The Doctor's Forbidden Temptation. Tina Beckett

bad those special glasses couldn’t help him peer into Nata’s head and help him repair what he had messed up. Instead, he was flying blind and every word he’d spoken in her apartment afterwards had seemed to make things worse.

      He knew she’d hated the way he and Sebastian had treated her like cracked glass, afraid the slightest knock would cause her to shatter into a thousand pieces. She’d surprised both of them, not only by not breaking but powering through her whole ordeal with a lot more grace than he might have done. And she’d come out the other end a beautiful and mostly confident woman. There was still that scar that she kept hidden. Brazilian women liked their clothes and when it was hot, those clothes were designed to help keep them as cool as possible. And Adam had never fully understood why Natália had wanted so desperately to be a neonatologist when she couldn’t have children of her own. Or maybe it was because of that.

      He avoided that floor of the hospital, because it might not hurt Nata to work there, but it caused a kind of pang in his gut when he thought about her cuddling those babies every single day—especially knowing the awful truth about himself.

      Dragging his thoughts back to the job at hand, he inspected his work and made sure everything was as absolutely sterile as he could and then motioned to his assistant. “Let’s line up the bone, so I can set the pins.” Danielle moved to the knee, while Adam stayed where he was, handing his instruments to one of the nurses. Tugging the bones in opposite directions, they were able to maneuver them so the broken ends joined back together. Then, with Danielle keeping everything in place, he quickly drilled the pins into the bones.

      He knew where he’d gone wrong with Nata. He just didn’t know how to rectify his mistake. Not without insulting her. Or, worse, hurting her feelings.

      Hell, what if they’d spent the night together? He’d have to do something a whole lot stronger than hurt her feelings if that was the case.

      Yeah, things could definitely be worse than they were. The only thing to do was finish this surgery and find Natália. Then together they could come up with a game plan on how to handle this whole thing. Either that or he’d better turn tail and run for the next big city. And if there was one thing Adam didn’t do, it was run.

      * * *

      Propping the tiny form up on her shoulder, she stared at the familiar figure standing outside the viewing area. Adam? Here in the neonatal intensive care unit?

      She could count on one hand the number of times he’d been down here. Actually, on two fingers. He’d come to visit her floor exactly twice. She’d been up to Orthopedics lots of times. She had friends up there. She guessed Adam didn’t have any friends in her department. Except for her, that was.

      Unless they were no longer friends.

      Her heart shot down her throat, lodging somewhere in her abdomen. Was he here to tell her that he wanted nothing to do with her?

      He motioned at the interior of the room in an unspoken question. Can I come in?

      More than anything she wanted to shake her head and tell him there was no trespassing. Not on her turf and not in her heart. But she also wanted to know what he wanted.