His daunting body and singular looks created an impression that was overwhelming. With his wet, tousled hair and livid darkness, he was downright intimidating. Not that intimidation featured in the chaotic feelings he provoked in her. “And if I’d had that kind of power over Diego, he’d probably be alive today,” he continued.
“Oh, so it wasn’t me who got him killed, then? Or do you only mean you’d have banned him from knowing me, the reason for his death?”
Something flitted in his eyes. Her eyes narrowed, trying to catch and nail down the elusive expression. He snatched it out of her reach with an exhalation and a turn of his head. “That was out of line.”
What? The infallible Armando Salazar admitting to a transgression? And to her? That had to be another first. Adding to every other world-shattering first she’d had in Argentina. Her first lover. Her first command. Her first break-up. Her first car crash, emergency operation and riot. And now the first thing that sounded like an apology from the man who’d been the common factor in it all.
“I was—still am—furious with you, but that’s no excuse. It was an accident, and no matter where your relationship was at the time—which is no business of mine…” He stopped, tossed her a turbulent look. “Infierno, Laura. You’re not dragging me into a pointless dissection of the past. You’re going back to La Clínica and this time you’re not walking out before you’re fully healed, even if I have to chain you to your bed.”
Anger spiked. “Well, let me tell you something, you—”
“I lost Diego, Laura.” His forceful baritone was so unexpectedly, so unbearably soft, it had her retaliation sticking in her throat. “He slipped through my fingers and I couldn’t save him. But I saved you, and I’m damned if I’ll lose you now!”
Something hard tumbled in her chest. What was that in his steel eyes? Pain? The juggernaut who played as hard and fast as he worked, who swept everyone and everything aside and did as he pleased, actually had…feelings?
For the three months she’d been in Argentina she’d been busy avoiding him, then resenting him. In the past few days, she’d been battling death then emotional turmoil, desperately seeking closure. It never occurred to her to look through his eyes, feel his turmoil. Diego had been his cousin, more of a younger brother. And he’d died in his hands.
And he had saved her. Not that she couldn’t undo all his efforts. The pain in her side was sobering—frightening even. It was pointless, childish, arguing with him when he was right. And he did make her feel childish, stupid.
The need to defend herself to him rose again, and this time it wouldn’t be denied. “I never intended jeopardizing myself, but I couldn’t ignore the victims.”
His laugh was furious. “That’s probably the one thing I’m not angry with you about. It was stupid, unbelievably so—but it was very brave. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
Don’t rise to that. He expects it.
What the hell. She’d satisfy him, the callous creep. “Oh? You mean I wasn’t after another photo and headline?” He grimaced, shrugging away his earlier maligning words. “What the hell do you know what I have or don’t have in me? What gives you the right to pass judgement on people—just who do you think you are?”
“I’m your surgeon, that’s all I am right now. And I may not know you, but can you deny you’ve had way too many photos in magazines and newspapers since you arrived?”
“It wasn’t me as me all over those pages. It was me as so-called head of Global Aid Organization’s Argentina Project. And it wasn’t even a GAO initiative. It was your local newspapers that developed that unhealthy interest in me and my team, and I’m damned if I know why!”
Armando knew why all right. Couldn’t believe she didn’t. She was too tempting to the paparazzi. The dazzling American surgeon, turning her back on her family’s riches, throwing away a lucrative private practice in the US to come to Argentina, devoting herself to humanitarian work. Add that to the trendy hook of her online romance with Diego and the stunning sight they’d made together…
He hadn’t had the stamina to look at newspapers lately. He would bet, with the accident and Diego’s death, interest in her must have spiked to fever pitch. And if they found out she’d risked her life to save riot victims…
“And I wasn’t in Buenos Aires to report you.”
Her forceful statement jerked his attention back to her. His gaze slid off the road and over her. Took her all in. Glossy, rain-straight hair, the perplexing blend of black, blue and indigo, pulled into that down-to-her-waist, unflattering braid. The unique bone structure and drained tan of a face that spoke of her brush with death. Bluish-yellow bruises, spreading like leaking ink stains from beneath her dressings. Lips, usually dimpled, flushed bows, now a taut, colorless line. And eyes. Those eyes! Sooty-lashed chameleon emeralds, now murky jades set in fragile purple. A body that had gone from luscious to almost skinny.
And she still sent his hormones raging.
He swore.
“Boy, I knew you were…many things. I’m adding plain crude to my list!”
“Your Spanish is taking off if you understood that.”
“Swear words are a must-know-first in any foreign language. A universal defense against locals who enjoy insulting you to your face, counting on your ignorance!”
“That was a strictly inner debate, not intended for your ears. Sorry I blurted it out loud.”
Her eyes lightened, becoming emerald again with suspicion. “It’s too late to pretend, Salazar!”
“I agree. It is too late. You’ve called me Armando at last, so you can’t go back to calling me Salazar.”
“I used to call you Dr. Salazar, and I called you Armando…” She stopped, shook her head, looked away.
“Only because you thought I’d been shot,” he completed for her. “I always did wonder at your insistence on calling me Doctor, even when we were meeting socially, daily, when I’m on a first-name basis with everyone. You are, too. Why do you find it so hard to say my name?”
Was the man for real? He didn’t realize she’d rather not call him anything, not be near him at all? That he made her feel defensive, vulnerable, useless?
That first time Diego had dragged her to Armando’s house, to show her off to “the Salazar patriarch”, Armando had taken one look at her, one hard, drawn-out, enervating look, then, thankfully, had dismissed her. He’d looked at Diego as if he’d lost his mind, getting mixed up with her. He hadn’t said anything, though. A month later, he’d made it equally clear he thought GAO crazy to give her the aid operation reins. This time he’d done something about it.
One day she’d been head of GAO’s mission in Argentina, the next, for all intents and purposes, his subordinate. He’d swooped in and snatched it from beneath her feet, then shoved her out of the picture.
He wasn’t only local and a medical jack of all trades, a surgeon/emergency doctor/search-and-rescue operative all rolled into one; he was also director of La Clínica—Argentina’s most revolutionary medical facility. He’d established it after Argentina’s financial collapse had torn apart all systems, the medical system being the paradigm of disintegration.
She’d met Diego when he’d been in the US recruiting medical personnel for his cousin’s project. And before she’d met him, she’d thought it the most exciting, enterprising medical endeavor ever. If it hadn’t been for her previous commitment to GAO, she would have loved to have joined herself.
But then she had met him.
It had all gone nightmarishly wrong. Coming to Argentina was supposed to have been the start of her new life—the love she’d never had, the work she’d always dreamed of and people who really needed her. So many