The Billionaire in the Psych Ward

I fell for the hottest guy in the psych ward.

I was his orderly. The accident had wiped his memoryhe was quiet, trusting, looked like he couldn't hurt a flyso I, a consummate professional, spent every single shift being an absolute disaster about his abs.

Then the richest family in Chicago went up in flames, and the Vance heir everyone swore was gone for good walked back in and took the entire empire.

I saw that man's face on the news.

Then I started packing.

I didn't even make it onto the plane. His people dragged me back. He was waiting at the head of the room, calm as you please.

"I hid in a psych ward to get away from the predators out there," he said softly. "I never expected to walk straight into a worse one."

A beat.

"You."

CHAPTER ONE

Here's how it started: I checked out the hottest patient in the ward so hard I gave myself a nosebleed. Three years later, that same patient was sitting at the head of Vance Group in a suit worth more than my car, running the biggest fortune in Chicago.

In my defense, I did not know.

Rewind.

I graduated with a fine-arts degree from one of the most cutthroat programs in the country, and then I did what every overqualified art grad does: failed to land a single job. So my dad pulled a string and parked me as an orderly at a relative's psychiatric hospitalElmcrest.

I was offended. Me? Maeve Shaw, fine-arts prodigy, refilling little paper cups of meds?

Then, on day three, I saw Cassius.

How do I put this. I'd landed in the most powerless job of my life and met the one person I couldn't stand to let down.

He was the most beautiful man in the building. Even Auntie Deborah said soand she would know.

Deborah caught me staring and sidled up. "Pretty, isn't he, Nurse Shaw?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Deborah was a patientseven, eight years at Elmcrest, and the staff swore she turned dangerous every full moon. But she just tugged me to the second-floor window to keep watching the man dazing under the magnolia in the courtyard.

"That's Cassius," she said. "Came in about six months ago. Watched his parents die right in front of him, family buried in debtand something in him just broke. Six-foot-one. Scorpio. Hates bell peppers."

She was so lucid, so put-together, I couldn't find the danger the staff kept warning me about. "Deborah," I said, "you seem completely with it. What are you in for?"

She sniffed, deeply wounded. "They laugh and call me mad. I laugh because they'll never see clearly. I, my dear, was undone by love. Peasants, all of them."

Later I got the gist: old money, a weakness for pretty younger men, fleeced down to nothing. So. She broke.

Most days, far from the full moon, she was harmlessand she'd lean at that window with me, watching Cassius read under the tree.

I got curious about his book and strolled past like I had somewhere important to be.

Infinite Jest. Very deep. Very serious.

Except he was holding it upside down.

My mouth twitched. I went back inside, came out with a different book, walked straight up to him, slid the upside-down doorstop right out of his hands, and pressed my nephew's Dinosaur Encyclopedia into them instead.

"This one suits you better," I told him, sweet as pie.

Striped hospital scrubs, skin pale as paper, far too thinand a face prettier than any storybook vampire. Those deep, empty eyes lifted to mine.

I'd spent years drawing the human face. I knew good bones when I saw them. This was just unfair.

My clipboard hit the floor. I stood there a full second, doing nothing.

Then I shook it off and walked away, muttering the whole time. "Built like that, and nobody's home upstairs. Absolutely criminal."

I had no idea "nobody home" was the most expensive lie I'd ever fall for.

CHAPTER TWO

Because of Cassius, I went from chronically-late slacker to Employee of the Month.

Cassius ateso I served his tray and slipped him an extra scoop of meat.

Cassius sleptso I did my rounds slow and lingered to memorize his sleeping face.

Cassius took his medsso I handed him the water, watched one drop slide down his throat, and reminded myself, very firmly, that I was a medical professional.

Objectively, a problem.

Sometimes I'd just prop my chin in my hands while he stared out the window, and sigh. "Such a gorgeous face. Total waste."

He'd turn at the sound, those pretty eyes wide and guileless. "Maeve? What did you say?"

Here's his deal: the accident took his recent memories. What was left was a grown man on pausefew words, trusting to a fault, every feeling sitting right there on the surface.

I beamed at him like an idiot. "I said you're handsome, Cass."

"Oh." A small smile. "You're prettier." And he turned back to the window.

Gorgeous as he was, though, his bad days were no joke.

He'd come apart without warning. One afternoon I was out walking Deborah when the alarm screamed across the ward. I got her settled and ran.

A knot of orderlies was jammed in the supply-room doorway, and inside, Cassius was tearing the place apart. One of themnewjust stood there, frozen stupid.

He drove his bare fist through the supply-room window. Glass opened his arm. He stepped barefoot onto the shards, blood smearing the floor, a broken length of rod still gripped in one hand. Nobody moved. They kept muttering that they'd wait for the director.

The director was downtown in meetings. By the time she got back, he could bleed out.

I caught the eye of the one coworker I trusted, and stepped forward.

"Cass. Hey. Why aren't you happy? Talk to meyou're standing on glass, sweetheart. That has to hurt."

He looked up, eyes rimmed red, like a kicked dog with nowhere to put the pain. He heard my voice and his gaze swam up to mine, and he stabbed a finger at the new orderly.

"He said" His voice broke. "He said my mom and dad are dead!"

Cassius's parents died in a crash years ago. But the accident had scrubbed those years clean out of himas far as he knew, they were just away, working, due home any day now. Every orderly got briefed on it.

So why would the new guy say that?

I shot the kid a look. He went sheet-white. "II didn't know I wasn't allowed to. He kept pulling on me, begging me to take him to find his parents"

The rod was still in Cassius's hand.

The blood was still spreading.

He was still standing on the glass, shaking, looking at me like I was the last solid thing in a world that had just dropped out from under him.

And the director was still twenty minutes away.

CHAPTER THREE

I kept my voice low and even, the way you'd talk a cat down off a ledge. "Cass. Look at me. Just me."

It workedbarely. His eyes locked on mine, and in that half-second of stillness my coworker lunged and pinned his arms. A nurse got in close with the sedative. Cassius fought it for one breath, twothen the fight drained out of him and he sagged sideways, straight into me.

His hair was soft, ridiculous, like a kid's after a nap. I caught his head against my shoulder and smoothed it down without thinking.

"Sleep," I murmured. "You don't have to hurt when you're asleep."

When the director got back, she fired the new orderly on the spot.

Then she lit into whoever was doing the hiringsomething about dragging in any warm body off the street, half these orderlies less reliable than the patients. I kept my head down.

Cassius's foot was shredded from the glass and his arm was sliced up, so his daily entertainment downgraded from staring out the window to staring at the ceiling. I came in with the kit to change his dressings, and he pulled his gaze off the ceiling and put it on me.

That facegenuinely model materialplus an expression that could break your heart.

I'm not going to lie: I really, really wanted to take advantage of a man while he was flat on his back. Truly a low point for me. My professional ethics won that round by a hair.

"Cass! Time to change those bandages." I smiled like the Big Bad Wolf in a nightgown.

I sat him on the edge of the bed, eased the loose scrubs off his shoulder, unwound the gauze, cleaned the wound, redressed itquick, clean, competent.

Right up until my eyes snagged on his stomach.

Eight. A flawless, textbook eight-pack.

My hands stopped. I just... stared.

He looked down, perfectly innocent, patted his own stomach with his free hand, and said, simply, "Maeve. I'm hungry."

I came to my senses and silently called myself every name in the book. He was a patient. My patient. Lights barely on. And here I was, ogling him like the last donut in the break room.

I shook it off and kept wrapping.

Cassius decided I hadn't heard him. He raised his voiceand took my hand and pressed it flat against his... abs.

"I said I'm hungry." A distinct note of complaint.

Reader, I have been catastrophically single for twenty-two years. The instant my palm hit those muscles, I short-circuited. Whole body locked. Brain: offline. The room tipped, the world roared, time froze

"Maeve? Maeve, what's wrong? Maeve, why's your nose bleeding? Did you hurt your nose?"

Within two hours, the entire hospital knew I'd given myself a nosebleed touching Cassius's abs.

Even Deborah knew. She sidled up, delighted. "So? Were they nice to touch?"

I covered my face and sincerely wished I were the one losing my mind.

Terrified of getting fired, I ran to the director. "I swear I didn't take advantage of himhe grabbed my hand and put it on his stomach himself!"

Maybe I was just that earnest. She let it slide. And then handed me every shift of his care.

Before the accident with the glass, I'd already handled most of his daily routine. But back then he wasn't hurt and could manage himself. Now, with his arm and his foot, there was a long list of things he couldn't do alone.

The night I agreed to it, I ran into the first item on that list.

Cassius needed a bath.

I hovered outside the bathroom door, dithering, until he called from inside.

"Maeve, come in. I'm all gross. I want my bath."

I steeled myself. It was just helping a banged-up grown man wash when he couldn't reach half of himself. That's all. Strictly clinical.

I pushed the door open, smiling like a cat that had absolutely gotten into the cream.

"Coming in!"

CHAPTER FOUR

One of Cassius's feet was hurt badly enough that he could only stand on the other, and one arm was still wrapped in gauze.

When I walked in, he was working at his own buttons one-handed, getting nowhere. He looked up, eyes huge and wet.

"Maeve. I can't get it."

He'd already turned the shower on. His hair was soaked, and the top two buttons of his scrubs had come loose, baring a gorgeous collarbone and the suggestion of a chest. Genuinely indecent.

I had worked so hard to keep this clinical, and that chest dismantled my resolve one muscle at a time. In four years of life drawing I'd studied a lot of bodies. None of my patients had ever looked remotely like this.

A body that perfect, eyes that innocentit tested every shred of restraint I had. Made me want to tease him until he begged.

Oblivious to the gutter my brain was in, he took my hand and pressed it to his collar.

"Maeve. Undo it."

Was I dying to strip him? Obviously.

I smiled, deeply unwholesome. "Okay, okayI've got you."

He's six-foot-one, a full head taller than me, so I had to tip my chin up to work the buttons, making little appreciative noises the whole time, God help me.

When I'd gotten them all and reached up to slide the scrubs off his shouldersmaybe I imagined it, but something flickered across his face. Just for a beat. It didn't belong to the patient I knew. Sharp. Knowing. The look of a fully grown, fully aware man, with a meaning underneath it.

Then his eyes crinkled and the sweet, blank smile was back. "Thank you, Maeve."

Trick of the light, I told myself.

He turned, braced his good hand on the wall, and gave me his back. "Maeve, my back itches."

I let my gaze travel downand lost it completely the second I hit his backside.

Thathow is that allowed.

I wrestled my baser instincts to the ground, got him clean, and was towel-drying him off when he pointed at the two changes of clothes on the shelf.

"Maeve, which one do I wear?"

I snuck another look at his stomach. Lookhe's a grown man, and there are lines. I'd washed his top half and his legs; the rest he'd handled himself. Now he had loose lounge pants on and that whole perfect torso bare.

I cleared my throat. "Uhyou know what, you don't, uh, you don't have to wear one."

I glanced up, guilty, and met his eyes, and the amusement in them did not look as harmless as it should have.

But before I could even start to wonder, he tipped his head and gave me that sweet smile again. "Whatever you say, Maeve."

And then, bare-chested, he made to hop one-footed straight out of the bathroom.

I lunged and yanked him back. He couldn't balance on one foot; the tug sent him toppling toward me. I threw my arms out and caught himand the next second my face was flat against his blazing-hot chest.

I got another nosebleed.

After the injuries, even his walks in the sun were gone. I'd be scrolling my phone and catch myself thinking about him: alone in that room, watching the window, with no one beside him.

And it would hit me, out of nowhere, how much I didn't want him to be lonely.

CHAPTER FIVE

So I went home and grabbed my nephew's entire Dinosaur Encyclopedia set.

My nephew lives on his iPad and never opens these books, but kids and their hoarding instinctsthe second he saw me walking off with them, he threw himself on the floor.

I reasoned with him, gently. "Baby, you're so lucky. You've got an iPad, you've got SpongeBob on TV, you've got a mom and a dad, you've got your aunt who loves you. But some people have it really hardno parents, nobody to keep them company, not even an iPad. So if your aunt brings your dinosaur books to someone like that... wouldn't that be a really good thing?"

He's a soft touch, my nephew. Sobbed his little heart out and dug up his prized stash of fruit snacks. "He's so sad. Auntie, give him my fruit snacks too."

The fruit snacks, I ate on the drive over.

The dinosaur books, all of them, I put into Cassius's hands.

I set the whole set on his bed. He looked up, blank, like he couldn't figure out why a present had appeared. And I thought about doing rounds and finding him sitting in the dark, that lonely line of his back at the window.

It justgot me, all at once.

So I reached out and pulled him into my arms and said, in the gentlest voice I have ever used in my life:

"Cass. Don't feel lonely. You've never been facing this whole world by yourself. You've got me."

He went stiff. Then, slowly, he eased, and laid his head on my shoulder. Warm breath against my ear.

I heard his low voice say, "Okay."

Deborah is a world-class lech. The whole ward agrees on this. I just never thought she'd set her sights on Cassius.

His injuries were healing well enough that he could finally get out to the garden for some sun. The magnolia had long since dropped its blossoms, and he still sat there alone. I kept him company when I could. When I couldn't, he was on his own.

One day I came back from meds rounds to find Cassius ringed in by Deborah and a cluster of patients.

I heard Deborah cackling from across the lawn. "Cass, sweetheart, word is your abs gave Nurse Shaw a few nosebleeds. Be a dear and show us, hm?"

Cassius hugged the dinosaur book to his chest and shook his head, helpless. "No. You're bad people."

But five or six of them had him surrounded, and the refusal got him nowhereDeborah, the old lech, actually reached out to pry the book out of his arms. "Don't hoard the good stuff. Share with the class."

His scrubs were getting tugged open

I bellowed. "HANDS. OFF."

Then I tore into the crowd, peeled Deborah's hand off him, and shoved him behind me.

Deborah was indignant. "Nurse Shaw, you are so stingy. His abs don't belong to you alone."

I jutted my chin right back. "They absolutely do. I'm the only one who gets to look. You got a problem, you can fight me."

Deborah's little gang did not love that. And then they moved like they actually meant to.

CHAPTER SIX

But I am not someone you want to mess with.

I screamed. I contorted. I spun in place and swept the whole circle back, then threw myself flat on the grass and crawleddark and low, rolling, convulsing, shrieking, writhing through the dirt like a maggot.

Deborah's pack didn't dare come closer. In the end they scattered, all of them yelling, "Nurse Shaw's lost it! She's gone crazy!"

That's right. In a psychiatric hospital, I scared off a pack of patients by out-crazying every single one of them.

Once they were gone, I rosegracefully, under Cassius's frankly stunned expressionand picked the grass out of my hair. I gave him my sweetest smile. "There, Cass. The bad guys are gone."

I reached for his hand.

He flinched away, openly terrified.

Me: "..."

Overshot it a little. Scared the patient.

Deborah ran straight to the director to tattleShaw's insane, you have to lock her up. The director, drowning in half-finished forms and now forced to listen to Deborah's gang squawk, finally lost it and raked both hands through her hair until it stood up like a nest.

"It's a JOB. Show me one person here who hasn't gone a little crazyyou know what, lock me up too! Come on! If I'm a patient I don't have to build the decks or file the quarterly reports!"

Deborah's group had just watched me crawl across the grass like something out of a horror filmand now they turned to find the director snarling at her own paperwork. Even the patients knew real crazy when they saw it.

Deborah retreated that round, but she held the grudge. More than once I caught her at the window spying down at Cassius. I'd try to go talk to her, and she'd shoot me a glare, huff, and storm off.

I went to the directorstill bird's-nest hair, still grinding on her deck. She said, "It's textbook. She's decided you're the rival who stole Cassius from her."

I sighed and shook my head. "Love rots the brain. Even in here."

I turned to go, and she called after me. "Get ready. Full moon's coming."

On the full moon, Deborah goes from lovesick to full-on werewolf.

We all knew she'd break on the full moon; we were braced for it. What we didn't expect was for her to break early.

A few days before, someone came to visit Deboraha good-looking young man. Word was, the ex: the one who'd burned through her fortune and then taken up with her own housekeeper. The housekeeper was due to give birth soon, and the gold-digger, maybe feeling a twinge of guilt, came by with a few expensive gifts. Gifts that were a single drop next to the ocean of money he'd conned out of her.

Of course it set her off.

She slipped out of her room, timed it for the shift change, snuck into the kitchen and found a paring knifethen came back, slid into the young male patients' rooms, and started cutting.

The first one screamed. Someone hit the alarm. Every orderly came running.

I'd been one foot out the door, clocking out for the night.

I heard the alarm.

I ran back.

CHAPTER SEVEN

By the time I got back, the place was bedlam.

Deborah had a young male patient by the throat with the paring knife, sobbing out her whole tragic historyhow she'd given those men her heart, how they'd conned her down to nothing. She was working herself up.

"Men are all worthless!" The blade bit down a little harder. The patient's neck opened; blood welled up. He wet himself on the spot.

The other patients took one look and started screaming. The orderlies tried to herd them off, but they scattered everywhere, and chasing them only made it worse.

I scanned the crowd for Cassius and didn't see him. A nurse told me several young men had already been cut. Terrified he was one of them, I screamed his name into the chaos.

Whichof courseDeborah also heard.

The moment I spotted Cassius in the corner, she spotted him too. He's about the same height and build as that gold-digger ex of hers, and I think, in her head, that's exactly who he became.

She let go of her hostage and shrieked, "Die, you bastard!"and drove the knife straight at Cassius.

My heart stopped. "CASS, LOOK OUT!" I threw myself over him, putting my body between him and the blade.

The knife was inches from my back whenat the last possible secondCassius's arm shot out, hooked around me, and turned us both in one clean, fluid motion, pulling me out of the strike.

It was too fast, too smooth. I didn't fully clear it; the knife still opened my arm.

Deborah realized she'd hit the wrong person and froze, the knife clattering to the floor. Security had her pinned a breath later.

The pain in my arm flared white-hot. I crumpled, clutching it, blood slicking my fingers, cold sweat sheeting my back. And when I looked up, I caught something in Cassius's eyes that had no business being therenot on a man whose memory was supposed to be gone. Something clear. Sharp. Awake. A worry that knew exactly what it was looking at.

Later, while the ward's medic redressed my arm, the director walked Cassius in.

"Cassius says he's worried about you."

I was white as a sheet, sweating through the pain, but I was scared the wound would frighten him, so I gritted it down. "Cass, be good and step out. Don't look."

He just stared at me and shook his head. "I'm not scared."

He sat down at the edge of my bed and stayed. The medic wrapped me; the director stood there watching.

"Real hero, aren't you. You know how your dad chewed me out over the phone? You're a temp. You die in the line of duty, you have any idea what that costs me?"

All blade, no edge, the director. I knew what she actually meant.

I held Cassius's hand and smiled at her, shameless. "Don't worry, boss. I won't be any trouble."

She huffed and went back to her deck.

I turned to Cassius. He was staring at my bandaged arm, eyes brimming with worry, the saddest thing I'd ever seen. It got to me. I patted the back of his hand. "I'm fine. You don't have to worry."

His eyes went wet. "But you're hurting."

"...Okay, it hurts a little." I paused, and a thought drifted across my brain. "Butthere is one way to make it stop hurting."

His whole face lit up. "What is it? If it makes you better, I'll do it right now."

CHAPTER EIGHT

I checked the doorway. Medic and director, long gone.

I crooked a finger and beckoned him closer. He looked puzzled, but bent down anyway. I caught his collar with my good hand and tugged his ear down to my mouth

And then I said