His Every Desire by Shiloh Walker Read Free Book Online Page A

out the truth.
    The bastard was cheating on her.
    Sighing, she tried to focus on something other than her pathetic love life. It was damn hard, though.
    It was too quiet tonight. All the patients were sleeping and—
    Her ears detected a harsh change in breathing in the room just across from her. Room 502B.
    That couldn’t be right. She sure as hell hoped not. That was the one who’d had an armed man standing at the door for weeks and weeks and weeks—
    That guy was bad news—an image of his picture flashed through her mind. Cold eyes—shark eyes. Dead, flat, emotionless.
    Lani blew out a breath as she stood up, irritated with herself.
    The guy had been in a coma for a damned year. He wasn’t waking up.
    And even if he was, the calm, logical nurse inside her head said, he’s harmless, weak as a baby.
    The squeak of her rubber shoes sounded terribly loud on the floor as she walked across the hall. Jamming her hands into the pockets of her top, she closed one hand around a couple of pens, the other around the ring of keys.
    Damn it, she felt like an idiot.
    Cold chills ran down her spine as she drew closer to the door and for a second, she was tempted to run back to the desk and call security. Hell, idiot or not, this guy was dangerous—or had been, at one point. Why else would they have a cop on him?
    Then she jerked her hands back out of her pockets and ran them through her hair. “He’s a patient. That’s what he is, Lani.” Reaching out, she pushed the door open.”
    And found herself staring into his wide-open eyes—502B was awake all right.
    Lying propped up in bed, as he had been when she’d made her rounds, but his eyes were now open and he lay there desperately sucking in air. His cadaverously thin face was covered with a sheen of sweat and he stared at her with those dead eyes.
    Lani swallowed as she stared back at him.
    Oh, yeah. She was calling security. It would only take Mike two minutes to get up there.
    Chapter Five
     
    She had run.
    For two years, she had done nothing but move around the country. After abandoning her car, she had managed to buy a black Taurus. It was boring, especially after the Jag, but it didn’t draw attention, and she’d been able to pay cash for it.
    That mattered. Because she hadn’t had to provide any ID or any personal information to get a loan. Just cash, to get a key and the title.
    It was ten years old, and it took forever to warm up, but the motor ran smoothly, and it got her from point A to point B.
    That was all that mattered.
    One of the first things she had done after she’d slowed down from that first headlong rush was get a lawyer. Aleisha Williams had helped her get a new identity. She’d gotten her a social security card, established a believable history, and given Tracy all sorts of advice.
    The only contact Tracy had with that terrifying life was a monthly phone call made to Aleisha on a prepaid cell phone that she replaced every few months.
    Officially Tracy Grainger no longer existed.
    When she looked in the mirror, she saw a woman who only barely resembled the person she had once been.
    And she liked it.
    Her hair had grown out and instead of the short, tousled cap of curls she’d had, it was now long, and thick with barely a wave in it. She’d stopped dying it as well, and all the blonde locks were gone, leaving the deep, mink brown hair that Vincent had hated.
    And weight. That was the best part. She had put on thirty pounds. She no longer looked like the razor-thin model Vincent had wined and dined and fooled.
    Any time she’d put on more than three pounds, she had been barred from the kitchen. He’d put locks on the door, and the servants had known better than to allow her in. The few times it had happened, the servant had been thrown out on his ass.
    And one had gotten a busted jaw for it. Of course, Vincent had the sick little fantasy in his head that she had been flirting with the poor kid.
    But over the past two years, she’d gorged on