Chapter 7

 

 

 

 

Finn

Present Day

 

The hospital is my go-to place. My safe zone. The one arena I’m in total control of.

And I like control. I thrive on it. I don’t even give a shit if that makes me an asshole. Though I know I pretty much I am one. But the moment you let your guard down, the moment you relinquish some of that control, it all goes to shit. I’m not even being dramatic here.

It’s Murphy’s motherfucking Law.

And it always goes wrong for me. At least the things I don’t have any control over do.

But not here. Here I’m meticulous. Methodical. Precise. Here I’ve got it all figured out.

That is until I saved her life on the sidewalk.

Work was my focus. But now I find myself wondering every time I go in or out of the hospital if I’ll bump into her. Every time an OB consult is called for. Every time I go to the cafeteria. Every time I go to that goddamn bar with work people.

And when I don’t bump into her, I tell myself I’m relieved.

Because I have to be.

“Yo, Banner,” Max Slater says as he saunters up to me, slapping my back like we’re best friends.

We’re not.

I can’t stand the guy and I’m sure he knows it because I do nothing to hide my general dislike of him. But he’s after chief resident for next year and thinks that if he buddies up to me, I’ll put in a good word for him. I won’t. I don’t work that way.

“Has anyone ever told you that you resemble your namesake?”

I give him my most irritated glare, not even caring if I’m proving his point. If he thinks he’s the first person to ever liken me to Doctor Bruce Banner then he’s an even bigger moron than I previously thought.

“Yes.”

“Dude, you need to lighten up, man. The nurses, and every female doctor for that matter, are crawling over themselves for you, but if you continue to be…rough around the edges, then they’ll give up.”

I pause, taking a moment to observe him. Why do so many doctors have overinflated egos? Yes, we’re educated and make decent money. But that’s hardly a rarity in New York. Maybe it’s the life and death stuff. But if anything, that should make us humble and not egotistical. If anything, we know just how precarious it really is.

“What do you want, Slater?”

“To help you out.”

That almost makes me laugh. Almost. “I don’t need your help and I definitely don’t screw around with people I work with.”

He shakes his head like I’m missing out and maybe I am, but I doubt it. And it doesn’t matter anyway. None of these women are Gia Bianchi. And even if they were, I still wouldn’t go there.

He laughs like I’m the fool here. “Whatever, man. More for me.”

“Right. More for you. Now get back to work and leave me the fuck alone.”

I walk off, leaving Max to sexually harass the nurses and doctors without involving me.

The ED is pleasantly busy. Perfectly so. But just as I finish up with one of my last patients of the day, all hell breaks loose. I get stat paged at the very second that a gurney comes rolling in through the ambulance-bay doors. A woman is screaming. Not just screaming, but shrieking at the very top of her lungs.

Which means she’s breathing well on her own so that’s an automatic plus. But then I see that she’s pregnant. Very pregnant. And bleeding. In fact, blood is pouring out of the side of her chest as well as her right flank.

Fuck.

I run over, yanking my stethoscope off my neck and grasping it in my hand. “Thirty-two year old female,” the paramedic wheeling her in starts. “Thirty-five weeks pregnant. G2P1 with stab wounds times two. One to the right flank and one to the right chest. Her vitals are surprisingly stable, but she lost a lot of blood at the scene. Patient is complaining of lower abdominal pressure. LR given en route and as you can hear, we did not need to intubate.”

“Trauma three and someone page OB,” I yell to the nurses as they come flocking over to help.

“Already done,” someone says and the moment we get her into trauma three, the woman goes nuts.

“My baby,” she screams. “You have to save my baby. Oh my god, he stabbed me. He stabbed me. My ex-boyfriend tried to kill me and my baby.”

“What’s your name?” I ask as I snap on gloves. The nurses are already cutting off her bloody clothes and covering her with a gown. She needs a central line. That much is clear, because she’s absolutely going to need blood in addition to the fluids we’re already giving her as well as medications. But I can’t do a femoral one as she’s pregnant so I go for her internal jugular, blindly inserting it by landmarks.

“Mariana,” she sobs and the fact she’s so vocal and alert despite her injuries is astounding. “Please, just save my baby.”

“We’ll do everything we can to save both of you.”

I hate this. I can’t stand it. Everything about this situation is twisting my gut into a knot. But I tamp everything down and focus on the patient because it’s life or death time and neither she nor her baby are dying on my watch.

I turn to one of the nurses whose name I think is Jamie and bark, “Where the hell is OB?”

“On their way,” she says with a nervous expression I know all too well. This woman is bleeding profusely from her side. It seems to have spared the abdomen, but still. She has a very pregnant abdomen. We have no idea the status of this baby or if that knife hit something vital.

Not even one minute later, as we’re trying to examine her chest wound, OB comes in. Not an obstetrician, but goddamn Gia. Who is not a doctor. Who is not a surgeon. And who does not belong in my trauma room with this trauma.

“Where is OB?” I snap at her.

She looks up at me with those aqua-colored eyes of hers and I can’t help the twinge of regret I have for the way I just spoke to her, but it doesn’t change the facts. “They’re tied up. You’ve got me.”

“No,” I bark. “We need a doctor. Not a midwife. Someone get OB on the phone now. This is not acceptable.”

Gia gives me a murderous glare. “I’m just here to assess the patient, Dr. Banner. I’ll take her up if the baby is at all compromised.” And then she ignores me, going right up in between the patient’s legs. She whispers something to one of the nurses who whispers something back to her and then she says, “Mariana, I’m Gia, one of the midwives here. Can you feel the baby move?”

“No,” Mariana sobs. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Okay,” Gia says far calmer than I would have thought. “I’m going to examine you and we’re going to do everything we can for your baby.” Gia sticks her gloved hand up inside of this woman and then quietly leans over to one of the nurses and says, “We need NICU and Peds here. Now.”

“What’s going on with the chest wound?” I yell out, bringing myself away from Gia and the baby and back into my job.

“Chest wound is superficial,” Dr. Thomas says. “We can clean it and stitch it up.”

“Then do it, Thomas,” I bark and he flinches, but really? He was just standing there waiting on instruction. He needs to learn how to swim. I will not be his life vest. “She’s lost enough blood. What about the flank wound?”

“Deeper,” Dr. Slater says. “She’s going to need some imaging and possibly the OR to repair any damage. I clamped the bleeders I could feel, but it’s definitely not all of them.”

“How are her vitals?” I ask.

“Stable,” Corrine, one of the nurses says. “But she’s tachycardic at one-thirty and her BP is holding steady with fluids and blood at ninety-two over fifty-four.”

“Mariana,” Gia says. “Your baby is ready to come out.”

“No,” Mariana screams. “It’s too soon.”

“I know, but we don’t have a choice. You’re having contractions, you’re fully dilated and the baby is crowning. It’s coming now.”

“Oh, god!” Mariana cries.

“What are you having?” Gia asks with a smile which doesn’t reach her eyes as one of the nurses puts a gown over her scrubs and protective gear over her face.

“A boy.”

“Oh wonderful,” she coos sweetly. “Do you have a name picked out?” she asks as she moves her hands inside the woman’s body.

“Antonio,” she sobs. “After his father.”

“Oh, I love that name,” Gia comments quickly, standing up and moving into position before she glances over to me. “Dr. Banner, we need pediatrics here this very moment, because Mariana is about to deliver Antonio. Right now.” She emphasizes that last part, her eyes telling me just how dire this situation is.

I nod, but I don’t have to do anything on that front as pediatrics and the NICU are rolling in.

“Where is OB?” I yell again, beyond frustrated that Gia is delivering this baby. But no one is paying me any attention. They’re all too busy doing their jobs and I can’t pull my eyes away from Gia and the baby she’s trying to deliver.

“Can someone put an O2 mask on Mom?” Gia asks. “Okay, Mariana, you’re having a contraction. I need you to push. Right now. I need a big push. I don’t think it will take much, he’s right here, but let’s get Antonio out as quickly as you can. Do you understand me?”

Mariana nods and then she pushes, screaming through her mask. Gia encourages her the entire time, guiding her, helping her along. She’s soothing and composed and does everything she’s doing in a way which has Mariana calmer than she’s been since she came in. It’s impossible not to be impressed by her skill level. Especially since she’s so new to the game.

Twenty seconds later, Gia removes the blue, non-crying baby from Mariana.

And I’m sick. I can’t watch this baby die.

Pediatrics takes over from there and Gia is back to work, doing whatever she does with Mariana. The poor woman is sobbing, asking why her baby isn’t crying. I need that baby to cry. I need it to cry right fucking now. I will not break that promise about neither of them dying on my watch.

I’m half-heartedly supervising as one of my interns cleans and sutures Marian’s chest wound which is in fact, superficial, while surgery is assessing her flank wound. But my eyes are focused on the team working on that baby.

And just as I’m about to ask for the baby’s status, he cries and everyone breathes out a collective sigh of relief. “Five-minute APGAR is a seven,” one of the doctors announces with a smile, and Gia tells Mariana that Antonio looks good, but will be in a special nursery while they work on fixing her.

Mariana is crying, and thanking Gia profusely. But she’s also starting to turn for the worse now that the baby is out and her adrenaline is ebbing.

OB comes bustling in. They examine Mariana quickly, congratulating Gia on a job well done before they leave. They don’t even confer with me. Surgery takes a bleeding Mariana up to the OR. The NICU team follows the surgical team and the chaos is over, with only the remains of trauma left to be cleaned.

The nurses are cataloging everything that was used, documenting as needed. My intern is animatedly effusing about how that was the craziest trauma he’s ever been in and the nurses are laughing because this is New York City and they’ve seen much worse than that.

Max Slater is bragging about how he had his hands inside the woman’s side and I’m content because no one died in my trauma room.

Gia is silently scrubbing down at the sink. Once she’s done with that, she grabs a dry blue cloth and wipes her hands off. “Dr. Banner,” she says coolly with her back still to me. “May I have a word please.” It’s not a question. It’s a demand. And then she stalks out of the room, leaving me with the smiles and snickers of the lingering crowd.

“You think I’m in trouble?” I tease because we’re all in pretty good spirits after that one. Enjoying the positive high and endorphin rush.

“I heard Gia Bianchi is hardcore and doesn’t take shit kindly,” Corrine, one of the senior nurses says. The other nurses are nodding their heads in agreement.

“So that’s a yes then,” I deadpan and they laugh.

“You are the master of giving shit,” Max Slater says and when I treat him to my most menacing glare, he tosses his hands up in surrender. “Just saying you might have met your match with that one.” If only he knew. I throw a Corrine a wink and a bow my thanks to the other nurses because they deserve it for all their hard work and then I leave.

Gia is out in the hall, waiting on me. Her cheeks are flushed and her skin is slightly tacky, and her hair is disheveled and her eyes are wild, and she’s the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Goddamn. I have the strongest urge to grab her small body and haul her off to a dark corner.

“Miss Bianchi,” I greet her and she scowls at me.

“Dr. Banner, this way.” Then she spins on the heels of her lavender clogs and marches off down the hall.

To be honest, if it were any other person, I wouldn’t have let them get this far. I would have ended it in the trauma room or right here in the hall. But I’m enjoying this with her way too much. The fact that she’s unbelievably hot when she’s angry is only fueling me on.

Gia pushes open the door to one of the small exam rooms and storms in with authority. She spins back around, her arms crossed under her breasts and my eyes can’t help but bounce down there for a moment. She doesn’t speak. In fact, she’s just glaring at me and while I’m liking the hell out of this little encounter, I really don’t have the time.

“Well?” I prompt. “What can I do for you.”

She lets out a torrent of air. “You were completely out of line back there when you made that comment about asking for a doctor instead of a midwife. You should have never done that in front of not only the patient but the other staff. You completely undermined me. That was a perilous situation and yeah, it should have been an OB instead of me. But obviously there wasn’t a choice or I wouldn’t have been sent down instead.”

“Are you finished?” Her eyes flare, but she nods all the same. “You’re right. I should have never challenged you like that in front of the patient or my staff. I apologize.”

Her eyes widen and her mouth pops open a little and it’s quite possibly the most adorable reaction. “Seriously? I’m right and you apologize?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Wow...um.” Then she laughs, shaking her head. “I was totally gearing up for a fight.”

“Nah. Not in the mood. They’re both alive. We can fight about something else another time.”

“Now I feel kinda foolish for making this whole scene.”

I chuckle lightly, taking a few steps until I breach her personal space. I do this a lot with her. I can’t seem to help myself. I’m oddly addicted to this. Oddly addicted to her.

For all her strength and bravado, she comes undone easily. Or maybe that’s just with me because she swallows hard, taking a step back until her ass hits the empty gurney. Her eyes stay focused on mine as her breaths increase ever so slightly. Just enough for me to notice.

Just enough to make me want to push into her so she can feel exactly what she does to me. God, this woman drives me wild. Makes it nearly impossible to think clearly. To act rationally.

“I don’t mind that you made a scene,” I say oh-so softly, inclining my head in her direction. “You’re very pretty when you’re angry with me.”

“Two steps forward and one step back,” she replies.

“What does that mean, Gia?”

She laughs, pushing against me, but instead of creating more space between us, she leans into me on her tiptoes, her weight balanced against my chest. “It means, Finn,” she emphasizes my name, “that I’m tired of the mind games. That I’m tired of the invasion of my personal space and your dirty, sexy flirting. It means stick to your fucking guns or don’t. I’m done with the in-between.” Gia places a kiss on my cheek, lowers herself away from me and then walks to the door. “See you around, Dr. Banner.”

Met my match in deed. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a woman as much as I want Gia Bianchi in this minute. Certainly, no one has ever turned me on as much.

Which is exactly why I let her leave.