The Breakup Read Online Free PDF Page A

body part? He clenched his jaw and his fists and was about to give her a piece of his mind when the curtain moved and a doctor entered.
     
    “Mr. Aldridge?” The doctor glanced down at the chart in his hands. “How are you feeling?”
     
    “How the hell do you think I’m feeling?” Stephen shouted at the doctor.
     
    The nurse made distressed sounds and the doctor just shook his head. “We’re ready to take you into surgery, but I wanted to speak to you about the possible outcome.”
     
    Stephen broke in. “There is only one possible outcome, doctor, or I’m suing your ass. I want to be restored to normal.”
     
    “I assure you, Mr. Aldridge, we’ll do our best, but there is never a guarantee, especially with all the nerves…”
     
    Stephen started shouting again and the doctor left the room without another word. He returned with a syringe.
     
    Stephen asked what it was as the doctor gave him an unnecessarily hard poke. Before he could even finish his question, everything went hazy.
     

     
    Stephen woke to a blur of pain and immediately started yelling for drugs. The nurses in the recovery room rolled their eyes while they moved as slowly as possible to accommodate him. They’d heard how he’d ended up in his particular state and felt no sympathy for him. Stephen noticed their attitude and before long he began demanding a phone so he could call his lawyer.
     
    When he was able to move to the upstairs ward, all the nurses gave a sigh of relief as they watched his gurney leave their area. It wasn’t often that a patient gave them reason to regret their career choice, but he sure came close.
     
    Stephen held state in his private hospital room within a few hours of coming out of surgery. His loving mother was beside him catering to his every whim. He had his cell phone glued to his ear and was arguing with his lawyer. He had every nurse on the floor running to keep him happy, especially after he made it clear that donations from his father kept the hospital in the black.
     
    This wasn’t entirely true, but near enough. Stephen’s father was a shipping tycoon. Many of the cruise ships that entered Vancouver’s harbor were part of Mr. Aldridge’s fleet. Stephen could trace his family line all the way back to the beginning of Vancouver’s shipping industry. He was known everywhere he went, but this didn’t automatically translate into like-ability.
     
    “Get over here, right now. We’re suing that bitch and we need to plan our attack before her father gets his lawyers ready to counter-sue,” Stephen shouted into his phone.
     
    “Stephen, please, calm down. You need to recuperate. There will be plenty of time to plan your lawsuit.” Stephen’s lawyer couldn’t quite disguise his sigh of long-suffering. Stephen was exactly the kind of young man to fly off the handle and make unreasonable demands just because he felt slighted. Having his most precious possession nearly chopped off almost unhinged him.
     
    “Darling, please, you’ve just gotten out of surgery, you need to rest.” Stephen’s mother patted his knee and tried to ease the phone out of his death grip. His glare nearly fried her. She stepped back in shock.
     
    “Mother, leave me alone. I’m talking right now. Go get yourself a coffee or something, damn it.” Stephen barked at her, not noticing the tears that sprang to her eyes. Mrs. Aldridge was a sensitive woman, the main reason she had indulged her son. She hated to see him cry. Stephen had learned early on how to get his way with his mother and from that moment he had been the one in charge.
     
    She slipped out of his room just as he yelled again, “Get over here!” He slammed his phone shut and tossed it onto the foot of his bed.
     

     
    Her last sight of him was Stephen throwing himself backward on his bed and then going rigid as the pain seared through his groin.
     
    “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Aldridge whispered. But she continued toward the cafeteria. Nothing could have