Prologue
Lorraine
I’ve always been good at reading people.
It comes with the job, really. Being an OB-GYN at St. Gabrielle Medical Center means dealing with emotions as much as medicine: fear, excitement, heartbreak, and joy. I’ve seen it all, felt it all through my patients. Some people carry their feelings on their sleeves, some tuck them away neatly, and some—well, some are a mess of contradictions wrapped in a charming smile and a messy bun that looks like it was put together in a hurry.
Santino Lucienn.
That was him in a nutshell.
The first time I really noticed him, I thought he was a disaster. He walked into the hospital lounge with coffee stains on his scrubs, his hair looking like he’d just rolled out of bed, and a phone tucked between his ear and shoulder as he argued about something that sounded suspiciously like missing socks.
Then, I caught the soft way he spoke when he hung up the call. The way his exhaustion melted into something warm, something steady.
Sonny was tall and effortlessly handsome in that rugged, barely-trying way. His features were strong, his presence impossible to ignore. It wasn’t just his looks that made people notice him, though—there was something about him, an easy confidence, a magnetism that drew people in without him even trying.
And people did notice. A lot of people. More than a few of the hospital staff had a crush on him, from nurses to doctors to the occasional patient who flirted a little too boldly. But Sonny never seemed to care. Or maybe he just never noticed.
Because, for all the attention he got, there was one thing.
One person.
Who always came first?
Then, I met his son.
Shoni was a quiet, wide-eyed boy who clung to Sonny’s coat sleeve like it was his lifeline. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t need to. The way he looked at his father said enough, like Sonny hung the stars, like he was the safest place in the world.
And Sonny? He looked at his son like nothing else mattered.
It was the first time I’d ever seen a man so completely devoted to something, someone, without hesitation. Just love in its purest form.
But before I ever saw that side of him, I’d only known Sonny as the annoyingly charming orthopedic doctor who somehow made the entire hospital his playground.
Like the time he decided to scare me in the middle of the night.
I had been curled up in the nurse’s station, half-asleep over a pile of charts, when a low whisper broke the silence.
“You know, this wing is haunted, right? Love, the ghost from the third floor will be watching you.”
My eyes snapped open to find Sonny leaning against the counter, arms crossed, a smug little smirk on his face. He looked too awake for someone who had just finished back-to-back surgeries.
I groaned, rubbing my eyes. “Go away!”
“I’m serious,” he continued, voice dropping into something eerily serious. “Night shift nurses swear they’ve seen her shadows. Moving things when no one’s around. Weird noises, things falling off shelves. And now here you are, sleeping in the exact spot where the last person reported—”
“Sonny, I swear to God—”
Something crashed in the distance. I jumped, my heart lurching into my throat.
Sonny bursts out laughing.
I grabbed the nearest clipboard and threw it at him. “You’re an idiot.”
“That may be true,” he said, catching it with ease. Then his amusement softened into something less teasing, more genuine. “But seriously, Lorraine, you should sleep in the quarters if you’re that tired. These chairs are terrible for your back.”
I hesitated.
“Come on,” he said, pushing off the counter. “I’ll walk you there. I’ll protect you from Love.”
And maybe it was exhaustion, or maybe it was the fact that beneath all the jokes, Sonny Zamorano had a way of looking at people like he actually, truly cared.
I followed him.
That was the first time I saw the kind of person he was hidden beneath the teasing and the easy grins.
That was the moment I knew. He wasn’t just some disaster of a man running on caffeine and last-minute decisions.
He was something else entirely.
And I wasn’t sure I was ready for what that meant.
