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while the other rested on her lower back. Eyes widening in surprise, she jerked backward in an attempt to free herself from his grasp.
    “Get your goddamn hands off her. Now.”
    The throaty voice was male. And eerily calm. Now had come out low and with the promise of violence behind it.
    Chills shocked her spine and ran clear to her toes at the sound. It must have caught Dr. Tyler off guard too, because he dropped her arm like she’d caught fire. Kind of felt like she might have.
    “Van, come on.” The same bald man who’d been with him the day before had a hand on Van’s arm and was doing his best to convince him to back away. Probably a good idea since his eyes had murder in them. They were only getting darker as he advanced in her direction.
    It felt like the whole room had stopped to take in the scene. This was the stuff Stella’s nightmares were made of. Every nurse at the table next to them gaped at the show. All they were missing was the popcorn.
    “I’m fine. If you’ll excuse me,” she said, edging around both Dr. Tyler and Van on her way out.
    Her intention was to leave. Because that was the adult thing to do. Walk away and all that. But those nurses were still staring at Van like he was a piece of meat. So she stopped, and turned, giving them her best Texas pageant princess smile even though she’d never been in a pageant in her life.
    “Y’all are gonna catch flies in those big open mouths if you’re not careful.”
    And then she hightailed it out of there and back to the conference room where orientation was being held. So she could wait for someone to come fire her in peace.

“T he son of a bitch grabbed her, Sid.” Van paced in his overcrowded room. “What was I supposed to do? Just sit there while he assaulted her?”
    “Lower your voice,” his manager commanded. “I get it. I saw. Not that it doesn’t warm my cold, dead heart to see you suddenly turning into some random woman’s knight in shining armor, but you picked a damn fine time to do it. You get kicked out of here Van, and that’s it. No deal. No Epitaph. No band. No me.”
    “Yeah, I get it,” he grumbled, dropping heavily onto the couch by his bed. “Just couldn’t find much cause to care at that particular moment.” Because Sid was wrong. She wasn’t some random woman. And apparently he wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. Dr. Aggressive Ass had come very close to getting a special lesson on how to keep his hands to himself. Van had just finished his very first therapy session. It hadn’t gone well and he wasn’t in the mood to see some white coat dickhead pawing the woman he hadn’t been able to get out of his head.
    Sid left him alone to stew in his residual anger. If this were real life, instead of this messed-up parallel rehab universe where he actually cared about someone other than himself, he’d get high about now. His body felt weak, drained. The darkness threatened to surface and he craved that feeling of power. The rush from his confrontation in the Atrium was fading, lowering him quickly into the viper pit of hell that was solitude.
    Lying down on the couch and throwing his arms over his eyes, he pictured her. Her bright green eyes wide with panic when that asshole grabbed her. The heart-gripping mixture of shock and gratitude that filled them when he stepped in. The fierce growl of her sexy little voice when she snapped at the nurses, who’d been eying him since he’d walked in.
    He hadn’t paid much attention to that last part, or he thought he hadn’t. But her voice was clear in his memory. She was jealous.
    The realization made his cock punch against his zipper. Fuck, she was so damn beautiful. She’d been wearing a pale pink button-up shirt and a gray skirt that was long enough to be professional but tight enough to have every guy in the room staring at her ass. Him included. Hell, him first and foremost.
    He groaned out loud as the image of her naked body sliding over him invaded his mind.