30DaystoSyn (9 page)

“Just curious,” she said. “I get the same
meds when I have to go in to the ER.”

“Huh,” Craig grunted. “A match made in
heaven. Unbutton your jeans and turn your arse over, Synnie.”

He did as he was ordered, groaning as he
rolled over.

“Pull his pants down a bit, will ya, love?”
Craig asked.

“She’s been wanting to do that all night,”
he said with a smirk.

“Will you please stop?” she asked.

“Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a stop
button,” Craig said. “I’ve looked.”

“Limp dick,” he growled.

“Asswipe,” Craig returned.

She tugged the waistband of the jeans down
his hip and held it in place as Craig stabbed the needle into his patient’s ass
as though he was throwing a dart.

“Fuck, Craigie!” he cried out, flinching.
“That hurt!”

“Fuck, Synnie, you knew it was going to.”

“Fuck.”

“Stop being such a pussy,” Craig told him.

“It does burn,” she said.

“Yeah, well he should be used to it by
now.”

“I don’t think you ever get used to it.
I’ve got lumps on my fanny from years of getting poked,” she stated.

There was a gasp from one of the men—she
couldn’t tell which one—then they both howled with laughter, the howl dying
down to a fit of the giggles.

“What did I say?” she demanded.

Wiping his eyes from laughing so hard, Craig
put a hand on her shoulder. “Sweetie,” he said. “In Kiwi-ese, a fanny doesn’t
mean the same thing as it does to a Yank.”

“What does it mean then?” she asked.

“Don’t tell her,” he told Craig. He was
rubbing his hand on the place where he’d been injected.

“Look it up,” Craig said as he capped the
syringe and put it back in his bag then closed it. “He’s gonna be down for a
few hours. Are you staying?”

“Looks that way,” she said.

“Good. I won’t worry about the little
prick.” He grinned. “I didn’t get your name, Miss…”

“It’s none of your business!” he snapped,
drawing his knees up into the fetal position.

“Well, Miss Noneofyourbusiness, it was nice
meeting you,” Craig told her.

“It was nice meeting you, Dr. Tonika,” she
replied.

“It’s Craigie. Call me if that headache
isn’t gone in four hours and I’ll jog over and pop him again. I love hurting
the little wanker.”

She liked Craig. He had the same goofy grin
that she had come to adore on Jonny and wondered if all Māori men of
his
acquaintance smiled so readily and were so personable, if they all teased him
so unmercifully. She started to walk him to the door.

“He can leave without your assistance. Come
here.”

Craig rolled his eyes. “Better scoot.
That’s his pissy tone.”

“Yes, I know. I’m all too familiar with it,”
she said.

“Melina!”

She looked around to find him on his back
once again with his hand outstretched toward her.

“Call me if you need me,” Craig said again.

“Thank you,” she said as he opened the door
and exited, lifting a hand in acknowledgement of her gratitude.

“He’s a nice man,” she said when she
returned to the bed. She slipped her hand in his and he placed it against his
chest and snorted.

“That’s a load of lod cods wollop,” he
replied and she stared at him, wondering if that was a real phrase from his
homeland or Demerol-induced gobbledygook.

“Is there a dictionary of New Zealand words
and phrases I can buy?” she asked.

“I’ll teach you everything you need to know
after I let my ferret run.”

“What?” she asked.

“Lie down with me,” he mumbled, his words
beginning to slur from the potency of the narcotic.

“You need to go to sleep,” she said. “I’ll
sit over by the win—”

“You lie down with me, Melina!” he ordered.
“You lie down with
me
!”

“All right!” she snapped. “Let me take off
my sandals.”

“T-shirt and jammies in the dunny,” he
said, running his hand up and down hers, pressing it harder against his chest.
“That’s what you sleep in every night—T-shirt and jammies.”

“Of course you’d know,” she said and tried
to slide her hand from under his. “I’m assuming dunny is New Zealandish for
bathroom?”

“Kiwi-ese,” he corrected. “I speak
Kiwi-ese.”

“Well, let go so I can go change.”

“T-shirt and jammies. Pretty little cotton
jammies wid bundy wabbits on ‘em. Sweet little cot…” he said, the last word
fading away as the drug took complete control of him.

As she pulled her hand back she watched his
lips part and thought he was out. She sat there looking at him and realized she
was beginning to like the arrogant, high-handed jerk—which was no doubt what he
intended. Any woman would consider him a box full of eye candy and the taut
muscles beneath the tight T-shirt were enough to fan the lowest of flames into
a full conflagration of lust.

“You are way too handsome for your own
good,” she said softly. “Or for mine.”

She looked down at the hand that lay on his
chest. It was a strong hand with short, clean, professionally manicured nails.
The large signet ring he wore gleamed as his chest rose rhythmically in slow
cadence to the soft breath coming from his parted lips.

She went into the bathroom and found a new
pair of pajama bottoms and a bright pink T-shirt folded neatly on the vanity.
The pajamas were pale blue with tiny koala bears climbing eucalyptus trees.
G’day Mate! was written in pink script across the front of the t-shirt.

“You are a goof ball,” she whispered as she
began to undress. “You really are.”

He was beginning to burrow a tiny hole
inside her heart like one of the little kiwis she’d seen on the National
Geographic Channel. He was becoming her Kiwi in more ways than one.

Clad in the soft cotton pjs and T-shirt,
she started to turn off the bathroom light but thought better of it. The room
was very shadowy—as it needed to be for him to sleep—but if she needed to get
up to take care of him, she didn’t want to be blundering around in the dark.
She did, however, ease the door almost shut and was annoyed that the shaft of
light from the room fell directly on his face.

“No wonder you had your arm over your
eyes,” she said as she crawled into the bed beside him.

She thought he was out of it but as soon as
she lay down, he rolled over and gathered her in his arms before she could
react. He put his forehead and nose to hers but didn’t open his eyes.

“Night, baby,” he mumbled.

“Go to sleep, Kiwi,” she said and watched
him smile. He took three breaths and completely relaxed and the fierce hold he
had on her loosened.

Her gaze wandered over his face. In the low
light, there were dark hollows under his eyes and the pain had given him a
slight pallor. Though his lids were closed, she could picture the vibrant blue
of his eyes and knew at that moment should he open them, the pupils would be
wildly dilated from the drug. He looked younger. He looked vulnerable and for
some reason that brought out her protective instincts. Something moved inside
her and she knew she’d never knowingly hurt him.

“
You wouldn’t be the first woman to do
that to me
,” he’d said and she wondered what he’d meant.

“Melina…” he said on a long sigh and she
realized he was floating in that muted, numbing netherworld of the narcotic
where nothing registered. Soon he would be under completely.

“Kiwi,” she whispered and snuggled against
him.

As she drifted into sleep, she took the
sight of his face down with her into her dreams.

He woke slowly, experiencing that body
encased in cotton feel he knew all too well. He rolled to his back. Opening his
eyes slowly, he stared at the ceiling above him and wondered where the hell he
was. Instead of staring at himself in the mirror tiles over his bed at home, he
was looking at nondescript acoustic tiles. He turned his head on the pillow and
his gaze fell on the sweep of windows covered in drapes. It took him a moment
or two to realize he was in the Room. When he did, he pushed up on his elbows
and looked around.

She was nowhere to be seen.

“Melina?” he called out and coughed. His
voice was hoarse as it always was after coming off a particularly nasty
migraine episode. He tried again. “Melina?”

There was no answer and his first instinct
was to bellow her name. He was annoyed she wasn’t immediately at his beck and
call. He sat up.

“Melina, where are you, woman?” he
demanded.

The realization that she was gone
infuriated him and he carelessly swung his legs from the bed and got
up—immediately wishing he’d been more prudent as things shifted wildly around
him.

“Whoa!” he said and plopped his arse back
on the bed, molding his hands over the edge of the mattress to keep from flying
off into space as the room spun around him.

When the room finally stopped moving and he
managed to open his tightly closed eyes, he lay down and pulled his legs back
on the bed. Almost immediately, there was a ringing sound coming from under his
pillow. He reached his hand up, shoved it under the pillow to retrieve the cell
phone, wondering how the hell it got there.

“Yeah,” he mumbled as he put it to his ear.

“You okay, bro?” Jono asked.

“I’m alive if that’s what you mean,” he
responded.

“I’m on my way back with black coffee. TOA
five minutes.”

“Where is she?” he snapped.

“This time of day?” Jono asked. “At work.”

“You took her to work?” he demanded.

“It’s Friday, bro. I came and got her, took
her home, but her friend Rachel took her to work.”

“I wanted her here when I woke up!”

“The woman’s got a job, Synnie,” Jono
reminded him. “She don’t work, she don’t get paid.”

Without replying, he hung up on his friend
and thumbed in the number for his office.

“McGregor Industries,” a cheerful voice
greeted him. “How may I direct your call?”

“This is McGregor,” he snapped. “Put me
directly through to Anderson Holt.”

“Good morning, Mr. McGregor,” the perky
woman said. “One moment while I connect you, sir.”

“You plan on coming in today?” Anderson
inquired when he came on the line.

“No,” he growled. “There’s something I want
you to do.”

“Today?”

“Yes, today! Drop whatever you’re doing.
Nothing you’re doing is more important than this.”

“Syn, I’m working on the Kuwaiti deal.
There’s nothing more important than—”

“
Fucking do what I tell you, Andy
!”
he shouted and sorely wished he hadn’t for the room ricocheted again and pain
lanced through his head.

“All right,” Anderson said. “Don’t have a
hissy fit! Whatcha want done?”

“I don’t care how much it costs or what you
have to do but I want to own Dunham, Belvoir, and Brell by the end of the day.”

“Excuse me?” Anderson asked after a long
pause.

“You fucking heard me, Andy. I want that
fucking company and I want it now!”

He turned off the phone and dropped it on
the bed beside him. Burrowing his cheek into the coolness of the pillow under
his head, he realized the migraine wasn’t entirely gone. To add to his misery,
his hip hurt like a mother from the shot. Absently, he reached down to rub at
the offending injection sight. He heard a sound at the door and knew Jono had
arrived.

“How’s it going bugalugs?” Jono asked,
grinning.

“Don’t you take her anywhere again without
my direct say-so,” he told his friend as soon as he was in the room.

“So now she’s to be your hostage from here
on out?” Jono asked. He brought a cardboard container with two tall Styrofoam
cups over to the bed.

“I wanted her here when I woke up,” he
said.

“If she hadn’t called me, she would have
called a cab, bro,” Jono reminded him. “Unless you put shackles and a leash on
her, how you gonna keep her from doing that if I tell her I can’t pick her up?”

“After tonight, she won’t want to leave,”
he stated.

“And you know this because…”

“Don’t you have a job to do?” he countered
as he gingerly sat up.

Jono plucked one of the cups of coffee from
the carrier and extended it toward him. “My main job is babysitting you.”

“Fuck you,” he snapped. He took a cautious
sip of the strong brew.

“You wish,” Jono answered with a chuckle.
He came around to the opposite side of the bed, sat down and stretched out. He
sniffed then sniffed again. “Too sick to root last night, bro?”

“We haven’t done that yet,” he told his
friend.

“Well, now,” Jono said, eyebrows elevated.
“That has to be a world record for the Kiwi Kutie.”

“I’ve told you not to call me that!”

“Hey, that’s not my nickname for you, bro.
I prefer shithead. Frankly, I don’t find you cute at all. You’re really not my
type. I think that came from one of those gossip rags, didn’t it?”

“Anne Sheridan of
StarTalk
,” he
grumbled.

“Oh, yeah. Wasn’t she the broad who told
everyone you and she were engaged?”

He took a long swig of the hot coffee and
winced as he burned his tongue. “How was she this morning?” he inquired,
wanting to get off the subject of Sheridan.

“A little quieter even than usual. She kept
yawning so I assumed she probably watched over you all night and didn’t get
much shuteye.”

“I wanted her here when I woke up.”

“Can’t always get what you want, bro,” Jono
said then grunted. “Well, maybe
you
can since you’re richer than Midas.”

“I want her,” he said quietly and realized
it was the truth. He felt—rather than saw—Jono give him a stunned look. “I mean
it. I want her, Jono.”

“You want every woman you take to your bed,
bro,” Jono said.

“I want
her
,” he repeated,
emphasizing the word.

There was a long, long pause. “As in
only
her?” Jono asked.

He nodded slowly then took another swallow
of the coffee.

“How do you know it’s just her?” Jono
asked.

“Every night I’m sitting here getting the
colly wobbles waiting for her to walk through the door,” he said quietly. “When
she does, my entire body begins to ache.”

“Could be something you ate,” Jono
suggested.

He ignored him. “My muttongun starts to
throb as soon as I see her. My jeans get so tight it feels like the zipper’s
gonna bust.”

“Now, that could be a case of the dreaded
lurgy,” Jono told him.

“I’m being serious, Jono!” he declared. “I
think I’m falling for her!”

Jono’s mouth dropped open. “Get off the
grass!” he whispered.