Dr. Daddy. Elizabeth Bevarly

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      One

      Jonas Tate was not having a good day, and it was all Juliana’s fault. She was the most demanding, petulant female he had ever had the misfortune to know, an absolute monster hiding behind big blue eyes, soft blond hair and delicate, cupid’s bow lips. As she did virtually every night since she’d invaded his home two months ago, she had woken him in the middle of the night, insisting that he see to her needs—and by God, Juliana’s needs could exhaust an army of men—and hadn’t allowed him to go back to sleep after he’d satisfied her. Once awake and sated, she had ordered him to further entertain her, commanding stories and music and clever conversation.

      She was that most deadly kind of female, he thought, charming and surprisingly alluring one minute, needful and completely dependent the next. There was no doubt in his mind that she would be the death of some unfortunate man someday.

      All that, and she was barely three months old.

      Jonas pulled open the top right-hand drawer of his desk, pushed aside a sheaf of papers, a banded bundle of pencils and a wayward pacifier until he located a bottle of extrastrength pain reliever. He tossed back three of the capsules without water, grimacing when one got stuck halfway down his throat. When he went to the water cooler in the corner of his office, he caught a quick glimpse of himself in the mirror hanging near it and wished he hadn’t.

      He looked like hell. His dark curls were ragged looking and badly in need of a cut for which he had absolutely no time to spare. He’d also had no time to spare for a shave that morning, and his three-o’clock shadow—normally heavy on the best days—shaded the lower half of his face like a Mack truck. What had once been faint purple crescents beneath his eyes due to a little overwork were fast becoming indelible black smudges due to an almost total lack of sleep. He looked not like a man who oversaw a hospital wing, but a man who was confined to one—whichever one it was that housed the psychiatric ward.

      A quick rap at his office door caused him to turn around abruptly, icy water sloshing over the side of the cup and onto the sleeve of his white dress shirt. His reaction to the cold liquid was to jump, an action that spilled even more water onto the front of his shirt.

      “Come in!” he shouted out angrily, holding the wet fabric away from his skin.

      The door opened slowly, barely enough for one of the new interns to stick her head inside. “Uh, Dr. Tate?” she asked.

      “Yes?” He couldn’t remember the young woman’s name, but he didn’t really care. From what little he’d observed of her, she wasn’t long for the program, anyway.

      “They, uh, they need you in the maternity ward, sir.”

      “Why?”

      “I, uh, I don’t know. They just asked me to bring you.”

      “Is it an emergency?”

      The young woman narrowed her eyes as she considered the question. “I don’t think so. They probably would have told me if it was, don’t you think?”

      “One would think so, yes.”

      “Or else they would have paged you. I guess.”

      Jonas studied the woman for a long time before he spoke further. When he did, it was brief and to the point. “What’s your name?” he asked the intern.

      “Mills, sir. Uh, Dr. Claudia Mills.”

      “Mills,” he repeated, making no effort to hide the displeasure and exasperation he felt. “Dr. Mills,” he corrected himself, placing a sarcastic emphasis on her title. “How long have you been with us here at Seton General?”

      “About two weeks, sir.”

      “Two СКАЧАТЬ