Page 75 of Doctored Vows

My moans set Maksim off. He grinds into me another three times before he pins my hips to the mattress and grunts through a release so fiery and hot that we undertake a second round before collapsing from exhaustion.

Maksim glances at me over his shoulder when I say, “I’ve been meaning to ask how your mother is.” He scrapes our leftovers into the trash, his back moving as elegantly as it did when he fucked me into a state of unconsciousness. “Did she experience any side effects from the B12 serum she was administered today?”

He continues clearing away the dishes before replying, “Not as far as I am aware. She appears to be handling them well.” He stacks the scraped clean plates into the dishwasher before drying his hands with a tea towel. “Is there anything specific I should look for?”

“There are no visual indicators of a B12 deficiency or surplus until the levels are either extremely low or high, but there are indicators that could expose which way her levels are moving. She would have to share those symptoms, though. They’re more felt by the patient than physically visual.”

After tossing down the tea towel, he huffs. “Then your guess will be as good as mine.”

“Stubborn?” I ask, reading between the lines.

Maksim smiles, taking my comment as intended. “Who do you think I inherited it from?” He plucks me from the floor, sits on the couch our backs braced against while eating, and then pulls me into his chest. “If you say my father, I may kill you.”

There’s an edge of malice in his tone, but since it appears more directed at his father than me, I let his threat slide. “The main indicators are weakness, tiredness, and lightheadedness. Constipation, diarrhea, loss of appetite…” My words trail off when many of the symptoms I spout off match the ones shared with me today.

Maksim groans when I leap off him and race into the room where I dumped my purse when he started ravishing my neck, but remains quiet when I tug my cell phone out of my purse and select a frequently called number.

A nurse in the pediatric ward answers a short time later. “Pediatric department, Nurse Kelley speaking.”

“Was Yulia Petrovitch’s insurance company billed for an MMA or homocysteine test?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Yulia Petrovitch, the patient from Room 3A, were her B12 levels checked?”

I groan in frustration when she asks, “Who is this?”

“It is Dr. Hoffman.” Maksim’s growl is deeper and sterner than my bark when a department nurse fails to keep abreast with the patients in the ward. “Yulia was brought in with severe stomach cramps and abdominal distention. Her initial diagnosis was food poisoning with cystitis of the lower tract, but her symptoms are mimicking ones of a patient I diagnosed earlier this month. She could also have a B12 deficiency.”

Nurse Kelley takes her time replying, so I expect more than a blasé response. “Yulia was discharged this evening.”

“I am aware of that. I wrote her discharge paperwork. But that isn’t what I’m asking. Did her blood workup include the MMA or homocysteine tests?”

“No. There is no indication either of those tests were performed.”

Her tone indicates she doesn’t like being shouted at, but since it is effective, I don’t offer an apology. I simply lower the volume of my voice to a respectable level. “Can you please request the additional tests.”

She assumes I am asking a question. I am not. “The patient has been discharged?—”

“So? That doesn’t mean our medical care ends the instant she leaves the hospital.”

“With all due respect, Dr. Hoffman, I believe you are wrong.” No buzzes of patients’ bells or code blue alarms sound, but she acts like they’re ringing off the hook. “I have patients who require my assistance.”

She hangs up on me, making me fuming mad.

“She… That… Ugh!” I grip my cell phone hard enough that I almost crack the screen. “Can you believe the hide of that woman? She’s one of those people who should leave the profession the instant she no longer cares. They’re the people giving the rest of us a bad…” My words trail off when my twist to face Maksim unearths that he is on a call. I didn’t hear him dial a number, much less speak.

I mouth an apology before slumping onto a couch that’s so new I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it still has its price tag attached.

I’ve only just cradled my head in my hands when Maksim crouches down in front of me. “Which test does the hospital generally use?”

When I peer at him, lost, a unique accent sounds out of his iPhone. “It will be less suspicious to the insurance assessor if we use the standard billing code Myasnikov Private uses.”

I’m completely and utterly lost, and my stupidity deepens when Maksim opens his laptop and spins it to face me. He’s logged into HIS, Myasnikov Private’s health information system, and in the program where doctors and nurses order blood workups for inpatients.

“Which one?” Maksim asks as the cursor bounces between the MMA and homocysteine check boxes.

He isn’t moving the cursor. His finger isn’t close to the trackpad of his MacBook Pro, so it must be being controlled remotely.

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