without asking permission, she gripped his injured left forearm with her clean gloves to stop him from pulling away.

"Colonel, severe blood loss leads to hypovolaemic shock," she said, her voice cool and hard. "Collapsing on my floor will only create more work for my A&E."

Cameron stiffened, looking down at the woman who barely reached his chest yet held his arm like a vice. His hand hovered in mid-air before he dropped his resistance, letting her dab the stinging iodine across the raw flesh.

"Do you always speak to senior officers like this?" he asked, a faint trace of amusement beneath his gravelly tone.

"In A&E, the person wearing scrubs is the ranking officer," Rosie replied without looking up as she wrapped the gauze tightly around his arm.

Cameron watched her deft fingers tie off the bandage, his gaze lingering on the worn medical watch on her left wrist. As soon as the knot was secure, Rosie let go and took half a step back, breaking the close physical distance between them.

Overhead, the hospital Tannoy crackled to life, paging all available trauma staff to Resuscitation. Rosie spun on her heel and ran toward the red doors. Standing alone in the bay, Cameron raised his bandaged left arm and brushed his thumb thoughtfully over the neat edge of the gauze.