The Procedure Read Online Free PDF

last him the rest of the year.
    A waiter passed with a tray stocked full of champagne glasses, and I was quick to take one off his hands. Champagne wasn’t my thing, but I figured I’d down it as I waited for the bartender to bring me my next drink. The last thing I wanted was to run into someone who was dying to just ask a few questions and be completely sober .
    Stein was definitely different from me—he’d perform any procedure on anyone, even if they didn’t need it. It was all about the money for him. He hadn’t always been like that, but he’d changed a lot over the last few years with the success of the practice. Miami had a way about it, with its hot, steamy weather and even hotter beach bodies that made the people so full of themselves. That included Stein. He was a good man, but the Miami life had gotten to him.
    When we first started Blake & Stein, we both stood for something. We had a purpose. But now, I wasn’t sure what Richard stood for anymore, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to be able to just look away while he scheduled surgery after surgery for some uninformed young girl who thought she needed to be perfect.
    I’d learned my lesson the hard way, and I wasn’t willing to perform anything on anyone who didn’t need it. I’d been that way since my first year as a plastic surgeon. Mary Sinclair was a name I’d never forget, but seeing Samantha Aldridge, another woman begging for plastic surgery, and hearing her bring up my past, stirred up emotions and memories I hadn’t thought about in a while.
    Clearing my throat loudly to get the bartender’s attention, I set down the untouched champagne glass and again ordered myself a real drink.
    “Jack Daniels, please,” I said to the bartender.
    I turned and watched the room as I continued to wait for my drink. The dance floor was full of couples slow dancing to the soft jazz music the band was playing, but the tables were also full of chatty women and men. The loudest of the men being Michael Aldridge, a powerful attorney I’d had the unfortunate luck of meeting one too many times.
    He was rude and full of himself—a different young lady by his side every time I saw him, even though the entire Miami population knew he was married. Although, on this night, he was obviously alone, which meant his wife must have attended the event with him.
    I watched from afar as he laughed loudly and slapped the back of a gentleman beside him. He downed his drink, left the table, and headed toward another table. A single woman sat alone, the stark whiteness of the tablecloth sticking out since no one was at the table with her.
    Her head was down and her shoulders slumped as she sipped a glass of champagne. There was something familiar about her slender frame, dirty-blonde hair, and the way she held herself, but I had yet to see her face. Michael came up behind her and gripped her shoulders, prompting her to lift her head, and her face shifted with that same weak, but brave smile.
    Samantha Aldridge.
    I’d been so wrapped up in my own anger over her visit and her insane plea to make her beautiful that her last name hadn’t even registered. I hadn’t even considered that she might be the wife of such a piece of shite.
    The entire meeting had thrown me and my mood for a loop and to an unwanted trip into my past. A past that included a young lady like Samantha Aldridge, who had asked for something similar to her request. I’d been unfocused and grouchy the rest of the day.
    Samantha Aldridge was the last person who should have been begging to have a scalpel anywhere near her body. When I walked into the room and saw her sitting there, I’d been confused by her appointment with me. And when the real reason for her being there was revealed, it pissed me off beyond measure.
    She hadn’t done a very good job of making me understand her reasoning for being there, but now… now I understood all too well. Her husband was a walking douchebag and she was…