Chapter 1
For several seconds, I thought I was trapped inside a dream.
The ceiling of my childhood bedroom outside Boston floated above me like pale water.
Rain tapped softly against the tall windows.
My muscles hurt so badly that even breathing seemed to pull against something bruised inside me.
Then the man sitting beside my bed leaned forward.
“Easy,” he said.
“Don’t try to sit up too fast.”
His voice was low.
Steady.
Kind without sounding rehearsed.
I blinked until his face sharpened.
Early thirties.
Broad shoulders beneath a charcoal sweater.
Brown hair that looked as though he had been running both hands through it for hours.
Faint stubble along his jaw.
Gray-blue eyes.
Those eyes were what unsettled me.
Because he was looking at me as though my waking up had just changed the entire direction of his night.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Daniel Mercer.
I’m a doctor.”
He lifted a glass of water.
“Small sips.”
“How did you get into my bedroom?”
One corner of his mouth moved.
“Your mother let me in.”
“That sounds marginally less criminal.”
He smiled.
Dimples.
Of course.
The universe apparently had a sense of humor.
If Emily Whitmore was going to wake up looking like someone had dragged her behind a snowplow, she might as well do it in front of the most offensively attractive doctor in Massachusetts.
“You collapsed during dinner,” Daniel said.
Memory returned in pieces.
My father’s annual winter fundraiser.
Thirty people around our dining room.
Champagne.
Silver place settings.
Someone praising the Whitmore Foundation.
Someone else asking when I planned to stop “playing with consulting work” and accept the position my father had designed for me.
The chandelier becoming too bright.
My mother calling my name.
Then nothing.
“How bad?”
“Your temperature was 104.1 when I arrived.”
“That seems dramatic.”
“You joke when you’re scared.”
“I joke whenever I’m conscious.”
“Good habit.”
He reached toward my forehead.
Then stopped.
“May I?”
That tiny question caught me off guard.
My whole life had been full of people deciding things for me.
My mother chose my schools.
My father arranged internships.
Family assistants booked appointments.
Stylists entered dressing rooms without knocking because Whitmore events operated on schedules, and schedules apparently mattered more than privacy.
Even the Boston apartment where I lived belonged to a family trust.
I nodded.
Daniel pressed the back of his fingers against my forehead.
His skin felt cool against mine.
I closed my eyes.
“Still warm,” he murmured.
“But better.”
“Were you here all night?”
“It’s three twenty.”
“That is not an answer.”
His gaze flicked toward the chair.
A medical bag rested beside a mug of untouched coffee.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He genuinely looked confused by the question.
“Because you were sick.”
The simplicity of it hurt more than it should have.
In my family, people did things for reasons.
Introductions had purposes.
Dinners had agendas.
Donations had plaques.
Favors had memories.
Daniel had apparently spent hours in a chair because a stranger had a fever.
“My regular doctor?”
“At a conference.”
“Your father?”
“Covers for him sometimes.
He had emergency surgery tonight.”
“So he sent you.”
“Yes.”
“You make house calls?”
“Almost never.”
“So I am special.”
“You are extremely inconvenient.”
I smiled despite myself.
Daniel checked the thermometer.
His expression sharpened.
“103.2.”
“Better.”
“Technically.”
“Doctor optimism is strange.”
His smile disappeared.
“What do I have?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer frightened me more than any diagnosis.
“I suspect an infection.
Your lungs sound clear.
Blood pressure was stable when I last checked it.
Your oxygen saturation is normal.
But your heart rate is higher than I want.”
“What happens if the fever doesn’t drop?”
“We go to the hospital.”
“We?”
“I’m not sending you alone.”
Something tightened in my chest.
Not romance.
I barely knew his last name.
Something more primitive.
The strange shock of realizing another person had decided my fear was worth sharing.
The bedroom door opened.
My father entered.
Richard Whitmore wore pressed trousers and a white dress shirt despite the hour.
His silver hair was neat.
His expression controlled.
My father could have watched civilization collapse from the terrace and still asked someone whether the quarterly figures had been backed up.
“How is she?”
Daniel stood.
“Still febrile.”
“I have a flight to Chicago at seven.”
Daniel looked at him.
“You should cancel it.”
Silence dropped into the room.
People did not tell Richard Whitmore to cancel things.
“The meeting concerns a forty-million-dollar development partnership,” my father said.
“Your daughter has a temperature over one hundred and three.”
“My wife will remain here.”
My mother appeared behind him.
Margaret Whitmore wore a blue silk robe.
Her blond hair was loose around her shoulders.
She looked pale.
“I’ll stay.”
Daniel glanced at her.
He did not look reassured.
He looked at the thermometer again.
Then at me.
His face changed.
The calm disappeared.
“Emily.”
Something in his voice made my stomach turn.
“What?”
He reached for my wrist and counted my pulse.
“What is it?”
His fingers tightened.
“Your fever is dropping too fast.”
My father took one step closer.
“What does that mean?”
Daniel ignored him.
“Emily, are you dizzy?”
“I already feel like the room is trying to leave without me.”
“Any nausea?”
“Yes.”
“Can you breathe normally?”
“I think so.”
His eyes went to my mother.
“When did she last take acetaminophen?”
“About two hours ago.”
“Dose?”
My mother hesitated.
“I don’t know.
The normal amount.”
Daniel opened his medical bag.
He pulled out a blood-pressure cuff.
My father said, “Mercer.”
Daniel wrapped it around my arm.
“Not now.”
The cuff tightened.
He watched the reading.
I watched him.
“What?”
He checked it again manually.
May you like
“Daniel.”
“Your blood pressure is falling.”
