Page 72 of Gamble
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Elijah replied, surprised by how rough his voice sounded.
The anesthesiologist appeared at his side, a young guy who looked like he should still be in medical school but probably had more training than most of the doctors Elijah had worked with over the years.
“I’m Dr. Kim,” he said, checking the IV line. “I’m going to give you something to help you relax, and then we’ll get you off to sleep. You’ll wake up in recovery with a brand-new hip.”
“Not my first rodeo,” Elijah managed. “Just try not to put me under too deep. I’ve got a low tolerance for anesthesia.”
“We’ll take good care of you. I’m going to start with a mild sedative, and then I’ll ask you to count backward from ten. Sound good?”
Elijah nodded, already feeling the first welcome wave of medication hitting his system. The sharp edges of the room softened, and the constant ache in his hip faded to a manageable throb.
Around him, he could hear the surgical team making final preparations. Someone was adjusting lights, someone else wasorganizing instruments on a sterile tray. Dr. Jennings was discussing the procedure with what sounded like a resident, using medical terminology that Elijah had heard enough times to understand.
“Okay, let’s get started,” Dr. Kim said. “Count backward from ten for me.”
“Ten,” Elijah began, his tongue already feeling thick and uncooperative. “Nine... eight...”
A figure in scrubs leaned over him, checking something on the monitors attached to his chest. Everyone was masked and capped, anonymous medical professionals going about their work with practiced efficiency. But as his vision blurred and his consciousness slipped away, Elijah stared up into a pair of eyes that were achingly familiar.
Green eyes with flecks of gold around the iris. Eyes that had looked at him with desire and trust and something that might have been love, before he’d ruined everything with his cowardice and self-pity.
Reagan.
His last conscious thought before the anesthesia pulled him under was that he must be hallucinating. The drugs were making him see what he wanted to see, conjuring the face he’d been dreaming about for weeks.
Because there was no way Reagan Murphy was standing over him in that operating room. No way she was looking down at him with those beautiful eyes that had haunted his dreams.
No way she was here to witness him at his weakest, most vulnerable moment.
The darkness claimed him, and Elijah Keaton disappeared into the chemically induced void of surgical sleep—his final wish a prayer she’d been real.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
REAGAN
The steady rhythm of the heart monitor had become Reagan’s metronome over the past hour, a reassuring beep that told her Elijah was stable, healing, alive. She’d positioned herself in the corner chair where she could see all his vitals but remain out of his immediate line of sight when he woke up. The last thing she wanted was for him to see her and think he was hallucinating—or worse, try to leave against medical orders the way Nalani had warned her he might.
Reagan shifted in the uncomfortable hospital chair, her scrubs rustling as she adjusted her position for the hundredth time. She’d been at the hospital since before his surgery started. Even though she was off today, she’d scrubbed in before his surgery just so she could be closer to Elijah. She knew it was silly, but after being ghosted by him for over two weeks, she’d needed to see him up close—to squeeze his hand and reconnect, even if he went under before they could talk.
After the surgery had started, she had watched through the observation window as Dr. Jennings worked with methodical precision to replace the joint that twenty-five years of stunts and one stupid ladder had destroyed.
Four days. That’s how long it had been since Nalani had led her through the velvet curtain into Elijah’s world, and Reagan was still processing everything she’d seen and felt. The research she’d done since then had been... illuminating. Educational. And if she was being honest with herself, aroused in ways that both excited and terrified her.
She’d spent hours reading about BDSM relationships online, trying to understand what she’d glimpsed at Black Light, but she wasn’t ready to open that can of worms with Elijah yet. First, she wanted to see how this week went. If they could navigate his recovery together, if they could rebuild the connection they’d had in Vegas, then maybe she’d be brave enough to tell him she knew about his other secret life. If things didn’t go well... well, there was no point in complicating an already difficult situation.
One week at a time, she told herself.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Meena:Any word yet? Is he awake?
Reagan typed back quickly:Still sleeping. Surgery went well. Dr says everything looks good.
Meena:And you’re sure you want to do this? Take a week off to play nursemaid to the man who broke your heart?
It was a fair question, one Reagan had been asking herself since she’d decided. But sitting here, watching Elijah’s chest rise and fall with each breath, she knew she’d made the right choice. Not because she was a glutton for punishment, but because she understood why he’d pushed her away.
For the first time in her dating history, a man had chosen to hurt her out of a sense of chivalry, thinking he was doing the right thing for her and not himself. Tristan had cheated and lied because he was selfish. Her ex-husband had been emotionally unavailable because he was immature. But Elijah... Elijah had sacrificed his own happiness because he genuinely believed she deserved better.
He was wrong, of course. Dead wrong. But his motivations came from a place of love rather than selfishness, and that changed everything.
