I Found Out My Roommates Secret

The water was freezing. It bit into Faith's skin, turning her knuckles a raw, translucent red, but she didn't pull her hands back. She needed the cold. She needed the shock to travel up her nerve endings and slap her brain awake.

Twelve hours. She had been on her feet for twelve hours, stitching up bar fight losers and reassuring parents that their toddler's fever wasn't meningitis. It was a far cry from the boardroom strategy meetings and high-stakes venture capital negotiations she had commanded two years ago, but anonymity required sacrifice. Her lower back throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache that matched the flickering fluorescent light above the scrub sink.

She pressed the pedal with her foot, cutting off the stream. Silence rushed back into the small alcove, heavy and smelling of antiseptic.

The door behind her banged open.

Faith didn't flinch. She just reached for a paper towel. "If that's the drunk from Bed 4 vomiting again, Betty, you're on your own. I'm technically off the clock in three minutes."

"Not the drunk," Betty said. Her voice was tight. Breathless.

Faith turned. Betty was a veteran nurse who had seen drive-by shootings and pile-ups without blinking. She wasn't blinking now, but her lips were pressed into a thin, white line.

"Trauma 3," Betty said. "He refused the resident. Said he needs a female attending. Specifically."

Faith frowned, tossing the crumpled paper towel into the bin. "A preference for female doctors usually means a rash in a place they don't want another man looking at. Send Dr. Liu. He's persistent."

"He asked for you, Dr. Neal."

Faith paused. Her heart gave a single, uncomfortable thump against her ribs. She used her maiden name here, a name that hadn't appeared on a Forbes list in a decade. "Me?"

"He knows your name. Well, he asked for 'Faith', not Dr. Neal." Betty lowered her voice, glancing down the hallway. "And... honestly? I don't think you want to say no to this guy. He walked in with a hole in his leg, bleeding through his custom-tailored suit trousers, and he hasn't made a sound. It's... unnerving. He looks like he owns the building."

Faith sighed, the exhaustion settling back onto her shoulders like a lead vest. "Fine. Give me the chart."

"No chart. He wouldn't give his insurance info until he saw you. Said his legal department would handle the billing directly."

Faith grabbed a fresh pair of gloves and marched down the corridor. She shoved the fatigue into a box in the back of her mind and locked it. It was a survival mechanism she'd perfected during the hostile takeover of '19, long before she started playing doctor.

She pushed open the curtain to Trauma 3.

The smell hit her first. It wasn't just the sharp sting of Betadine. It was something earthier. Iron. Expensive scotch. And the distinct, acrid scent of spent gunpowder.

Then she saw him.

The room felt suddenly too small. The air seemed to thin out, leaving her lungs grasping for oxygen.

He was sitting on the edge of the gurney, his white dress shirt unbuttoned to reveal a torso that looked carved from marble. Under the harsh glare of the surgical lights, his skin looked like bronze stretched over steel. Every muscle in his torso was defined, a map of disciplined power that she had traced with her fingertips the night the contract was signed.

Faith's grip on the doorframe tightened until her fingernails dug into the wood.

Earl.

He looked up.

His eyes were the same. Dark. Bottomless. A calm, terrifying blue that didn't reflect the light-it absorbed it. The eyes of a CEO who could liquidate a company without checking the stock price.

"Miss Neal," he said.

His voice was a low rumble, a vibration that she felt in the soles of her feet. It scraped against the memory of that night-the ink on the NDA, the silk sheets of the penthouse, the way he had whispered her name against her neck.

Faith's stomach dropped. She stepped into the room and let the curtain snap shut behind her, sealing them in.

"You," she breathed. It wasn't a question. It was an accusation.

Earl Hampton didn't smile. He watched her with the intensity of a predator waiting for the prey to stop thrashing. "Me."

Faith forced herself to inhale. Professional. Be professional. She walked to the counter, snapping her latex gloves on with a sharp thwack that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room.

"You can't be here," she hissed, keeping her back to him as she arranged the tray. "I told you. When I left the estate. No contact. The contract is void."

"I remember," he said. "You left a note on the pillow. 'Resignation accepted' was all it said."

Faith turned around, her face burning. "It was a business arrangement. A mistake to let it get personal."

"Was it?"

"Why are you here, Earl?"

He didn't answer. He just looked down at his left leg.

Faith followed his gaze. His charcoal suit trousers-Italian wool, likely bespoke-were cut open at the thigh. A crude bandage, soaked through with dark, oxidized blood, was wrapped around the muscle.

The doctor in her took over. The anger didn't vanish, but it was pushed aside by the immediate need to stop the bleeding. Or perhaps it was the Crisis Manager in her-assess the damage, contain the spill.

She stepped between his spread knees. It was a necessary position, purely clinical, but the heat radiating from his body mocked her. He was burning up.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice clipped. She reached for the scissors.

"Boardroom negotiations got aggressive," he said.

She slid the cold metal of the shears under the bandage. His thigh muscle jumped-a reflex-but his face remained stone. She cut the fabric away.

Faith sucked in a breath.

"Jesus."

It was a puncture wound. Deep. The edges were jagged and angry. Embedded deep in the meat of his inner thigh, just two inches from the femoral artery, was a piece of twisted metal.

"Shrapnel?" She looked up at him, incredulous. "You walked in here with shrapnel in your leg? This looks like a car bomb fragment."

"Drove, actually. My driver was incapacitated."

"This is inches from your femoral. If this had shifted while you were driving, you would have bled out in three minutes. Hampton Holdings stock would have plummeted before the market opened."

"I know." He watched her eyes. Not the wound. Her eyes. "That's why I came to the best. You always were good at damage control, Faith."

Faith ignored the compliment. Her hands were steady now. This was mechanics. This was repair. "I need to remove it. I have to clean the tract. It's going to hurt. A lot. I can give you a local, but-"