The next time she met him, he was conscious. Which should have been an automatic improvement, but managed not to be, which was really quite an impressive feat. For one thing, nothing had prepared her for those eyes, and she still couldn't handle looking right at them, which was truly bizarre, even for her. She was far from skittish, but her mind told her strange things, sometimes, made her do and say things that she shouldn't and if she wasn't careful, the impulses screamed while logic whispered. For another, every single word out of his mouth just added to the slightly tilted feeling she got when looking at his eyes to make her feel more and more off center until she was sure she was about to fucking topple over right onto the sideways floor. She wished she was sitting down, but the only surface on which to do so was his bed, and she would sooner have chosen the ground.

"Mr. Shelby." He looked up at her slowly, blinked. Twice. Long dark lashes, eyes like shards of ice. It was ridiculous that eyes could even be that color, really, especially with the contrast to his complexion, she thought they ought to have the decency to be a nice, straightforward brown instead-

"I'm Tessa Re-," She began.

"I know who you are," He said, his accent rough, still looking at her, and she wished he wouldn't, and she wished he hadn't said that because she had not been expecting it.

"Oh?" She managed.

"Tessa Reilly, only daughter of Leonard Reilly, twenty-five, single." He lingered on the last word. His voice was deeper than what she would have expected. Her palms felt slick. Predator. She was silent for a beat, to give him a chance to realize he was being an ass and then perhaps apologize for it. He did not. She cleared her throat.

"Well, since you already seem to know everything there is about me, do you fancy introducing yourself?" She felt grossly unprepared. Uneven. Imbalanced. He ignored her question completely.

"You're American." She looked at him and didn't speak. If he didn't feel the need to respond to her, she could very well do the same. He continued. "How is it that you're American? Your father isn't."

It was becoming ever clearer that he already knew her father. And her father knew him. And had done absolutely nothing to provide her with any of this information. Many thanks, Leonard.

"I was raised in America with my mother."

"Mm," he said, and he nodded, still looking at her. His nodding was making her look at how the line of his jaw touched his neck, and she spoke again just to give herself something else to think about because she wasn't stupid enough to convince herself of things that weren't true about a man just because of how he looked.
"They didn't get on. My mum and dad." Why on earth had she just told him that?

"Yes, well, that can happen," he said, like he suddenly wasn't involved in the conversation anymore, or at all interested in it continuing. His hands twitched like they wanted to reach for something again, wanted to move. "You still talk like a Brit."

"I suppose so," she replied, a little surprised that he had said anything else. He had been so dismissive for a moment that she had felt certain he would likely never speak to her, or anyone else for that matter, ever again.

"Mine didn't either."

"What?"

"My parents. They didn't get on." He was back to looking at her. She felt rather like a prize horse, or an animal at the zoo her father had taken her to years ago, or a diamond under an inspector's magnifying glass being checked for its authenticity. Men looked at her often. No one had ever looked at her like this.

"Ah. Well, like you said… it happens." He blinked. Ready to steer away from the odd conversation, she began, "My father, he asked me to-",

"Why single?"

"What?" She said again, sharper. Was he incapable of letting another person finish a sentence?

"Why are you," he said slowly, nodding at her, "single? Shouldn't your father have married you off by now?" He looked simultaneously distinctly uncomfortable sat on the crisp white sheets of the bed while also carrying an air of unshakable, indisputable arrogance that only people with faces and reputations like his were capable of possessing. Tessa did not like any of the implications in his words, but especially that there was something so horribly wrong with her that it was inhibiting her father's ability to sell her like a lightly used piece of furniture that no longer matched the decor.

"I would ask why you are lying in a hospital bed after being shot twice, but that is becoming rapidly clear to me."

He raised his eyebrows slightly and his expression flickered, but she couldn't tell between what. He shifted in the bed and leaned back with a sigh. His fingers drummed on the mattress with a restless energy. His eyes were so light, so dark.

"Tessa," he said, and she didn't like how he said her name, like he knew her, and somehow she was even more unnerved than she had already been, which at this point was near impossible. "You don't know who I am?"

"My father told me that you're a "predator". That you think of everyone else as sheep." She kept her voice carefully neutral as she said it, studied his reaction to the words. He blew a sharp breath out through his nose like he was amused, but it wasn't a laugh. He didn't reply, was quiet for a few more seconds.

"What do you want?"

She would have told him earlier if he hadn't been so quick to interrupt her. She responded in a clipped tone. "My father wishes to meet with you. About business. He said to tell you that you would be more than fairly compensated for your involvement."

"Your father is the CME, isn't that right?"

"Yes," she said, grinding her teeth at his consistent evasion. "He built this hospital. I help him run it, and the others."

"So you're, what? His little fucking messenger?" He waved his hand at her, which looked like it hurt him to do, something that comforted her slightly.

"At least it's a job no one has shot me for."

He looked at her like he had lived seven more lives than she had, and pitied her for it. And envied her for it. She wanted to smack the expression off of his finely carved face.

"Careful, little lamb," he said, and she her temper broke and she spun her eyes and her heels and left the room in the same way she had the previous day, not trying very hard to stop the door from slamming behind her.