Tempted Read Free Page A

and parties in those years before the war.
    But yes, she thought as she smelled his aftershave and his linen shirt, it was
interesting
.
    He stepped back and she looked at her shoes, hastily put on a few hours ago. “You forget yourself, Doctor,” she whispered. A weak chastisement over the pounding of her heart.
    “I do,” he agreed. His fingers brushed back the wild cloud of her hair, and she wanted to groan and jerk herself away—she did not like that. “But I find… I want to help you. As you have helped me.”
    “You delude yourself if you think I have helped you. If anything, I have made it far too easy for you to fail yourself.”
    His smile… his smile was painful in its masculine prettiness, and she did not fool herself that if his life had gone the way it was supposed to, he would ever direct that kind of smile in her direction. “Before you reject my proposal, I urge you to think about it.” He touched her neck, a searing, startling touch right where her heart pounded.
    He walked out of the room. And she stood there, her hand at her neck, unsure of what to think. How to feel.
    And then she gave herself a shake and began to clean up the mess.

 
    Chapter 2
     
    T he next morning Dr. Madison was awake, checking on the patient, when she came downstairs.
    “You did a good job,” he said without turning around. He wore one of his impeccable suits, the fine cloth making the most of his height. “Your stitches have gotten better.”
    The flush of pleasure she felt over this compliment was stronger than the flush of pleasure she’d felt over his proposal.
    She had no intention of accepting that proposal, but the kiss had kept her up late, watching the clouds travel across the moon outside her window. That kiss would not go to bed. And that it was from him, given to her because she was wealthy and he felt guilty and beholden, made it all the more sour.
    “Thank you,” she said, shifting the lamp on the table over a few inches for no good reason.
    “I'll wake him up in a few minutes," he said. “Send him on his way.”
    “Let him sleep.”
    “If we do that, every exhausted drunk will be on our doorstep, manufacturing a cough,” he said.
    As a girl, her mother had called Anne unnatural. And she’d known it wasn’t just her leg, or her eyesight. It wasn’t even her hair, or her mousy plain looks. It was that she’d wanted to be more than a dutiful daughter. A loving wife. A doting mother. And those were the only things her mother—or even her beloved sister, who’d suffered so much to get those goals—cared about.
    When he turned, the milky sunlight coming through the window did the doctor no favors. He was too pale, the circles under his eyes too dark. His eyes too red. But when he smiled, all of those things vanished in the light of that smile.
    Oh, James
, she thought,
you are too good for this
.
    “About yesterday,” he said. “I—”
    “I would rather we forgot all about it,” she said, having come to that decision early this morning. She did not want to be married—not to anyone, but least of all to this man and his addiction. But that kiss… She didn’t know what to do with that kiss. “You were under the influence of chloroform.”
    His shrewd dark eyes watched her. Her father always used to say
a liar knows a lie
.
    “If that's what you prefer,” he whispered, and she nodded, her tongue in knots.
    Another heavy knock on the door made her jump in the doorway. “I’ll… I’ll go get that.”
    She walked out of the exam room slowly, her back and neck sore from the surgery yesterday, making the limp worse.
    There was another knock. Not a pounding. No yelling, so she didn’t think it was medical emergency behind that door.
    “I’m coming,” she muttered, and threw open the door.
    A tall man stood there, a black coat over his wide shoulders. A brown hat low over his eyes. Blond hair hung down past his ears. He gave the impression of being braced against a cold wind only he