Read Recovery (Doctor Dom Volume 5) (A BDSM & Medical Play Novella) for Free Online Page B

friends at their usual Saturday night gathering, and then I left for the hospital.
    ***
    I walked into the middle of an all-out yelling match between John, Andrea’s father, and a guy in Toronto PD uniform.
    “You guys have done fucking nothing for weeks now,” John roared. “My daughter just woke up from a coma. You cannot see her right now.”
    I didn’t have particularly sympathetic thoughts about Toronto PD myself, and I inwardly agreed with John. The cop turned to me, and I recognized him. He’d interviewed me when Andrea had first been admitted to the hospital. Asked where I had been the night Andrea had been attacked, that kind of thing. John had gone ballistic then, but the guy hadn’t backed off until the security footage from Andrea’s apartment was found and it showed Liam Henderson beating the crap out of my ex-wife.
    I had really regretted watching that footage.
    “Dr. Anderson,” the cop greeted me in relief. No doubt he was happy to stop being yelled at for a while. I searched my mind for his name. Luke Wade. That was it.
    “Mr. Wade,” I replied. He was a detective, but I’d be fucked if I was going to use his title. Lisa and I had round-the-clock security because of his incompetence in finding Liam Henderson.
    “Perhaps you can convince Mr. Matherson here that I really do need to talk to his daughter.”
    “I’m not Andrea’s doctor,” I replied. “John is Andrea’s representative. I have no standing here.” It was a non-answer. Had I genuinely supported Luke Wade’s point of view, I would have agreed with him.
    “She’s asking for you, Patrick.” John looked at me.
    I sighed inwardly. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize Andrea’s recovery. On the other hand, I was dating Lisa, and it was serious. I didn’t want to play any games with Andrea.
    “I’ll head in then,” I replied, knocked on the closed door, and entered.
    ***
    “Patrick.”
    “Andrea,” I replied. I looked at her carefully. Gave her the physician’s once-over. Her colour was as good as could be expected, and she was half-sitting, propped up with a couple of pillows behind her back. “Petra’s checked you out then?” Not a real question. John wouldn’t have gotten in to see Andrea had Petra ruled it contrary to the interests of her patient.
    She nodded. “I can have two hours of visitors,” she replied. “Dad’s been here for an hour.”
    “Am I the next hour then?” I joked.
    She smiled at me briefly, and for an instant, I saw the girl I had fallen in love with and married far sooner than I should have. But only for an instant. Lisa was real and vibrant and warm, and she was my present and my future.
    “I owe you an apology, Patrick,” she said. I looked at her with mild shock. “I should have never come to your house that day,” she continued. “You were seeing someone else, and I had no right.”
    Her fingers played with the edge of her sheet. I opened my mouth to tell her not to worry about it, or something along those lines, but she knew me well. “Let me finish, please,” she said.
    I nodded. “I don’t want you to upset yourself,” I said.
    She grinned. “No, you did do such an excellent job with the surgery, after all.” She looked at me directly. “Liam was everything I thought I had wanted my entire life. He demanded unstinting obedience from me. He treated me like a possession, not a person. Like the slave I’d sworn I had wanted to be. And I hated it.”
    Her voice was flat; her eyes without emotion. “With you,” she said. “I could be weak. You were strong enough for me. With Liam, it wasn’t the same. I just felt unsafe.”
    I waited for her to finish. She spoke her words quickly. Almost a rehearsed speech, but no less sincere for it. After eight years, I knew when Andrea was lying, and when she was telling the truth.
    “That day, at the AGO, we’d just had a huge fight. And I was there, wondering