Winning Back His Doctor Bride by Tina Beckett Read Free Book Online Page A

could tell he’d been crushed by their breakup. She’d tried to take a taxi home, but he’d insisted on driving her.
    He was a good man, a simple man with simple tastes, and Mila wished with all her heart that she could have fallen in love with him. But you couldn’t control who you loved. She’d found that out the hard way—had mooned after James, even as she’d flown off to the jungles of Brazil to get away from her pain.
    And it had worked. She’d come back a changed person. At least she’d thought she had. Now she wasn’t so sure.
    â€œNo, I had someone with me.”
    James swallowed, if that jerky movement of his throat could be called a swallow.
    â€œI’m glad.” He called for the check and slipped a credit card into the padded folder. “I’ll take you up on that coffee, if the offer is still open. It’ll give us a chance to pick a couple of pictures and get them to the marketing department in time for the opening in a few weeks.”
    As soon as the waiter returned with his receipt, James pocketed it and his card and stood. Mila followed, now wondering if it wouldn’t have been better to have their coffee here. She’d wanted to get back to her own territory, but was it really wise to invite the tiger into your sanctuary?
    Melodramatic, Mila.
    But as she slid into the leather seat of his luxury car, she wondered if she really was being ridiculous. The closer they got to the clinic, the more her nerve endings twitched in dismay. This was a mistake. She knew it was but it was also far too late to change her mind, not without him knowing she was afraid to be alone with him.
    They turned onto the road where her clinic was located just as her cell phone sounded with a weird chirp, the one she’d preprogrammed to sound if the silent alarm on her clinic was tripped.
    â€œOh, no.”
    Just as James glanced her way, a question in his eyes, she saw her worst fears were realized. The glass door to her clinic had been smashed wide open.
    James saw it too, and screeched to a halt just outside the entry. Before either of them could say a word a figure in dark clothing dashed out through the opening and sprinted down the street.

CHAPTER THREE
    â€œS TAY   HERE !”
    James gritted out the command as he threw open the door to his vehicle and dashed after the intruder. He turned the same corner as the man, only to be confronted by a spiderweb of alleys and apartment fronts. There was no sign of anyone. No witnesses. No perpetrator.
    If Mila hadn’t still been in the car, he would have ventured farther to make sure the jerk wasn’t hiding in one of the dumpsters or behind one of the parked cars, but what if he had an accomplice? What if, even now, Mila had decided to go inside her clinic on her own?
    â€œHell.” He should have just called the police and stayed with her, but the instinct to chase down whoever it was had been too strong. And now he was at least five minutes away from the clinic.
    Pivoting toward the opening of the alley, he took off the way he’d come, his gaze seeking out his car as soon as he turned the corner. And found the passenger door open, the seat empty.
    â€œDamn it, Mila!”
    The muttered words were swallowed by the flow of traffic on the busy street. Why had no one stopped to help when they’d seen someone breaking in? Maybe because this wasn’t the safest area of town.
    And Mila lived here...had just gone into that dark clinic all alone.
    Reaching the door, he found it still locked, so he stepped through the opening, glass crunching beneath his shoes. His instinct was to call out to her, but if someone else was lurking in the shadows, he was afraid he’d tip him off. Instead, he stopped for a second and listened.
    He heard someone talking. Was it just Mila on her phone, reporting the break-in to the police? Or was someone else in there?
    Picking his footsteps a little more carefully to