Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
After a month of the silent treatment, my boyfriend suddenly posted on his private social feed that he was getting engaged.
Our mutual group chat exploded. Everyone kept tagging me.
“Congrats, my boy’s girl!”
“Where’s the red-envelope equivalent, huh? Celebration money!”
And right when the mood was at its hottest, my boyfriend added some girl to the chat and said, “Quit calling the wrong person that. This is the real one.”
After a full month of not speaking to Blake Sterling, he dropped a post out of nowhere: Getting engaged soon.
The photo showed a pair of diamond rings. Big stones. Flashy enough to hurt.
The mutual friends group chat went insane immediately. People were tagging me nonstop, demanding I treat everyone.
Then Blake pulled a new person into the chat.
Her screen name was sickeningly cute: Blake’s Little Princess.
The second she joined, Blake tagged everyone and typed, “Quit calling the wrong person that. This is the real one.”
The lively, chaotic chat went dead in an instant.
I stared at that line on my screen and actually laughed from anger.
Little Princess started greeting everyone one by one in this sugary, affectionate tone. Then, as her grand finale, she tagged me.
First came a cutesy princess sticker and a “Mwah, sis.”
Then a fake-sweet little message: “I’m younger, so please take care of me from now on, okay?”
It made me so sick I quit the chat and shut off my phone on the spot.
This wasn’t even the first time Blake had gone big just to humiliate me.
Before, every time we fought and stopped talking, I was the one who ended up coaxing him first.
This time, I couldn’t tell if he meant it or if he was just trying to provoke me. But I didn’t have the energy to guess anymore.
So I blocked him everywhere. Full sweep. Out of sight, out of mind.
Today had originally been my birthday.
After that little stunt, I still felt miserable.
I changed into a little black dress and took a cab to a newly opened bar downtown.
By the time I was halfway drunk, two men came over to hit on me.
I narrowed my eyes at them and shook my head.
They wouldn’t take no for an answer. One of them grabbed my arm, then the other joined in.
I started to panic. I got up to leave, but I couldn’t break free.
Then I turned my head and saw someone familiar in a corner not far away.
Julian Mercer.
Blake’s cousin. City Hospital’s youngest and most brilliant surgeon.
He was drinking with friends. No white coat tonight—just a black dress shirt, dark pants, and glasses. His profile was unfairly handsome.
Especially his nose—straight and sharp. His jawline looked clean enough to cut.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Those long fingers of his weren’t holding a scalpel for once, just a drink, but they were still distractingly elegant.
The man gripping my wrist got bolder by the second. Panic surged through me, and I called toward Julian without thinking.
“Julian—”
He didn’t turn around.
One of his friends did, though. He glanced at me, then gave Julian a meaningful look and tipped his chin in my direction.
Julian set down his glass and followed the gesture. His brows lifted slightly when he saw me.
I twisted hard, trying to yank myself free, but it still didn’t work.
When I saw Julian stay where he was, something hurt inside me. I bit down on it and called again, softer this time, pitiful enough to disgust myself.
“Julian…”
Julian raised a hand, took off his glasses, folded them neatly, and stood. Then he walked over on those long legs of his.
“Sorry,” he said, voice low and cool. “She’s with me. You need to leave.”
The two men looked him over, then their eyes dropped to the expensive steel watch on his wrist. Their expressions changed immediately. They let go of me and slunk off.
Julian looked at me, disapproval tightening between his brows. “Why are you here drinking alone? Where’s Blake?”
“Gone,” I said.
“Girls shouldn’t drink this much.”
One strap of my dress had slipped down my shoulder a little. Julian’s gaze brushed across my bare skin, then shifted away almost at once.
He turned, grabbed his coat, and draped it over my shoulders. “I’ll call Blake to come get you.”
“We broke up.”
I pushed myself to my feet, soft and unsteady, and looked up at him through tipsy eyes. “Can you take me home?”
“Nina.” His expression turned even more restrained. “I’m Blake’s cousin.”
“I know.”
I took a slow step toward him and nearly stumbled. Julian caught me at the waist with one hand, holding me steady. “Stand properly first.”
“I can’t.” I tipped my face up at him and leaned into his chest. “I’m dizzy. I can’t stand.”
From this close, I saw the suspicious flush rising at the tips of his ears.
It made me remember last month, when my chest had been bothering me and I’d gone to the hospital for an exam.
By pure coincidence, I’d gotten one of Julian’s specialist appointment slots.
While he was examining me, I’d noticed then too—his ears had turned quietly red.
“Your friend can come pick you up,” he said, taking hold of my arm as if he meant to pull me gently away. “Sit down first.”
Instead, I wrapped both arms around his waist.
“Julian,” I murmured, “last time you told me to come back and have my benign breast condition checked again. I got busy and forgot.”
I looked up at him, swaying in his arms.
“So tonight… will you check it for me again?”
The second those words left my mouth, the tips of his ears flushed red all over again.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Julian took my hand and gently eased me a little farther away, like he needed the distance to think straight. He cleared his throat, then asked with exaggerated seriousness, “Has it still been hurting after you finished the medication?”
“It has. Especially a few days before my period. It gets swollen and aches.”
Frowning, I lifted a hand and pressed it over the left side of my chest. “Dr. Mercer, do you think the medicine you gave me last time just isn’t working?”
“Come back tomorrow after I’m on shift,” he said. “I’ll examine you again.”
“But it hurts right now.” I swayed closer, deliberately shameless. “Isn’t there some faster way to deal with the pain?”
“If you’re in pain, why were you out drinking?”
Julian’s beautiful brows drew together.
I bit my lip and looked up at him with reddened eyes. “Dr. Mercer, it’s my birthday today. Blake suddenly went public with another girl…”
He looked down at me from where he stood over me. Maybe I was drunk. Maybe I imagined it.
But for one brief second, I thought I saw something soft and pained in his eyes.
Julian’s car was big, sleek, and ridiculously comfortable.
I sat in the back seat holding a mini birthday cake with a single pink candle stuck in the middle.
He’d bought it for me just now.
I made a wish. Blew out the candle.
Then, feeling recklessly brave, I reached out and smeared a little frosting onto Julian’s cheek.
He was badly germaphobic.
Sure enough, he frowned at once. But somehow, he didn’t seem angry.
The day I’d gone in for my breast exam, he’d been seeing other patients before me. In the space of that short appointment, I’d watched him wash his hands seven or eight times.
His hands were beautiful—long-fingered, elegant, strong.
I couldn’t help thinking that if those two hands closed around my waist, they would fit perfectly.
The thought conjured up an extremely not-safe-for-children image in my head, and suddenly my mouth went dry.
His profile was turned toward me, and I could still see that tiny dot of white frosting.
It looked strangely conspicuous on his handsome face.
Before I could stop myself, I leaned in, tipped my chin up, parted my lips—
and gently licked the frosting away.
The frosting melted on my tongue, cool and sweet.
“Nina.”
He said my name low and rough, then closed his hand around my wrist.
The inside of the car was dim. His face was so close to mine that I could make out every detail of it—the sharp line of his nose, the clean angle of his jaw, the dark intensity in his eyes.
And in those eyes, beneath all that restraint, was the slightest trace of disarray.
Even the hand gripping my wrist was trembling a little.
I could smell the faint, sterile scent that always clung to him, something like disinfectant, mixed with the rich haze of alcohol.
It made my head spin.