Her Husband Abandoned Her at the Hospital for His Mistress, but He Never Imagined Who the Surgeon Saving Her Life Really Was
Grant gave a short laugh.
“An appendix? You’re telling me all this drama is over an appendix?”
“I’m telling you she could die.”
Claire watched his face, waiting for fear.
None came.
Only inconvenience.
“I have a driver waiting,” he said. “Proceed with standard treatment. If anything unusual happens, call my attorney.”
“Grant.” Claire’s voice broke. “I’m your wife.”
He leaned close enough for her to smell the mint on his breath.
“You chose to come to the most expensive hospital in the city because you wanted an audience. Now you have one. Don’t embarrass me by turning this into a tragedy.”
Then he straightened his jacket and walked away.
The automatic doors opened.
Rain blew across the entrance as Grant stepped into the Boston night, heading toward the airport to collect his mistress.
Claire watched until the doors closed behind him.
She had believed loneliness was an empty house.
She had been wrong.
Loneliness was lying on a stretcher, surrounded by people trying to save her, while the man who had promised to love her left because another woman’s plane had landed.
Her blood pressure fell minutes later.
The hospital called Grant three times.
The first call went to voicemail.
His assistant answered the second and said he was unavailable.
No one answered the third.
Because Claire was still conscious, Dr. Lawson explained the procedure and obtained her consent. But the infection was widespread, and the on-call surgical team requested the hospital’s most experienced acute-care surgeon.
Dr. Owen Mercer had just completed a nine-hour operation when Emily Lawson entered the restricted surgeons’ lounge.
Owen was forty, tall and controlled, with dark hair beginning to gray at the temples. His reputation extended far beyond Boston. He had developed surgical technology used in trauma centers across the country and invested his earnings in a medical systems company that had quietly made him one of the wealthiest physicians in America.
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