Too Late, Mr. Sterling—I’m Marrying Your Rival Chapter 05

“Get him to Trauma One!” I shouted. “Type and cross six units. Call Whitaker in. Now!”

On the table, under the lights, it was worse.

Three broken ribs. A collapsed lung. And the shard-a jagged spike of steel-buried a few inches from his spleen. Burns climbed up his left arm.

His pressure was crashing.

“We should airlift him to Portland,” a nurse whispered.

“In this storm? Nothing’s flying.” I pulled my hair back. “He won’t survive the drive. We do it here.”

I didn’t let myself think about whose rival he was. I only thought about the steady, stubborn fight in his pulse.

He’d gone back for his men. He’d taken the worst of it so they wouldn’t.

I wasn’t letting a man like that die on my table.

Chest tube first. Blood rushed out, dark and heavy. His oxygen climbed. One small win.

Then the shard. I worked it free millimeter by millimeter, clamping every bleeder as it opened.

His heart stopped forty minutes in.

“Charging-clear!”

Nothing.

I climbed onto the table and did compressions myself, my arms burning.

“Come on,” I hissed. “You pulled two men out of a burning car. Don’t you dare quit on me now.”

His heart jolted back.

It stopped again just before dawn.

Again, I dragged him back.

The storm swallowed the coast road. No backup. No relief. Whitaker came at three a.m. and stayed with me, but it was my hands holding Rhys Calloway together.

I didn’t leave his bedside for two days. I adjusted drips, debrided burns, checked his drains every hour. My

scrubs soaked through with sweat, dried, soaked again. My eyes felt like sandpaper.

On the third morning, his fever broke.

His breathing evened. The tight line between his brows finally eased.

Something heavy left my chest all at once. My knees gave out and I slid down the wall beside his bed.

I didn’t dare close my eyes. I sat there, half-awake, while gray dawn crept across the floor.

Then I heard it.

A rough, pained breath. The rustle of sheets.

I was on my feet instantly, leaning over him, checking his incision.

His lashes fluttered. Then opened.

His eyes were the color of whiskey in sunlight-warm amber, impossibly clear.

Without the blood, his face was devastating. Sharp jaw. A scar through one eyebrow. Younger than I’d

expected for a man who’d built an empire.

He looked at me, unfocused.

Then his gaze sharpened.

And something lit up behind those amber eyes. A slow, aching smile tugged at his cracked lips.

Like he’d been waiting years for this exact moment.

Like it had finally arrived.

“Hey, Ava,” he rasped.

My heart stopped.

I’d never told anyone at this hospital my first name went with his rival’s ex-wife. My badge said Dr. Hale.

“You finally came back,” he whispered.