Chapter 4 He Helped Her

Ximena Gonzalez's POV:

Albert stood there, repeatedly checking his watch, clearly growing impatient.

"Dr. Albert?" I said, surprised.

He looked up, his deep gaze sweeping over me from head to toe before settling on the bandage around my right wrist. His brow furrowed slightly.

"How did you—"

"The flight's at nine," Albert said, pocketing his phone. "When I couldn't reach you by seven, I had to come find you. Did you expect me to go alone?"

I froze.

He'd posted a hundred thousand dollars in bail just to make sure the surgery wasn't delayed?

"What are you standing there for?" Albert turned and headed for the exit. "Keep up."

I snapped out of it, signed the release forms, and jogged after him.

Albert was already in the driver's seat, engine running.

I pulled open the passenger door and slid in. Before I could even fasten my seatbelt, the car was backing out of the parking spot.

The car was silent. I stole a glance at Albert. His jaw was tight, his expression tense. He didn't look happy.

"Dr. Albert," I said, gripping the strap of my bag. "I'll pay you back the bail money. All hundred thousand. I—"

"How exactly do you plan to pay me back?" Albert cut in.

I opened my mouth, then closed it again.

After rent, Grandma's care facility fees, and daily expenses, my monthly paycheck left almost nothing. A hundred thousand dollars was an astronomical sum for me.

"I can write you an IOU. Interest at the bank rate. Every month I'll—"

"Why were you locked up?" Albert asked suddenly.

I fell silent.

He glanced at me. "Don't want to say?"

"It's not that." I shook my head, my fingers absently tracing the edge of the bandage on my wrist. "It's about my uncle. He's... involved with some people. The police are investigating, so they held me for questioning."

"Involved how?"

I didn't answer.

Mateo's case involved the mob, drugs, interstate smuggling—any one of those things could destroy Albert if he got dragged into it.

He was one of the country's top surgeons with a brilliant future ahead of him. He shouldn't be dragged down by my mess.

"Dr. Albert," I said, turning to look at him. "I'll handle this myself. And I'll pay you back as soon as I can. Please trust me."

Albert studied me for a long moment before saying, "Focus on your job first. We'll deal with the rest later."

I looked at his profile, my lips parting to say something, but he'd already looked away and said nothing more.

We boarded the flight to Geneva without incident. On the plane, he showed me the patient's file.

The patient was a forty-seven-year-old man with a severely comminuted fracture of his right forearm and extensive soft tissue damage. The surgery would be extremely difficult.

The more I read, the more daunting it seemed. My fingers unconsciously tightened around the edge of the printout.

Albert sat beside me, flipping through a medical journal. He caught my movement out of the corner of his eye. "Scared?" he asked flatly.

"Not scared," I said honestly. "It's just that the success rate for this type of surgery, based on the literature, isn't very high."

Albert closed the journal and turned to look at me, his gaze unusually serious. "The literature is the literature. I'm me."

His words caught me off guard. I looked up and met his eyes, and my heart skipped a beat.

He quickly looked away and closed his eyes to rest. I lowered my head and went back to reading the file, but it took a while for my heartbeat to settle.

We landed in Geneva at three in the afternoon local time.

We went straight to the hospital, met with the surgical team for pre-op discussions, then visited the patient in his room.

The patient himself was relatively calm, but his wife was in tears. It took me a long time to comfort her enough to sign the surgical consent form.

The surgery was scheduled for nine the next morning.

It was my first time watching Albert in the operating room.

The moment the surgical lights came on, he seemed to transform into a different person.

He was intensely focused. Every movement was precise, like a finely calibrated instrument. Every step flowed seamlessly into the next.

As the scrub nurse, I was responsible for passing instruments and sutures. My attention never wavered. I didn't dare blink.

The surgery lasted six hours.

When the final suture was placed, everyone in the OR exhaled in relief.

Albert set down the needle holder, stripped off his gloves, and glanced at me.

It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw him smile at me—just for a fleeting instant, gone before I could be sure.

After the surgery, I was changing in the locker room when I heard Albert's voice outside the door. "Come out when you're ready."

I hurriedly finished changing and stepped out to find him standing at the end of the hallway by a window, holding a cup of coffee.

"Come here," he said.

I walked over and stopped in front of him.

"You did well today."

Albert took a sip of coffee, his gaze on the lake outside the window.

"During the vascular anastomosis, your timing with the sutures was precise. No unnecessary hesitation."

I hadn't expected him to wait here just to compliment me. I hesitated before saying, "Thank you, Dr. Albert."

"Have you ever thought about moving up?" he asked suddenly.

"A promotion?"

"Head nurse," Albert said, turning to face me, leaning against the windowsill. "Brenda's transferring out this month. The position will open up."

My heart started racing.

Head nurse?

"You have the clinical skills," Albert said. "But you're too blunt. You offend people without even realizing it. If you want to move into management, being good at your job isn't enough. You need to learn how to work with people."

I felt embarrassed by his words and looked down at my shoes.

"But..." Albert paused. "Being direct has its advantages. At least people don't have to guess what you're thinking."

I looked up and found him watching me, his expression unreadable—like he wasn't just talking about work.

"I'll do my best," I said quickly.

Albert nodded, set his coffee cup on the windowsill, and straightened. "Let's go. We have an afternoon flight back."

On the return flight, I finally let myself feel excited.

Brenda's transfer had been rumored for a while, but I'd never imagined I'd be considered for her position.

After all, there were at least five or six nurses in the surgical wing with more seniority than me. In terms of connections and office politics, there was no way someone like me—someone who didn't know how to flatter superiors or play favorites—would be chosen.

But Albert's words had planted a seed in my mind, and it was quietly taking root.

By the time the plane landed, it was already six in the evening.

The sky had darkened, and the city lights twinkled below.

I turned off airplane mode. My phone screen lit up with over a dozen unread messages.

All from Mrs. Perez.

I opened the first one, and my hands started trembling.

[Ximena, something's happened to your grandmother!]