The Billionaire's Secretive Enchantress (The Berutelli Escape) (3 page)

The morning
sun was just starting to creep over the horizon but she ignored the time and her exhaustion.  The nurse came in at some point, smiled at Sierra and urged her to keep talking because it was “helping enormously”.  Apparently, the man’s vitals were extremely strong for someone in his condition.  There was a worry about infection, but Sierra promised to be careful, not sure if she could do anything to stop an infection, but willing to do anything to try. 

She had no concept of time, just of the man’s features as he valiantly tried to recover
from his injuries.  She held his hand, her fingers rubbing his bruised and bloodied knuckles, surprised at the calluses on his fingers and the palm of his hand.  It indicated that he was a working man.  The complete opposite of what she had thought upon first seeing him.  That only made him more attractive to her and she wanted to comfort him.  His calluses and his dress shirt were a contradiction.  The shirt was obviously expensive, but his hand indicated a completely different lifestyle.  She liked even the mystery about him. 

As she stared at his handsome, beaten and bruised face, her thoughts drifted to what he might be like as a person. 
She wanted to kiss him, to run her fingers through his hair and feel the softness.  Or would his hair be rough like his hands?  His chest was so muscular and she blushed when one of the nurses stepped in to check his bandages, revealing the man’s stomach which was ridged with muscles, just as she’d suspected when she’d seen him across the pool.  What she hadn’t anticipated was the enticing line of black hair that curled up from below the stiff hospital sheet.  Very intriguing, she thought as she tried to hide her interest from the nurses. 

Was he naked below?  She shivered at the idea and then pushed it aside.  The man was in a coma!  How could she even think something like that?  She’d never seen a naked man but here she was, trying to get a peek at him. 

As soon as they were alone once again, she turned back to the man, a grimace on her face.  She knew he couldn’t see it so she felt a little silly.  “Sorry about my bad thoughts,” she whispered to him.  “I have to confess that you’re a very fascinating specimen of manhood.  But that’s really no excuse because you’re…well,” she blushed and looked at the man from the top of his head to his toes that were sticking out of his cast, “you’re incapacitated and that’s not really fair.”

“I’ll confess that I haven’t really dated anyone seriously and even those boys that I’ve dated, well, they’re no match to you physically.  Not that you would be even remotely interested in me because I’m well…I’m me,” she said, thinking about her breasts, or lack of breasts.  She laughed, feeing ridiculous, but she couldn’t move away.  She was drawn to this man in some odd, indefinable way.  “I’m afraid I’m taking advantage of you by looking at your body when you’re not around to tell me to stop.  I know I’d feel very angry if our positions were reversed.”  She thought about that for a moment, looking down at his long, elegant fingers, the skin over his knuckles broken and battered which gave her a smile because the man had fought back, at least for a few minutes.  “Anyway,” she laughed and moved her fingers higher on his hand, covering his wrist and feeling the strong bones underneath her fingers, “I shouldn’t be so fascinated but I am and you’re asleep so I’ll at least pretend that I’m ashamed of my lack of consideration.”

She sighed and ran her fingers over his forearm, loving the almost rough feel of the arm on his skin.  It was so different from her own skin and she was completely entranced by the differences. 

“Okay, I’ll behave,” she promised, but it was only a half-hearted attempt at being appropriate. 
She laughed softly and shook her head.  “At least, I’ll try to behave.  It isn’t easy since you are extremely fascinating.”  She glanced at his face, so bruised and battered and her heart broke for his pain.  “Probably not something you want to hear right now, though.  I’m sorry.  You’re probably thinking I’m totally insensitive.  And you’d be correct.”  She looked at him with soft eyes.  “My only excuse is that, well, confidentially, you’re quite spellbinding.  I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone quite like you.”  She grimaced again.  “Not that we’ve actually met.  Not officially, anyway.  Nor will we ever meet.  You’ll probably hate me if you knew who I was.”  She was rambling now, but the doctor had said he could hear her so she shifted to other, more interesting subjects. 

She continued to talk to him until
her voice was hoarse and she couldn’t speak any longer.  She wasn’t sure when it happened, but she fell asleep, her head resting against his hip and her hand holding his own. 

Drake
woke up at some point in the night, confused and in more pain than he’d ever thought was possible.  He couldn’t move his leg and he slowly lifted his head in order to figure out why but even that was difficult.  His leg was encased in a cast and lifted higher than the bed on some sort of pulley system. There were beeping sounds all around him, lights, white sheets, a hideous mint colored wall…he was in the hospital, he finally realized. 

His
face hurt like hell and he tried to lift his hand to figure out why but he couldn’t move his arm, which confused him.  Nothing about his arm hurt.  His ribs hurt, it ached to breathe, there was something seriously wrong with his stomach and he couldn’t believe the pain shooting up both of his legs.  But nothing was wrong with his arm except that he couldn’t move it. 

He laid his head on the scratchy hospital pillow, every cell in his brain aching with the pain shooting around
in his skull.  When he finally had enough energy, he lifted his head once again and looked at his arm and was startled to find the dark-haired beauty he’d seen earlier today.  Or was it yesterday?  He wasn’t sure what day it was, or even if it was day or night. 

She was laying on his arm, her hair draped over his thigh with the curls wrapping around in places he really shouldn’t be thinking about right now. 

He suddenly realized that she’d been crying.  He wanted to lift his hand, to touch the tear tracks that had marred that beautiful skin but she was holding his hand tightly and he couldn’t move anything.  In the end, he accepted that it felt good to just have her close, to smell that incredible, honeysuckle perfume, and listen to her soft breathing. 

He closed his eyes, intending to rest for just a moment, but by the time he opened his eyes again, the woman was gone, replaced by a stern looking nurse who was trying to take his pulse. 

“So you’re awake?” the nurse asked, her eyes assessing him carefully.  Without even a smile, she wrote something on a paper attached to a clip board and walked out.  “I’ll inform the doctor,” she said and she was gone.  He wasn’t sure if his need for information was stronger than his fear of her harsh demeanor.  He wanted to understand what was going on, but that nurse was a tough cookie and he wasn’t sure he could butt heads with her right now.  Maybe later, he promised himself. 

He slept fitfully for what seemed like a long time.  Every once in a while, he dreamed that he was walking through the forest, surrounded by honeysuckle and he breathed in the scent, enjoying the calming effect it had on his pain.  Every time he smelled her, his body ached just a little bit less. 

Several times, he thought he heard her talking to him, telling him stories about…school?  No, not possible.  But she was giving him arguments for taking calculus and linear algebra, something about discrete mathematics and numerical analysis.  Was she actually giving him the pros for statistics?  No one liked statistics, he thought but his mouth was still too sore to actually form the words, and he couldn’t even open his eyes to let her know that he heard her.  He smiled though.  Well, at least he thought he was smiling.  She certainly liked discussing math. 

Drake
liked math, could do complex problems in his mind, but he didn’t enjoy math simply for the challenge of doing math problems, which is what he suspected she enjoyed.  He used math as a tool, something to further his business efforts and gain the competitive edge over his rivals. 

Finally,
he wasn’t sure if it was hours or days, he was able to open his eyes, to look around and the pain was…well, it was still bad, but it was at least bearable. 

Unfortunately, his little brunette beauty wasn’t by his side.  S
tanding beside him was that same nurse as the last time he’d woken.  Had he only been dreaming about the other woman?  Had she been a figment of his imagination? 

Surely not.  The scent, the voice…he knew he’d heard her. 
And he’d felt her soft hair.  It had been curling around his wrist and floating on top of his hip.  He hadn’t seen her face, but he was sure that she’d been real. 

“Where’s the woman?” he asked, his voice scratchy from lack of use
and his eyes felt as if they were barely open.  Were his eyes swollen for some reason?  He tried to think back, to figure out why he was here in the hospital.  But he was more focused on trying to figure out where the soft-haired woman was.  He needed her.  He desperately wanted to hear her soft voice, to laugh at her debates about math classes and find out what she’d finally decided to do about school. 

The nurse shot him a curious look, still not smiling.  “Your sister?” she asked, again
pausing to write something on the chart at the end of his bed. 

“Don’t have a sister,” he croaked out.  “The beautiful one.  The one that smells good.” 

He could have sworn the nurse actually cracked a smile, but then she turned stern once again.  “Only family is allowed in during visiting hours,” she stated firmly.

Drake
closed his eyes again, but he wasn’t going to sleep through her next visit. 

Unfortunately, she never came again.  He stayed awake as much as possible but he never saw her
return to his side.  He asked about her to the nurses and doctors, but all of them gave him the same answer; thin, blue eyes and brown hair.  He knew that couldn’t completely describe her and it was almost an obsession to find her, get more information on her. 

He spent half of his mental capabilities on devising a plan to get back at the man who had done this to him, and the other half trying to figure out who his mystery woman was.  His construction business didn’t falter during his hospitalization, mainly due to the fact that he’d hired many very good employees and they were fully capable of continuing the work on the multiple projects that he had going on across the country.  But he wouldn’t let the woman or his retribution leave his mind. 

A month after he arrived at the hospital, he was allowed to leave, but with strict instructions on visiting his own doctor or coming back to the hospital for a follow up with his surgeon.  He could get the cast off in another two weeks as long as he kept as much of his weight off of it as possible, using the crutches whenever he could.  “I’m sure my health insurance is going to skyrocket with this little sojourn,” he said to the nurse as she helped him dress. 

The nurse quickly shook her head.  “Your entire bill has been paid in full along with a deposit in case you need any other medical assistance because of this
accident.”

Drake
looked at the nurse strangely.  “Who paid all the expenses?” he asked, knowing that the cost would be huge.  A month in a hospital, including the long period in which he was in intensive care, wouldn’t be cheap by anyone’s budget. 

“The woman we all thought was your sister.  She was here all the time
that first week, sitting outside your room when she wasn’t allowed in, interrogating the doctors to make sure you were getting everything you needed, bringing us cookies and brownies or just some flowers.  I think those were all bribes just to convince us take better care of you,” she joked with a wink as she helped him lower himself into the wheel chair.  His leg was still in a cast and several of his ribs were too tender for crutches so he’d be in a wheel chair for a couple more weeks.  “You have a very good friend out there.  Of course, if we’d known she wasn’t your sister, we wouldn’t have let her into the intensive care room.”  She thought about it for a moment, then shrugged.  “Or maybe we would have.  Your vitals definitely were better when she was sitting next to you, holding your hand.”

His foreman and best friend was standing outs
ide the room, ready to bring Drake home for the first time in thirty days.  Drake wanted to ask the nurse more, to get a description of the woman he only knew was beautiful with dark, brown hair and tender eyes.  He didn’t even remember what color her eyes were, only that they were filled with compassion and hope.  Her image had gotten him through the worst of the pain and the hope of seeing her each time he woke up had pushed him to recover more quickly. 

When Tony stepped in again, he had a grim expression on his face.  “Ready?” he asked.

That reminded him of his plans.  Joe Berutelli had done this.  He’d remembered the questions, the demands from the shorter man to take bribes, to use different vendors, vendors Drake knew distributed cheaper, inferior materials.  Those materials wouldn’t hold up under the long term use of any building and could cause injuries.  There had been an argument that afternoon in the man’s office and Drake had stood firm, refusing to relinquish his good name despite ominous threats of chaos and brutality to himself, his family and his workers if he didn’t cooperate with the organized crime gang.  After Berutelli had accepted that Drake wasn’t going to play ball, the beating had started. 

There had been three goons roughing him up at first.  But when Drake was winning, tossing the guys off of him and
knocking them out, two more guys showed up, this time with bats.  That had been the end of his ability to fight them off.  He’d gone down, feeling every punch and smack of the wooden bat.