Read Online Dr. Daddy by Elizabeth Bevarly - Free Book Online Page A

hoarsely, unable to muster any of the indignation she knew she should be feeling. She gathered her hair in both hands at her nape, then pulled the mass of red back over her shoulders and out of his reach. “Worse than that,” she went on weakly, “you’re propositioning me. Given our history of antagonism, it doesn’t make any sense.”
    Much to her irritation, Jonas seemed not to hear what she had said. He just looked down at his empty hand as if she hadn’t removed the length of hair he’d held. Finally, however, he dropped his hand back to his side and lifted his head to gaze at her. Then, ever so slowly, he smiled at her accusation. Then he began to chuckle. And then, he began to laugh. Hard. More than almost anything else in the world, Zoey hated being laughed at. And the realization that it was Jonas who was doing the laughing only compounded her anger.
    “What’s so funny?” she demanded.
    “Propositioning you? ” he asked through his laughter. “You must be out of your mind. A man would have to have a death wish to proposition you.”
    She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that so?”
    His laughter subsided some, but he continued to smile at her as he told her, “You bet it’s so. Unless he had some desire to lose a body part most men consider extremely important, no man in his right mind would even think of coming on to you.”
    Zoey clamped her teeth together hard. “Oh, really?”
    “Yes, really. Surely that’s no surprise to you.”
    “Why wouldn’t I find it surprising that men fear for their manhood where I’m concerned?” she wanted to know. She thought it was a very good question.
    He gaped at her, clearly stunned by her appalling lack of knowledge about herself. Zoey began to steam even more.
    “Oh, come on. It’s common talk in every men’s room in the east wing.”
    “What is?”
    “That black belt in karate you have. And about how you took down Jeff Pearson with one swift kick to his...person.”
    Zoey arched her left brow marginally, something she normally only did just before landing a blow. This time, however, she managed to keep herself in check. “Jeff Pearson completed a few questionable maneuvers of his own,” she said softly. “He’s lucky I didn’t call the cops and have him charged with sexual assault after what he tried to do. But I don’t suppose any of the boys in the men’s room ever mention that, do they?”
    Jonas stopped smiling immediately. “What did he do to you?”
    Zoey decided then that she’d had enough. Typical male reaction, wanting to hear all the lurid details. It was pointless trying to have a reasonable conversation with Jonas Tate. Didn’t she already know that? How could she have forgotten so quickly what kind of a man he was? She reminded herself that she hated him. Had hated him for months. He’d made her working environment almost intolerable since the day he’d arrived at Seton General, and now he was fast on his way to making her personal life unbearable, too. Why on earth had she ever agreed to help him out?
    “It doesn’t matter what he did,” she muttered wearily. She turned to the closet again and extracted her coat, thrust her arms into the sleeves of her parka and then began to fidget with the zipper, striving for a quick departure. But naturally, the mechanism didn’t want to catch.
    “Man, you guys are all alike,” she added as she continued to struggle with the scrap of metal, more to prevent Jonas from prying further into her personal experiences than because she agreed with what she was saying. “You think you’re doing any woman a favor to exchange a few meaningless words over dinner, then you can’t understand why she doesn’t want to hop in the sack with you as soon as the sun goes down.”
    The zipper finally caught, and Zoey tugged it up to her chin. When she looked up, Jonas was watching her levelly, his hands settled on his hips, his eyes stormy.
    “Hell, at least Jeff took me out before he tried to nail