Tempting Taine (2 page)

All too soon, the brief smile vanished, to
be replaced
with his usual look of disdain.
 
“He deserves the best, and that’s what I’ll get him.”

It made no difference to her whether it was Taine’s money or his father’s.
 
As far as she was concerned, all Hunter money was tainted.
 
She wanted none of it.
 
“I don’t want your father’s money, either.”

“What do I have to offer you to get you to accept?
 
Two and a half times your usual rate?
 
Just tell me what it will take, and we’ll negotiate.”

So, he believed he could win her over just by dangling another few grubby Hunter dollars in front of her nose, did he?
 
He clearly did not know her as well as he thought he did.
 
“You couldn’t offer me enough money to come and work for you.”

His face grim, he extracted another hundred-dollar bill from his wallet.
 
“Triple, then,” he offered.
 
“But I warn you, that’s my final offer.
 
I’m
not going to pay you another cent, even if you are the best damned therapist in town.
 
You’ve extorted enough out of me already.”

She would not accept even were he to offer her a thousand dollars.
 
She valued her self-respect and her pride far more than she valued a few hundred dollars.
 
Money
could always be earned
, but self-respect was a precious commodity, and she was not going to waste any more of hers on the Hunter family.
 
“Looks like you’re going to learn a new lesson today,” she said calmly, though inside she was a mass of nerves thinking about his reaction to her defiance.
 
She got up from her desk and walked over to the doorway.
 
She was right to fear him.
 
He had become so cold and so cruel.

“What’s that?”
 
His voice was wary, his gaze suspicious.

“Money can’t buy you everything.”
 
She paused for a moment to allow her meaning to sink in.
 
“And it won’t buy me.”

She allowed herself a brief moment to
savor
the look of impotent fury in his eyes before she shut the door firmly in his face.
 
“Goodbye, Taine.”

She had the barest moment to reflect on her success when the door burst open again.
 
Taine, his face dark with fury, stomped back into the room.
 
“We’re not finished discussing this yet, Verity Samuels,” he forced out between clenched teeth.
 
“And until we are, may I suggest that you do not shut the door in my face again.”

She refused to
be cowed
by his fury.
 
With studied ease, she wandered casually over and sat on the edge of her desk, her ankles crossed.
 
“You offered me triple my going rate to come see your father this afternoon.
 
You said it was your final offer.
 
I refused.”
 
She spread her hands out, palms up.
 
“What else is there to discuss.”

Fury warred with incredulity on his face.
 
“You can’t refuse to see him.”

“I’m well within my rights to do so.”

“You’ve never refused a patient before.”

“Checking up on me again, were you,” she inquired with some asperity, “in case I told you another lie?”

He shrugged uncomfortably and said nothing, but the pink tinge that suffused his ears confirmed her suspicion.

“It’s true that I haven’t refused any patients before now as I was building up my practice,” she conceded, in a milder tone.
 

His eyes lit up, scenting a victory in the
wind,
or at the very least a weakness that he could use to his advantage.
 

“But now I have as many as I can handle,” she continued, “and I’m not taking any more.”

“This was a sudden decision?” he asked acidly.
 
He was evidently not ready to give up the battle just yet.

“Not particularly.”
 
She looked pointedly at her watch.
 
“I made it all of about fifteen minutes ago.
 
Now if you will excuse me,” she added, reaching behind her, taking a random pile of papers from her desk and shuffling through them busily, “I have
work
to do.”

He did not take the obvious hint to leave her alone, but stood there in silence for what seemed like endless minutes.
 

She could feel the heat of his gaze burning her as she sat on the edge of her desk pretending to
be immersed
in her work, pretending to be oblivious to his presence.
 
Why did he have to turn up
now
, of all times, just when her life was finally running smoothly?
 
Why did he have to come and disturb her again – because he
did
disturb her, more than she liked to think
about.

Finally he spoke.
 
“You
have
to come with me this afternoon.”
 

The raw pain in his voice startled her into looking up from her pile of papers.
 
“I do?”
 
Her response was an automatic challenge to
being given
a direct order.

“My father needs you.”

A Hunter?
 
Need
her
?
 
She shook her head in disbelief.
 
She never thought she would see the day when a mighty Hunter needed the help of a mere mortal like her.

He misinterpreted the shake of her head as another refusal.
 
“Please, Verity,” he whispered, the desperation in his voice making it gritty.
 
“He needs you.
 
If I can put aside my feelings for you to come ask you to see him,
can’t
you put aside your dislike of me, too?
 
I’m
not asking for myself, but for my father.
 
Can’t you find it in yourself to take pity on a proud old man, reduced to a wheelchair, barely able to feed
himself
or comb his hair or brush his teeth or do any small thing for himself that all the rest of us take for granted?
 
Can’t you imagine how his dependence weighs on his mind?”
 

He rested his head in his hands for a moment in an attitude of bleak despair.
 
“You have other patients like him, incapacitated after a stroke.
 
You
must
have some understanding of how he hates not being able to do for
himself
, and how he resents his own family for giving him the help that he can’t do without.
 
He hates it.
 
It’s
killing him.
 
He’s
lost the will to live, the will to fight to get better.
 
Without that, there’s no saving him.”
 
He lifted his head and looked straight at her so she could see the pleading in his eyes.
 
“Please help him.
 
He’ll
die if you don’t.
 
I've
only recently lost my mother.
 
I don't want to lose Dad, too.”

Taine Hunter, the proud Taine Hunter, was practically on his knees begging her to
help?
 
“Why me?”

“Dr. Evans says you’re a miracle worker –
that
you can help your patients not only to look after themselves again, but to want to try.
 
If you can’t help him, no one can.”
 
He sounded at the very end of his tether, past the point of desperation and into despair.

She
couldn’t
resist a plea like that.
 
Not from anyone.
 
Not even Taine Hunter.
 
She was a professional, and, like it or not, she had a duty to those who needed her – even if it was old Mr. Hunter.
 
With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she realized there was no escape.
 
As a professional, she had to suppress her emotions and deal with the old man as if she had never come across him or his family before.
 
She had to act as if he was just another anonymous patient in need of her help.

With a sigh, she got to her feet and grabbed the duffel bag she kept packed for her patient visits.
 
She could imagine
only too
well how old Mr. Hunter must be feeling.
 
If he had half the pride his son had, he would rather die than depend on anyone else.

She’d
had patients like him before, mostly men who needed to be taught that needing help was not shameful, and that it didn’t make them any less of a man.
 
Teaching them how to relearn the physical skills they had lost due to their stroke was only a tiny part of the battle.
 
Giving them the will to live, making them understand that they could still lead a productive and useful life even if they never regained full use of their limbs, helping them to accept and to adapt to their changed physical circumstances – that was the real skill.

The bleakness in Taine’s eyes dulled as he watched her move around the room purposefully, gathering the last few items she might need.
 
“Does this mean you are coming to visit my father this afternoon?”

She shrugged lightly, not wanting him to see how much his emotional appeal had touched her.
 
She needed to keep him at a distance, to keep their relationship purely on a professional footing.
 
There was no room for emotion in her work – particularly not when her work involved a Hunter.
 
“You offered me triple my hourly rate, after all.
 
Far too much money to turn down.”

As soon as
she’d
said them, she wished the words back in her mouth again, but it was too late.
 
The haunted look in his eyes was swiftly gone, and he was back to ice and bitterness again, back to the same Taine Hunter who had ambushed her in her office what now seemed like half a lifetime ago.
 

Without another word, he took the heavy bag from out of her hands and strode out of the door and down the hallway towards the exit, leaving her to scurry along in his wake.

The winter sun was low on the horizon, and there was little heat in it.
 
Verity shivered in her light jacket as Taine unlocked his jeep and threw the duffel bag into the back seat.

As quickly as she could she clambered in to the front seat, glad to get out of the biting wind that blew off the icy lake and straight through her bones.
 
The smart tan suit and low-heeled pumps she was wearing were more suited to the overheated rooms in the hospital than they were to the bitter winter weather.
 
Bother Taine for making her so flustered that she had forgotten to bring her winter coat with her.
 
After just few minutes outside in the wind, her fingers and toes had already gone numb.

Taine clambered into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
 
“You’re cold,” he said, glancing at her shivers.
 
“Don’t you have anything warmer to wear?”

She shrugged, but said nothing.
 
She
didn’t
want him thinking of her comfort or being kind to her in any way.
 
He was easier to take when he was being the Taine he had been for the last nine years – the remote, untouchable Taine without a heart.
 

With a sigh of irritation, he reached over into the back and passed her a woollen rug.
 
“It’ll take some time for the engine to warm up and heat up the car.”

The plaid blanket was old and worn, but still she huddled into the warm folds with some relief.
 
“Can’t have your expensive therapist get sick on you now, can you?” she said, trying to put his kind gesture into perspective.
 
He
wasn’t
being kind to
her
, but to what she represented to him – the chance that his father might fully recover from his stroke.
 
She would do well to remember the difference and not to read anything more personal into any efforts he made on her behalf.

“Exactly.”
 
The dryness in his voice told her how precisely she had hit on the truth.

Taine manhandled the jeep over the icy roads with care, wishing, not for the first time, that the family homestead
was
not a good twenty miles out of town.
 
His discomfort sprang only from the distance there was to drive over winding gravel roads if his father suddenly needed urgent medical attention – it had nothing to do with the woman sitting in the passenger seat beside him, he told himself firmly.
 
Nothing at all.