Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(31)

So she didn’t know yet that Emma was planning to fire her. Thinking about Emma, about the immovable decision in her eyes, set off another storm of panic in his gut. “Is there really no way to remove the tumor without damaging her optic nerves?”

She froze in the act of getting into her car and stayed suspended like that for a beat before straightening up and turning back to him. “I’m sorry, Mr. Caine. I know this isn’t the solution any of us were hoping for. But it’s—”

“You know my sister is an artist, right?” he said a tad bit too desperately.

“Yes. And she’s incredibly talented.” A blush suffused her cheeks and DJ knew she was thinking about his sister’s Sam Adams–loving vagina. He’d seen the painting Emma had done for her.

Out of nowhere he had the urge to smile. Emma’s art no longer embarrassed him. She had beaten that out of him with her Penile Dysfunction series. It was more a phase than a series, really. A long phase that had lasted years, during which she had found every way to deconstruct—which was artspeak for destroy—all forms of phallic symbols—which was artspeak for penises.

Love for his sister, in all her infuriating glory, clogged up his throat, filled his chest, until he could barely breathe around it. “Then you have to understand that she can’t lose her sight.” His voice came out a little too forceful because he could barely get the words out. “Art is Emma’s life. There has to be another way. There has to be. You just have to find it!”

She stiffened, blinked incredulously, and actually stuck her nose up in the air. “Are you aware, Mr. Caine, that your sister saw several other surgeons before she came to me?” The amber flecks in her golden eyes sparked with indignation. Obviously, she was not used to anyone challenging her opinion. “I’m the only one who was able to come up with a solution. The only one. Do you know why that is?”

He refused to nod. Something about the sheer volume of her arrogance held him in thrall.

“It’s because I’ve worked my ass off on developing technology that can navigate through brain tissue without damaging it.” There was a flash of almost crazed glee in her eyes. It reminded him of mad scientists in movies cackling over smoking test tubes. “Brain tissue is the most delicate, most vital tissue in the body. I’ve helped create a machine that nudges it apart instead of slicing through it. Do you have any idea how groundbreaking that is? I don’t find solutions for inoperable cases by accident. I find them because I’m exceptional at what I do. And I do not leave any solution unexplored.”

He raised both hands in that ridiculous universal gesture that said calm down, there’s no need to get your knickers in a twist, but it was he who needed to calm himself down. “I didn’t mean to suggest that your work isn’t brilliant,” he said as evenly as he could manage. “If the technology can nudge through brain tissue, why can’t it remove the tumor without damaging the nerves?”

She pressed her hand into her forehead, as though she couldn’t quite plumb the depths of the stupidity of that question. “You cook for a living, right? So I can understand why this sounds simple to you. But this is live tissue we’re talking about, not meat. You can’t just scrape the tumor off a nerve without leaving remnants of tumor behind.”

For the second time in two days this woman had made what he did sound like wiping shit off the sole of your shoe, not just unskilled but unsavory. It was only the second time he’d met her, but she’d already made his heart slam with anger far too many times. He hadn’t felt this kind of anger since he was a teenager with no control and far too much to be angry about.

“My sister is not live tissue, Dr. Raje, she’s an artist who lives for her art. This will change her life forever.” If she even agreed to let it.

“I realize that. But a changed life is still life. It’s all I can do. And it’s more than anyone else has been able to do.”

In that she was right. The realization jabbed a hole in his anger, letting out some of its steam. “I can only hope that you can convince Emma of that.” This time his bloody voice did crack, and he turned away because he couldn’t let her see him fall apart.

“Excuse me?” she said behind him.

With a quick swipe of his eyes on his sleeve, he turned around and met her gaze again. “Emma’s decided not to have the surgery.”

“What? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Just that. She won’t agree to a surgery that will cause her to go blind. She wants to look into alternative treatments.”

“She can’t do that!” Trisha snapped with the same finality Emma had used when declaring that she would do exactly that.

He laughed. A dark sound, coming from a dark place inside him. If Emma did this, there would be nothing left. His mind couldn’t even form the thought, couldn’t imagine a world without her in it. “She plans to do exactly that.”

For a long beat she just stood there, then she got in her car and pulled her door shut. Her tinted windows slid down, revealing her livid face. “And you plan to stand by and watch her? What kind of brother are you?”

“The kind of brother who hopes you can change her mind.”

“You better believe I will.” And with that she was gone.

He couldn’t believe he was thinking this, but he had never hoped for anything as much as he hoped that all her ugly arrogance was justified.