Now that curiosity had quietly overpowered her fear, Celina let her gaze settle on the doctor who had treated her wounds with a tenderness that felt almost unfamiliar...
not because of the hospital, but because of everything she had woken up into.
Gray hair neatly combed backward. Wrinkles lined the corners of wise tired eyes. Thin silver glasses rested carefully against the bridge of his sharp nose.
Despite his age, his body remained remarkably healthy and straight beneath the crisp white doctor's coat draped over formal charcoal trousers and a neatly tucked black shirt beneath.
A silver stethoscope rested comfortably around his neck like something permanently attached to him after decades spent inside hospitals.
One aged hand held her medical chart firmly; the same hand that had been warm on her forehead earlier.
Obviously, her chart contained every tiny detail of the accident. Detailed notes filled the pages on her injuries,body responses, blood pressure fluctuations, neurological reactions and the progress of her wounds.
Even carefully written observations explaining what foods, medications, and treatments would help restore her body completely after recovery. Actually, every doctor cares about this, but wasn't that more of the nurses' job?
Every detail had been written meticulously.
Carefully; like her life genuinely mattered.
The more reason she felt he was truly treating her with everything he had.
It was crazy just by blinking she could see everything. But she was lucky, because the doctor held the chart at an angle facing the overhead bulb, so the light fell directly on the pages and made every neat line of handwriting clearly visible from where she lay.
The aura around him carried the warmth of someone who had spent decades healing broken people. Years of experience seemed woven into every part of him.
The way he stood.
The way he spoke.
Even the way he moved around her bed with calm certainty. It was truly the aura of a man deeply respected for decades.
His name was Professor Alexandros Stavros.
One of Greece's most respected trauma specialists.
And a man who practically treated Leonardo like a son of his own.
"She'll be okay soon," Professor Stavros reassured truthfully.
One hand gently wrapped around her wrist.
The monitor immediately accelerated slightly.
Celina shut her eyes fully again. God!! She almost got caught in a matter of seconds.
Carefully she tried calming herself while the doctor slowly released her wrist after checking her pulse once more.
Celina heard the faint click of an injection sliding into the IV drip pack hanging beside her bed, the sound sharp in the quiet room, followed by a steady flow of liquid beginning to move through the tube already fixed at the back of her hand.
She felt the medicine slowly enter her bloodstream, cool at first and gradually spreading through her body.
"It's antibiotics mixed with sedatives strong enough to stabilize her body properly," the doctor explained. "The antibiotics would prevent infection and support smooth healing."
"Thanks, Doc."
The same cold low voice answered quietly.
Unlike before when panic edged beneath his tone, now it had returned to icy control again.
And when he spoke, the authority in his voice felt powerful enough to silence an entire room.
Professor Stavros glanced toward him knowingly. "You should rest too, agóri mou (my boy)," he sighed tiredly, a slight smile touching his lips. "That child of mine would skin me alive if he wakes up and finds out you collapsed before him."
My boy? My child?
Celina's thoughts swirled instantly, confusion tightening around her mind like a knot she couldn't untangle.
Was the doctor… her handsome stranger's actual father?
And what about the man in the settee?
Was he also a son to him?
The idea struck her as absurd the moment it formed.
Her handsome stranger and this cold dangerous man as brothers? It didn't quite fit. Like trying to force fire and ice into the same body.
That couldn't be right.
Or… was it simply the kind of closeness born from years of trust? loyalty? shared memories? and familiarity built through time?
The question lingered heavily in her mind, unresolved and quietly pressing against her thoughts as she remained still beneath the hospital sheets, pretending not to hear while her mind refused to stop running.
A faint scoff escaped the younger man in response.
For his name was—Nikolas Vasilakis.
Tall and lean, with strength carved into every line of him and not a trace of softness anywhere. His blue eyes were colder than winter storms.
Smooth masculine features marked by a restrained fierceness rather than warmth.
In some ways, he carried an edge frighteningly similar to Leonardo's—except Leonardo was far more dangerous. His presence was colder, more controlled, the kind of man whose silence alone could drain the air from a room.
His dark blue sleeves rolled to his elbows revealed long veins, running beneath lightly tanned skin. Every movement from him carried restrained violence hidden beneath gentlemanly calmness.
Leonardo's closest friend since childhood.
One of the very few men Leonardo trusted completely.
Nikolas slowly walked closer toward the bed.
And suddenly, he understood, without even the slightest doubt.
The feeble woman was devastatingly beautiful beyond explanation. The kind of beauty that left a man briefly disoriented.
Her eyes remained softly shut beneath long dark lashes resting delicately against pale cheeks. Even weakened and injured, her beauty remained dangerously alluring.
Full pink lips, smooth pearly skin touched only by faint healing bruises. Soft naturally flushed cheeks.
And her body…God!
Even beneath the hospital gown her curves remained impossible to ignore. Her chest rose gently beneath the blanket.
A naturally curvy waist flowing into soft rounded hips and thick plush thighs.
Then suddenly, a memory resurfaced in Nikolas' mind. One drunken night months ago.
That night..No! He shouldn't even be thinking about it. That moment belonged buried where it had been left. That name… that situation… it wasn't something to pull back into the present with every breath he took.
Because it was the only time Leonardo de Caruso had ever truly gotten drunk.
The only time he had ever broken.
Not the controlled, unreadable man everyone knew. Not the one who stood above chaos like it couldn't reach him. That night, something in him had cracked open, just enough for everything inside to spill out.
And he had spoken.
Too much.
He had described her.
The perfect woman. Impossible, he had said. The kind of woman that shouldn't exist in the real world, yet somehow lived only in the space between alcohol and pain… or maybe imagination. Even Nikolas had once convinced himself it was the rambling of a broken mind trying to survive a heavy night.
Every detail had come out of Leon's mouth in fragments. Half laughter. Half something darker… heavier… like longing he had tried to bury for years.
And Nikolas had sat there in silence, listening without interruption, as though afraid the moment he moved or spoke, it would all disappear. He had stored every word without even realizing it, carving it into memory.
Now, he had rebuilt it piece by piece in his mind like a portrait he shouldn't have been able to draw.
A woman he had never believed could exist.
A woman he had assumed was nothing more than a drunk man's illusion.
And yet—Now, standing in this room…
Nikolas felt it settle in his chest with cold, undeniable clarity.
It hadn't been imagination. It had been real.
And somehow…It was her, this woman lying before him was exactly that description brought to life.
Every single detail.
And suddenly Nikolas understood why Leonardo had lost his mind protecting her.
"Damn…" the word slipped beneath his breath before he could stop it.
"She really is beautiful."
The words carried reluctant admiration but beneath it lurked dangerous frustration.
Frustration?! because this woman somehow became important enough for Leonardo de Caruso to nearly die.
Professor Stavros' eyes wrinkled at the corners as he glanced between the feeble lady lying on the bed and Nikolas' rare expression of surprise. A knowing amusement settled on his lips.
"I thought you hated her for putting your best friend in this position."
Best friend?
The word reverberated in her mind..more like it thundered through her thoughts. Her lashes trembled faintly and her heartbeat faltered for a second inside her chest. How was this even possible?
How could this dangerously cold man be best friends with her handsome stranger? Who is... actually, her handsome stranger aura was deadly too…but never toward her.
He had always been careful with her. Gentle in holding her hands which was always warm, firm. The way his gaze dragged slowly across her face whenever he looked at her, like he could see though every layer she tried to hide.
And then there were his darker sides.
The way he always spoke his mind so bluntly it left her cheeks burning, his words often catching her off guard, stripping away whatever composure she tried to hold onto.
The way his voice deepened whenever he whispered close to her ear.
The way his fingers lay possessively on her thigh; fingers she wanted trailing softly down, shifting lower right at the point where her thighs met beneath the fabric. His fingers parting her just enough to slip into center of her desire... but he didn't!
He simply stared at her with those dark eyes…God!..that gaze.
Like he wanted to slowly destroy every ounce of control she had without even laying another finger on her. Like his eyes alone knew exactly what they were doing to her.
Heat instantly rushed beneath her cheeks.
But for once!! She managed to suppress it, because getting caught now would be disastrous. Quickly, Celina tore her thoughts away from every sinful memory involving Leonardo.
At least now she understood something important from everything she had pieced together about their identities; the doctor assigned to her wasn't just some random doctor.
From everything she had seen, he was efficient, highly capable and obviously a renowned doctor. More than that, he was someone deeply trusted and very close to her handsome stranger.
Meaning, for now… she was safe so long as the doctor remained in this hospital. His calm presence, the way he treated her, even the way he spoke with quiet ease and sometimes light humor, gave her a fragile sense of security.
She was safe from whatever danger existed outside this room.
Especially…Safe from the claws of "Mr. Fiery," as she secretly called the dangerous man in her head.
"She'll be fine," Professor Stavros assured quietly while squeezing Nikolas' shoulder. "I'm giving you my word. By tomorrow."
Nikolas nodded grimly.
The two men finally turned toward the door.
The doctor stepped out first before pausing with a dry tired laugh. "I never imagined that cold-hearted boy would one day nearly lose his life over a woman."
Nikolas remained silent.
Professor Stavros slowly shook his head, disbelief and emotion mixing deeply across his aged features. "It seemed like the most impossible thing in this world until they were brought in… their hands were locked together so tightly the surgeons and paramedics struggled separating them on the rolling beds before surgery."
Emotion thickened his voice. "He refused to let go of her hand even unconscious. He even murmured something that sounded like lo—"
The doctor stopped mid-sentence. His lips parted slightly as if the word had suddenly become too heavy to carry out into the room.
A slow, shaky exhale left him instead.
His gaze dropped briefly, caught somewhere between memory and disbelief, as though the image of that moment had resurfaced too vividly behind his eyes.
"There wasn't time," he continued more carefully, voice lower now. "Whatever he was trying to say never left him fully. His condition was already critical… we had to move him immediately or we would have lost him right there."
"You were there too," Professor Stavros tightened his grip around the chart. "You looked like a ghost yourself. Both of us were too shocked to our bones to even react properly."
The door handle creaked sharply beneath Nikolas' tightening grip.
"I still can't believe he risked his life for her," he muttered darkly, anger thickening his voice. "While he's still in there struggling for every breath."
Tears gathered briefly inside Professor Stavros' eyes before he blinked them away behind his glasses.
"I'm proud of him," the older man whispered softly. "Finally having someone worth protecting… something I never thought I'd witness even in a million years."
Nikolas' fists tightened painfully.
"I hate seeing him like this." His breathing roughened slightly. "I've never seen him this helpless. It almost feels like when grand—"
He stopped himself sharply.
Rage visibly built beneath his skin.
His chest rose heavily as he fought controlling emotions threatening to spill out from the pain of seeing his best friend suffer.
"I can't just— Damn it."
The doctor rubbed his back lightly.
That small, reassuring touch eased only a fraction of the crushing weight locked tightly across Nikolas' rigid back muscles.
Some of the unbearable tension slipped from his shoulders, loosening them just a little, as though part of the burden of Leonardo's condition had been lifted for a moment.
It didn't calm the storm inside him, but it gave him a single breath that didn't feel like his chest was being torn apart. Just enough to keep him standing…without breaking completely.
"You heard the reports from the fire rescue team," Professor Stavros reminded gently,
rubbing slowly across Nikolas' tense back in quiet reassurance. The gesture was fatherly, patient… the kind meant to calm a storm already raging out of control beneath a man's skin.
"He shielded her completely." His voice lowered heavily. "That's why the impact worsened on him."
Nikolas' blue eyes became terrifying. Colder. Sharper. Violent thoughts practically burned behind them.