Chapter 3
Mrs. Bennett greeted me with a warm smile that instantly eased the tension of a long morning. As I adjusted her pillows, we talked about everything from hospital food to a revival of Chicago she'd seen twice, and within minutes she felt less like a patient and more like someone's favorite grandmother, the kind who slips you an extra cookie when your own mother isn't looking.
Then the door opened. I turned automatically. My breath caught.
It was him. The man from the SUV.
For the briefest moment, surprise crossed his face before it settled into the same calm confidence I remembered from three nights earlier. "Eleanor," he said warmly.
She smiled at him. "Jacob, sweetheart, come in. I want you to meet my wonderful nurse."
His eyes met mine. "Emma," he said quietly, speaking my name as though he had repeated it in his mind more than once over the past three days.
May you like
I forced myself into something professional. "Mr. Bennett."
I pretended we were strangers. He didn't. The way he looked at me made it painfully clear he remembered every awkward second inside that SUV, and something in his expression told me our first meeting hadn't been nearly as accidental as I'd believed. I filed that thought away and finished my rounds, because whatever Jacob Bennett wanted to remember, I had a full floor of patients and no room in my life for billionaires who collected embarrassing stories about tired nurses.
