The Billionaire Playboy's Regret (Lark and Max) novel Chapter 79

Lark stood helplessly watching as Max tore into his parents, the cardiologist, two nurses and a poor hospital janitor who happened to be mopping the floor when the discussion on his trip to Dallas began. The poor woman kept trying to mop her way backwards out the door of the ICU.

“Mr. Villeneuve, you need to calm down.”

“In the history of ever telling another human being to calm down, has it ever actually worked?” Max shot back at the nurse.

Olivier mumbled under his breath about calling someone with a blow dart and an elephant tranquilizer which made Lark snicker. Max’s furious gaze flipped to her.

“You find this comical, chère?”

“I find it funny you made promises to me to listen to the medical staff so we could be together until we were old and gray and yet you’re here with your blood pressure at,” she strained her neck to look round him at the machine he was currently hooked up to, “one-forty over ninety and this morning you were resting at one-oh-six over sixty-eight.”

“Sixty-nine,” he shot back. “If you’re going to quote the numbers, chère get them right. You know I remember the number because I joked that -”

“Enough,” Bobbie held her hand up. “Max, this isn’t up for discussion.”

“Mom, I love you. I do. Butt out.”

“No. The doctors are concerned. You underwent surgery only a few days ago.”

“Let me get this straight then,” he waved to the group of professionals, “you want me to fly back to Dallas, for my grandmother’s funeral,” he shot a dirty look to the head nurse who earlier called Nana Prue simply a family friend and perhaps skipping the funeral was best, “in a med-evac chopper, with a full team of medical staff.Stop reading the wrong and incomplete storyline, jo b ni b.co m has the correct and complete book. You want me to go the funeral in a wheelchair, hooked up to all this s**t,” he flung his arm at his chest full of electrodes, “like I’m the poster boy for the guy who broke out of quarantine, and then you want me to skip her wake, go straight to the cardiac hospital in Houston and stay there for another five to seven days. And” he glared angrily, “you want all of this done with a handful of nurses at my side the entire time.” When they all nodded vigorously, he threw his hands up. “No!”

“Max, flying puts you at risk of developing DVT post-operatively.” The surgeon tried again to explain their concerns. “We opened your chest. We did a bypass surgery.”

“I am aware of what you did to my body. I want to be able to honor Nana Prue. I want to say goodbye. It is going to be emotional and shitty and the last thing I want is strangers standing over me, telling me they want to check my vitals while my heart is breaking. To tell me I can’t be with my family and have to return back to a hospital and stay there when I know you’re all flying back here to be with Gracie,” he wiped his nose furiously and then grabbed the tissue Lark passed him with a growl, “is unacceptable. Lark needs me.”

“I need you alive.”

“What she said,” Bobbie grumbled.

“I do not understand why I can’t come back here.”

“Because it’s two more flights, Max, one back to Houston and then when we all go home when Gracie is well enough, another back to Dallas. We don’t know when it will be. Each flight puts you at risk. Flying is not recommended at all for a full month minimum post-operatively and you’re talking of taking two more separate flights in addition to this one.”

“This is some next level bullshit.”

“Pressure changes and -”

“Save it,” he ruffled his hair. “I want to be with my family. Why is this so hard for you all to understand? We are not in the stone ages. Surely there are ways to keep me safe.”

“There are!” the surgeon spoke up. “It involves using a medically equipped chopper with specialized equipment, keeping you monitored completely since it’s been three days since we cracked you open and then putting you on bed rest with strict supervised activity to keep blood clots from forming in your legs which will make their way to your brain and cause you to have a stroke.”

“Take it or leave it Max.” Lark suddenly spoke up.

He turned to face her completely with a c****d eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You have two choices. Stay here with Grandpa Gael and Grandma Louisa for company and we can live stream the funeral and wake for you, or you can follow the directions the medical staff are providing to the letter and attend in person. It’s not up for debate. I’m done with this argument.”

Bobbie and Olivier exchanged looks which Lark didn’t miss but she couldn’t be bothered to dissect them now.

“Now, get your ass back in the bed, let the nurse put the equipment you’ve yanked off back on correctly and stop acting like a child. Make your choice. Here or Dallas?”

“You’re bossy.” Max’s eyebrows knitted together giving him a unibrow and his beard was now full in, and he was wild looking in this angry state. “What gives you the right to be so bossy?”