Читать книгу Mills & Boon Showcase - Christy McKellen - Страница 34

THE LOUD KNOCK brought Kate out of the darkness and forced her to open her eyes. She had been awake until six a.m., thinking about Matt, being torn between painful memories of the past and her body’s frustration at its lack of fulfillment. The knock came again and Kate grabbed her bathrobe and made her way to the door.

Chloe was standing on the other side, smiling, her hair down and straightened, her casual yoga pants and V-neck shirt nicely outlining her figure. She looked perfect, and Kate shuddered at the contrast to her own disheveled appearance. Chloe must also have recognized the difference because her smile quickly vanished and her green eyes began to evaluate Kate as she would a patient. “Oh, my God, I woke you up. Are you okay? Are you sick?”

It would be so easy just to agree and send her friend away, but Kate felt like she had lied, even if by omission, more in the past few days than she had in years, and she was tired of it. That wasn’t her; it wasn’t who she was. “No, Chloe, I am post-call and had a late night. Come in so I can stop standing in the doorway half-naked.”

Chloe stepped through into the small kitchen and perched on a stool at the kitchen bar. Kate shut the door and joined her, starting to make coffee. “It’s okay, I actually brought coffee for both of us, though by the looks of things you could use both.”

Kate smiled ruefully at the comment, wondering how she could have missed the tray and bag in Chloe’s hands but grateful to not have to make an effort and at the accuracy of Chloe’s assessment.

“I brought the coffee and muffins in case you wanted to study together; I didn’t think you would be post-call today,” Chloe said.

“I’m not technically post-call. I’m post-post-call, which is normally fine except that I didn’t get much sleep last night so it still feels like the day after.” Kate was normally very disciplined in her post-call routine—she needed to be or the fatigue would drag on for the entire week.

“Did you have an extender shift yesterday?” Chloe asked, obviously puzzled. Kate had worked as a physician extender after her first two years of residency had ended and she had passed her basic boards. The shifts involved her being on call and available for medical emergencies in various rehabilitation facilities and nursing homes. The shifts paid well and she had needed the money to help with the massive interest payments on her student loans. Kate had had to stop taking the shifts once she had become Chief Resident because of the added workload of her new role and needing to study for her final board exams.

Kate’s expression faltered at the immediate vision of Matt naked and pressed against her. She blinked, holding her eyes shut against the memory. When she opened them Chloe’s face had transitioned from surprise to disbelief.

She couldn’t face the look or the questions that were about to follow, so she turned and left the kitchen, moving to the soft yellow couch, curling her legs beneath her and covering herself with the throw blanket. Chloe read her friend correctly and said nothing as she moved to follow Kate, taking a place on the opposite end of the couch. She brought her offering with her, handing Kate a muffin and pressing a coffee into her other hand. Then to Kate’s surprise she didn’t say anything else. She just sat, and waited.

The silence was calming. It helped Kate regain her composure and gave her time to think as opposed to react. She absently picked at the muffin, thinking through the events of the last few days, and realized that Chloe was right, she did need to learn to talk about her feelings. She needed to tell someone, needed to say the words and thoughts in her head aloud before she went crazy, rethinking, reanalyzing, reliving the same moments over and over again.

“Have you ever been in love with someone when they didn’t love you back?” Kate asked, more as an explanation than a question. “When I was at university, completing my undergraduate degree, I fell in love with my best friend and in the end he didn’t love me back.”

“I’m sorry, Kate, but I don’t understand how that connects to now.”

“Tate and I broke up because he asked me to marry him. When I looked down and saw him on one knee, holding out an engagement ring, the first thought in my head was that it should have been Matt. And that was when I knew I didn’t love Tate in the same way, not enough to be his wife.”

“Oh.” Chloe’s face was beyond shocked. They had never talked about why she and Tate had ended, just that they had. She hadn’t told her about the proposal or about Matt or the role he had played. “Kate, that was months ago. What happened with Tate last night?”

“Nothing. We talked and it was nice. For the first time since we broke up I actually think he and I might be okay.”

“If nothing happened with Tate, why are you tired with what appears to be stubble burn on your cheek?” Chloe asked pointedly.

Kate felt heat rise through her as her hand reached up to touch the mentioned area, feeling the change in her sensitive skin. “That’s from Matt. He kissed me last night and for a few minutes I forgot about our past.”

“Are we talking about the same Matt? The Matt I met yesterday? The lawyer who was meeting with Tate to discuss the case?”

“Same Matt. As luck would have it, the hospital hired my old ex to defend my new ex and me. Horrible, isn’t it? The only two men I have ever been with in my entire life in a room together. I never told Tate about Matt. I didn’t want to hurt him any more than I already was, and I couldn’t explain how and why I still had feelings for the man who broke my heart.”

“Does Matt know about your relationship with Tate?”

“Yes, but how much I don’t know. He keeps making comments about Tate that I don’t understand.”

“Is he jealous?”

“No, of course not, he has no reason to be jealous. If he wanted me he could have had me, but he didn’t. He told me to my face that he didn’t love me and then walked away, back to his girlfriend, and never looked back. Jealousy implies wanting something someone else has, and Matt made it perfectly clear he didn’t want me.”

“If he doesn’t want you, how do you explain his marks on your body?”

“I can’t. Maybe he’s lonely and I’m convenient, again,” she sighed.

“That sounds really harsh, Kate.”

“No, what’s harsh is walking out on someone who maybe you didn’t love but at least should have cared about enough not to obliterate her existence from your life.”

“When did all that happen?”

“Right before medical school started. As you recall, I wasn’t exactly coping well with life when we first met.”

“Makes sense now. I wish you had told me then, though.”

“Talking about it would have made it worse. As it was, it took me a long time to realize that he wasn’t who I’d thought he was and we weren’t what I’d thought we were.”

“I’m sorry, Kate.”

“Me too.”

“Are you going to tell Tate about your past with Matt?” Chloe asked.

“No, it’s in the past and I refuse to give Matt any more importance in my life and humiliate myself again by explaining it all to Tate.”

“You’re being pretty hard on yourself over this, Kate,” Chloe said sympathetically.

Kate shook her head and stood from the couch. “I made a huge mistake with Matt and I refuse to risk ever repeating it.”

“So if you don’t have any feelings for this guy then what the hell happened last night?”

“Insanity and fatigue happened. I woke up and it was like how it used to be and for a moment it was the old Matt and the old Katie. But I guarantee you that will never happen again. I know too much about Matt. I’m not the naïve girl I once was. I have my own life now and I know that I don’t need him. Even better, seeing him again has helped cure me of any lingering images I had of the guy I once loved. I know for sure that he doesn’t exist and I can move on with my life.”

“Kate, I hate to point out the obvious, but you do need Matt. He’s your only hope for settling this lawsuit and getting your fellowship and career back on track.”

“I know. I guess that is one small bright side to this situation. I know Matt and some things never change. If there’s a way to win this case, he will. Matt is driven to succeed at all costs.”

“That doesn’t sound like the type of man you would fall for.”

“It’s not. The Matt I fell in love with was giving and kind. It just happens that that part of him wasn’t as important to him as it was to me.”

Matt walked back into the hospital the following day for his meeting with Kate, and for the first time in his career he felt completely unprepared. It was not a feeling he enjoyed. He didn’t know how he would react to her, or her to him, if she would even show up after their night together.

He walked into the boardroom five minutes before their scheduled meeting and was surprised to see her already seated at the table. She was reading from a large textbook, her hands tangled up in her long brown hair. She stopped reading the moment he entered the room, her eyes rising to stare up at him.

It reminded him of their past. She had been sitting exactly the same way the first time he’d seen her. She had easily been the most beautiful woman in the café but, compared to almost all the other women he’d known, she hadn’t seemed to notice or try to use it to her advantage. He had seen her in the same spot every time he’d gone to the café, until one afternoon he could no longer resist the temptation she’d presented.

Within a few hours of talking to Kate he’d known that his instincts had been dead on. She had not been like any other woman he had ever met. Matt had never been without a woman from a young age. His appearance, confidence and social status had been enough to ensure a willing and ready woman on his arm and in his bed. The fact that he’d had such a woman already in his life had not been enough to keep him from exploring Kate.

Soon she had become his favorite person, his best friend, and Matt had liked himself most when he’d been around her. He would sometimes stand back across the coffeehouse and just watch her. The intense look of concentration on her face, the way she would abstractedly run her fingers through her hair, and then she would look up and see him and smile. She had made him feel welcome and like he belonged. But that had been then, and today Kate was not smiling.

He took the seat opposite her across the table. He needed to remind himself that his purpose was the lawsuit and sitting too close to her was a distraction from that purpose.

“My firm has acquired and reviewed all the documents related to the case. There are a few depositions we need to talk about.”

“Your firm?” she asked, the question holding more censure that he’d expected from her. She was still angry and he needed to do his best to calm her down if they were ever going to be able to discuss the case in a constructive manner.

“I’m a partner at my grandfather’s law firm. I started and head up the medical defense division.”

The McKayne family was rich and powerful and known for their prominent presence in the New York legal community. His grandfather had founded a law firm decades earlier that had grown to be one of the best, making his family very wealthy. Matt’s father had been in line to succeed his grandfather until he’d died suddenly of a heart attack when Matt had been four, leaving the family’s dynasty and future firmly on Matt’s shoulders. Matt often wondered how different his life would have been if his father had lived.

The medical defense division was his creation and he was involved in every aspect of its operation. He represented clients but also oversaw the operations of all the firm’s satellite offices, which was how he’d ended up back in Kate’s life.

He had been reading the monthly client reports at home one evening when he’d seen her name. A combination of fear and desire had broken through his whole body. He’d called the Boston lawyer assigned to the case and confirmed it was his Katie being described. Without hesitation he’d released the other lawyer from the case and arranged to handle it personally. He had never once considered the ramifications of their reunion.

“Did you pick this case because of me?” she asked, her shrewd intelligence piecing together what he wasn’t saying.

“Yes.” He knew better than to lie to her but also wasn’t willing to offer her any more of an explanation for his actions.

Matt had been raised to be responsible, with the high expectations and demands of his family behind his every decision and action. He hadn’t realized he resented it or what a heavy burden it was until he’d met Kate.

She’d never asked him for anything and in return she had been the first person in his life that Matt had wanted to do things for, simply to make her happy, to make her smile. This was in stark contrast to his family, who had been blatant and demanding in their needs, wants and expectations. Kate had got more joy out of simple things than Matt had known was possible. Remembering how she took her coffee or asking about how her exam went had seemed to mean the world to her, and had been a far cry from the over-the-top and lavish gestures his family had expected.

He had been the best version of himself during his time with her. It hadn’t been anything she had done or said, it had been all the things she hadn’t done that had made him feel a sense of freedom and a willingness to give of himself that he had never experienced. She’d had no expectations or demands of him and had never pushed for more than he’d offered.

It was that part of Kate that was driving his need to personally defend her, not his guilt, he told himself. She seemed to take in his answer, an internal debate apparent in the emotions that crossed her face before she let the matter drop.

He took her cue and refocused on the case. “Kate, I want you to think back to that night and the interactions you had with Mr. Weber and his family. Can you think of anything you said or did that would make the Webers believe there was negligence involved in his death?”

She was silent across the table, but her nonverbal cues made up for the lack of words. She tangled her hair into a knot, pulling it from her face as her perfect posture slouched in defeat. “Yes.”

“What happened?” He knew the answer. He rarely asked a question without knowing the answer but he needed to hear it from her, even though he knew it would kill her to say it.

“I cried.” No emotion was in her words, just a statement of fact. But the look on her face told a different story.

“When did you cry, Kate?” Memories of the two times he had ever seen Kate cry revolved in his mind. Both instances had been extreme, when she had been pushed to her limit.

“When I was talking to Mrs. Weber after her husband died.” Still no elaboration. He hated this. Hated that his job was to force her to discuss something she had no desire to share with him. It went against everything they had once been.

“I need you to tell me exactly what happened.” She stared at him and he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Minutes went by and he started to worry she would refuse him. Not for the first time he reconsidered whether he should be representing Kate, or whether the past between them was too much to overcome.

Finally she sighed, obviously resigning herself to the situation. “After Mr. Weber died, Tate, as the attending surgeon, went to talk to Mrs. Weber to disclose his death. When he was done I joined her in the operating room’s family room. I had met her earlier in the night and felt compelled to see her. She already knew her husband was dead and was crying alone in the room when I got there. When she saw me she reached for me and I let her embrace me, and she didn’t let go. The more she cried, the harder she held me. Eventually I started to cry too and I told her I was sorry.”

“What were you sorry for, Kate?”

“I was sorry that she had lost the love of her life. That she was going to have to go on by herself and try to make a life without the one person she was meant to be with.”

“Do you think it’s possible that she misinterpreted your empathy as guilt?”

“Given that we are talking about it, I would say yes, wouldn’t you?” Her derision was very clearly focused on herself, despite the sarcasm in her response.

Yes, he would. Kate crying and saying she was sorry would definitely raise suspicions when reflected on after the fact.

“Are there any other patients, nurses, or colleagues that would speak for a pattern of behavior? That you frequently empathize with your patients and their emotions?”

“No. That was the first and only time I have lost my composure at work.”

“Is there anyone else in your life who can testify to your emotional nature?” He was reaching, looking for some way to get her out of a situation that now seemed partially her own making.

Her face changed. Gone was the steely armor and replacing it was the same softness he recognized from the past. “You.”

“Me what, Kate?”

“You are the only person who has ever seen me cry.” Her words were a painful confession, but the information was just the opposite. It highlighted to him what he had always known. They had been something different, something special, something he should have held onto at all costs. He couldn’t let those thoughts take over; he needed to keep his focus. He knew bringing up the past would be a sure way to make Kate retreat and he wasn’t willing to lose another minute with the real her.

“What was different about that night?”

“I’m not sure.” She raked her hand back through her hair and looked down at the table as if she would find the answer she was looking for in the grain of the wood. “She really loved him and he loved her. I saw it between them in the emergency department, true love. Then within hours it was gone and I couldn’t put together what would happen next. She was so lost without him already and all I could remember was what it felt like to lose the person you love. I remembered that feeling and knew that my love and pain were only a tenth of what she was experiencing, and I didn’t know how to help her.”

The most remarkable woman he had ever met looked defeated and it was enough to break his resolve. He didn’t stop to question whether she was referring to her mother, him, or Tate Reed in her memories of pain and loss. He rose from his chair and crossed around to her, the drive to hold her in his arms breaking through his common sense. She looked up as he drew her up from her chair, her lips parting in shock. He didn’t mean to kiss her, his intent, brief as it had been, had been to comfort and hold her, but one look into the depths of her eyes and the sweet fullness of her lips was enough to change his mind.

It was an experience in contrasts. The softness of her lips to the hardness of his mouth; the surprise in her reaction to the deliberate intent that drove him; the sweetness within her to the ruthlessness of the man he had become. She didn’t pull away and the small surrender drove him harder. He explored her, reminding his mind and body of the places he had once been and had never forgotten. His tongue teased hers while his hands roamed her body in his embrace. Her hands clung to him, grabbing handfuls of the fabric of his shirt until the moment was broken and he felt her step back from the kiss and push him away.

She was staring at him, her eyes wide. “You want me.”

His arms were still holding her and he was unwilling to let her move further away. He also wanted to make it clear to her who she was with and who was responsible for the dilation of her pupils, her parted moist lips, and the points of her nipples, which were pressing against the fabric of her long-sleeved cotton shirt.

“Why?” she whispered, the word coming at the end of a gasp to find her breath.

“Why what?” His brain had been robbed of its blood supply and his ability to comprehend her question was inhibited by the physical desire he was struggling to restrain.

“Why are you really back?” It was the question that had been in the background of their every interaction and had remained unasked and unanswered between them.

“Code Orange. Code Orange, Emergency Department. All available personnel.” The hospital intercom sounded within the room, the intrusion startling both of them. His arms dropped and she moved away. He had no idea what the announcement meant, but as he watched her face change from the intimacy of her question to immediate business, he realized it was serious.

“That’s a mass casualty code. I need to go.” She went back to her spot at the table, shoved her textbook into her shoulder bag and then left without another look at him.

He was torn between anger at the interruption and relief that he didn’t have to answer the question he didn’t have an answer for.

He knew why he had left her but had no explanation for why he was back. He paced around the room, the motion helping him to organize his thoughts. It wasn’t the first time he had thought it through. It was an argument he had had over and over again, and never once had he come to a different conclusion. Kate was special. She was beautiful, selfless, and genuine in her feelings and actions. She was everything he wanted and he had loved her enough to let her go before his world ruined her and robbed her of everything that made her the woman he loved.

Why was he back? He had asked himself a thousand times since coming to Boston. Why, after nine years of being apart, had he finally given in to the temptation to return to her? It wasn’t that he had forgotten her. In the beginning it had taken every ounce of his willpower to break away from her. When she’d called and emailed he had forced himself to erase the messages before listening to or reading her words.

He had begun filling his life with women and alcohol, neither providing any comfort. For a time he’d actually thought he was losing his mind, because out of the corner of his eye he would think that he saw her across campus or heard her voice in a crowd. One afternoon he had walked into a campus coffeehouse and seen a woman that could have been her. The long brown hair, the way she had been bent over a textbook, intensely concentrating, reminding him so much of Katie that when she had started to look up he’d had to turn and leave. He had been unable to face the crushing disappointment that would have come when he discovered it was not her.

After that he realized he needed something in his life that reminded him of her without being with her. That was when he discovered medical defense law. It brought out the best in him, just as Kate had. The ability to defend and protect physicians who dedicated their lives to caring for others brought a purpose to his life that he desperately needed. It was also the first step in breaking free of his family’s self-serving dysfunction.

After finishing law school, it had been understood that he would join the firm and he did, but with one condition—he wanted to specialize in medical defense. When faced with the prospect of having his grandson work for another law firm, his grandfather relented and let him start a separate division for medical defense within the family firm. Matt was the best at everything he did, but as a medical defense lawyer he excelled. Within two years the firm’s value had tripled and Matt was made a partner. By twenty-eight, Matt was a millionaire, having channeled his share of the firm’s profits into successful investments.

Despite being born into privilege, Matt became a self-made man, and with that came insight into the family dynamic that had dominated his life. He loved his family, but that feeling was marred by the sense of responsibility he felt toward them and disdain for their way of life. They judged and treated people entirely according to wealth and background with no regard for true character. They would have eaten the old Katie alive, and Matt knew that, despite his best efforts to protect her, his family’s resentment of who she was and her position of importance in Matt’s life would have slowly eroded her spirit and the small amount of self-confidence she had.

But now things were different. New money was no longer vulgar, not when Matt had accumulated more wealth than the rest of his family combined. He had also learned to draw some hard lines surrounding his personal life and they no longer dared to interfere in his relationships or other choices.

If his ability to control his family was the reason he was back in Kate’s life, he would have found her years ago. He could more easily explain why he’d stayed away than why he’d returned. He’d stayed away out of guilt. No matter how noble his reasons had been for ending their relationship, he had done it horribly, his mind reacting instead of thinking.

To avoid her sacrificing who she was and wanted to be for him, he had sacrificed his own character. He had stayed away because after all these years He knew he couldn’t offer her what they had once had—trust. If she asked him again why he was back, he would be honest. He was back because she needed him and after nine years apart he finally had something to offer her, and he wasn’t going to let her refuse.