Why she thought she needed implants was beyond him. He supposed she wanted them bigger or perkier or whatever. Bigger is better in Hollywood. Or wherever the hell she was going to be working next.
Ridiculous.
He glanced around the hospital waiting room. It was empty except for him and Luna’s manager Daniel.
Two men, waiting around for hours so one spoiled girl could have bigger boobs.
Why was it taking so long anyway? He’d always been under the impression it was a simple and quick surgery. A couple of slits. Shove a pouch of silicone inside each one. Stitch up the incisions. Done. Big boobs, ready to go.
He shook his head at the whole concept as his grandmother said, “Oh, I gotta go, sweetie. It’s time for my story.”
Kyle smiled, a little sad at the sound of the television turning on and Pedro screeching in the background, “Nobody cares, Chad!”
Believe it or not, he missed their time together watching her favorite shows. Grams in the recliner. Him with his foot up on a pillow on the coffee table. The house quiet since everyone else was at work or school.
Quiet except for Pedro. He even missed that damn noisy, foul-mouthed parrot whose only words were insults hurled at the anonymous Chad.
“Okay, Gram. Go watch your show. I love you.”
“Love you too. Bye-bye, sweetie.”
He disconnected and then glanced up. Daniel’s eyes were focused on him, an amused expression on his face.
Kyle cocked up a brow and met his stare, employing his scariest big bad don’t fuck with a SEAL look.
It worked. Daniel broke eye contact first and went back to pretending to read a magazine.
Victory, albeit a small one.
Kyle drew in a breath big enough it expanded his chest, before he huffed it out. Daniel lifted his gaze again, his brow cocked high this time.
“Any clue how long this is supposed to take?” Kyle asked.
Daniel lifted a shoulder. “No idea.”
Kyle went back to his cell phone, this time, hitting to open the browser. He punched into the search bar, how long do breast enlargements take—
He hesitated.
Was the word enhancement instead of enlargement? He hit the delete button and changed the question to, how long does the surgery take to get breast implants?
Then he hit search.
The returned results filled the screen just as a female wearing surgical scrubs walked into the room.
Phone forgotten, Kyle raised his gaze as she said, “She’s in recovery. You can go sit with her and be there when she wakes up. Only one at a time though.”
“Thanks.” Kyle thanked the nurse, or doctor, or whoever she was, then turned to Daniel. “You going?”
Of course, it should be Daniel. He at least knew Luna, unlike Kyle. And also unlike Kyle, Daniel hopefully actually liked her. Although, they did bicker a lot from what he’d seen.
Daniel shook his head. “Nuh-uh. You should go.”
“Me?” Kyle frowned. “Why me?”
He was the last one who should be at Luna’s bedside when she woke. Actually, Daniel wasn’t the best one to be there either. Angel should be. Wasn’t he her fiancé?
Where the hell was he anyway? Kyle hadn’t seen or heard Angel mentioned in the twenty-four hours he’d been on the job. Not a phone call. Nothing.
“You’re the hired security. It’s what we’re paying you for, right?” Daniel continued in the debate of who got bedside privileges.
This guy sure liked to rub it in how he was paying Kyle to be there. When, as Luna had pointed out, she was the one paying all the bills.
She was the boss, as she’d made so plainly clear yesterday in the suite when he’d arrived. And as boss she, Kyle was sure, would classify him as the dead last person she’d want to see when she opened her eyes in the recovery room immediately after a boob job.
“Don’t you think she’ll want you there instead of me?” he asked.
Daniel shook his head. “No. You’re the guard. So go guard.”
Kyle opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. Meanwhile the nurse waited for their decision.
“All right. I guess it’s me.” He pushed out of the chair and held still.
There were always a few seconds upon getting up where he waited to see how painful bearing weight would be on his ankle. Especially today, after all those hours of sitting.
He felt the ever present ache with just a slight added twinge of pain in the vicinity of the screws holding his damn bone together. Definitely bearable. Still, he wished he’d brought his bottle of Tylenol with him.
Finally, he took a step forward and forced a smile for the woman’s benefit. “Lead the way.”
She hustled ahead and Kyle limped slightly behind. He wasn’t in any hurry to get where they were going anyway.
Hopefully, Luna would be woozy from the anesthesia and not care who she woke up to. Otherwise, he was going to have to be quick in his explanation of why he was there instead of Daniel. Before she laid into him with a rant and another lecture.
Walking into the recovery room brought back too many memories of his own surgery. Although the clinically sparce décor and that undeniable hospital odor was where the similarity ended. It was pretty obvious that money changed everything.
Luna was in a private and spacious room. Like an actual room, with walls.
Kyle had woken up in a curtained space barely wider than the gurney on which he’d reclined.
Enormous amounts of money aside, he supposed he couldn’t compare the military hospital in Landstuhl Germany to a facility like New York Presbyterian.
He glanced around. There was a chair. That was good. He gripped the arms and eased his ass into the seat before stretching out his bad leg.
Glancing over, he saw Luna was still out cold.
Damn. The woman even managed to look good unconscious while rocking a hospital gown…and that was not a thought he could allow in his head.
She was one—a client and therefore off-limits. Two—engaged to be married to some superstar asshole. And three—a self-centered, vain diva.
Feeling like a perv for watching her while she was unconscious, he yanked his gaze off her and back to his phone, the only source of entertainment he had.
He navigated to check his text messages and found nothing new. That was both good and bad.
Good that there was nothing more from his cheating ex to annoy him, which was a nice surprise actually. But there was also nothing from his team.
That was not a surprise considering where they’d been when he’d broken himself and had to leave them. Too risky to get on comms just to say hey.
The low-level panic from the fear he’d never be on an op with them again caused a sick feeling in his gut.
Fuck. He needed a distraction. Maybe he could get good enough signal to stream something on Netflix.
Before he dove into his next binge-watch, he lowered the phone and glanced up… and found Luna’s eyes focused on him.
“You’re awake.” He twisted in the chair to look out the door.
Where were all the nurses and doctors? He could use one of them in here.
Turning back, he saw her struggling to sit up.
“Oh. Hey. Hang on. I’m not sure you should be sitting up just yet.” He pushed out of the chair and stood, glancing again at the door.
“Thirsty.” The rasp in her voice attested to that fact. And damned if it didn’t make her sound sexy as fuck.