Page 20 of Accidental Doctor Daddy

I glanced to my left to find a classically beautiful woman standing there. She was tall with sleek gold-toned brunette hair and a graceful manner that matched the bar’s upscale vibe. Her dress was elegant, a simple black number that hinted at curves without revealing much. Thin. Painfully so. In this city, she was as likely to be a model as an accountant.

She was all sharp angles and gloss.

Not like Ella.

Ella was warmth. Ella was weight and softness, laughter and poetry.

This woman was a glossy magazine spread. Ella was art.

I took in the polished exterior and the expectant tilt of her head. Something about her reminded me of the women I used to pursue—confident, near my age, perfectly put together. But tonight, her presence was an unwelcome interruption to my thoughts. I preferred my melancholy over her company.

"Thank you, but I'm not interested," I said firmly, my tone leaving no room for further discussion.

She wasn’t Ella. She didn’t have Ella’s wild laugh or the soft curves I couldn’t stop imagining beneath my hands. This woman was sleek and polished. Ella had been messy and alive—real.

No one else stood a chance tonight.

She lingered a beat longer than necessary, eyes scanning mine for some sign of regret. Maybe she expected me to cave, to flash a smile and ask what she was drinking. But I didn’t. I kept my expression flat, my body still. Eventually, her heels clicked back toward her table, sharper than before. Annoyed, maybe. Surprised. Either way, she was gone.

I turned back to my whiskey, let the sounds of the bar dull to a low, ambient thrum. Laughter in the far booth, glasses clinking at the bar. A game played silently on the mounted TV above the shelves.

The drink was smoother than I expected. A slow burn down my throat that didn’t match the one gnawing in my chest.

I’d gone to the island to get some perspective, to breathe away from the fluorescent hell of the hospital and the daily pissing match with Seth Bowan. But here I was, back in the ring, day one post-vacation, wondering why the hell I cared about climbing a ladder that felt more like a noose.

Maybe it was just the mood. Long day. Long year.

Or maybe it was Leo.

I took another sip, jaw tight. I hadn’t spoken to my son since before the trip—not really. Our last conversation had ended with me snapping and him slamming the door behind him. Typical. He needed help, and I’d run out of ways to say it. Out of ways to fix it.

I’d considered extreme measures more than once—those shadowy intervention outfits that specialized in dragging addicts into recovery centers. But I couldn’t do it. Not like that. Leo didn’t need a cage; he needed a reason to change. And I didn’t know if he still saw me as one.

My reflection stared back at me from the amber liquid in my glass—calm, composed, nothing like how I felt inside.

Because even now, even here, in the low light of a bar meant for forgetting things, she was there.

Ella.

The way her voice had curled around a line of poetry. The way her skin had tasted under my hands. The way she made me feel young and raw and completely fucking unprepared for what came next.

If she’d lived anywhere else—if she’d just been a passing spark on a distant island—I could have let her go.

But she was here.

In my city.

In my head.

And if I didn’t see her again soon, I was going to come undone.

Chapter 7

Ella

Suivante was my home, the restaurant that had lifted me from sous chef to assistant head chef.

The clatter of the restaurant kitchen was the soundtrack of my life, and it energized me from the time I walked into the restaurant until I walked out. Until now.

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