“Are you going to try and set me up with another doctor?”
Ever since my disastrous date, the rumors had flown fast and furiously among the hospital staff. I was a lesbian, I’d had a seizure and had to go, I was secretly married with five kids … and no one was interested in the truth. Surprisingly, being the topic of conversation, being gossiped about no matter how silly it was, didn’t faze me. I was too busy with Nash, too busy trying to figure out the things that really mattered, to care about any of it.
Sunny rolled her dark eyes at me and gave me a huge grin. “No. I think your taste runs a little more colorful than most doctors walking these hallways.”
It was true. I mean there were some doctors sporting ink under their lab coats and scrubs, but nothing could compare to that dragon that was trying so hard to keep Nash safe.
“You’re probably right. What’s up? You never ask me to talk in your office. You usually just ambush me in the hallway.”
She was still smiling as she leaned back in her chair.
“Well, this is a more official conversation than me harassing you about your dating life.”
I frowned and immediately started running through anything that I might have done wrong in the last few weeks. I had been distracted because of the goings-on in my personal life, which wasn’t like me.
“What did I do?”
She shook her head from side to side and clicked her tongue at me.
“Now why would you automatically think the worst? You are an amazing nurse, I tell you that all the time. How can you think I would drag you in here and scold you for doing something wrong? I think that’s insulting to both of us.”
I gulped and Nash’s words sort of poked at me from the night before.
“Sorry. It’s just habit.”
“One you should break. Listen, Saint, Heidi is transferring to a hospital in Florida because her husband got a new job. I want you to take over as the shift supervisor. I know you’re thinking about more school along the way, but this is a great opportunity for advancement in the department you are already in. Say yes, Saint. This was meant to be.”
“Are you serious?” I was stunned. It’s what I had always wanted. Validation, respect, for the world to recognize I was great at something I loved. I couldn’t ask for anything more, only for some reason, as happy as the offer made me, it was the idea of sharing the news with Faith and my mom, and probably most significantly with Nash, that really gave me the most joy.
“Well, we have to do a real interview with the director of nursing, but she knows that you are the person I want for the position.”
My heart was fluttering in a rapid rhythm and I wanted to do a little dance in my chair.
“That’s so exciting. Thank you so much.”
“No one deserves it more.”
I got to my feet, she came around the desk, and I bent down to give her a hug. I really did deserve it, just like maybe, possibly, I deserved a shot at making this thing with Nash be a forever thing.
He was the first person I called when I got out of the hospital.
It was raining. Like a torrential downpour, and by the look of the water collected on the streets, it had been coming down for a while. I skipped across puddles and let the phone ring as I raced to my car. Nash didn’t answer, the call went right to voice mail, which made some of the excitement bubbling under my skin wane just a little bit. I had to shake like a dog to get my soggy hair out of my face once I was in the car, and I decided it wouldn’t hurt anything to swing by the Victorian to see if he was home. I wanted him to scoop me up and give me a big, sloppy kiss and tell me how happy he was for me. It was surprising how bad I wanted that.
I turned on the radio and listened to Her Space Holiday as I tooled across Colfax and made my way up to the Victorian. The weather was dying down, but by the time I dashed up to the door, passing the Charger in its designated spot on the way, I was soaked all the way through and my teeth were chattering. It wasn’t really warm enough yet to counteract being damp and all drippy. I stopped in front of his door and knocked.
I was unwinding my braid and trying to comb my fingers through my wet and tangled hair when the door swung open … and my entire world came crashing down. My heart stopped. My blood went thick and cold and I was thrown in a direction that had my hopes and dreams snapping in half for the second time in my life at the hands of this beautiful man.
Royal was standing on the other side of Nash’s door looking back at me with the same stunned expression I’m sure I had on my face. I think I could have handled her being in Nash’s apartment—after all, she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested in him that way. What I absolutely couldn’t handle, what had my heart breaking into sharp enough pieces I could feel them stabbing into me, was the fact she was wearing a towel and nothing else.
“Saint …”
I held up a hand and gasped when Nash came walking around the corner where his room was, also dressed in nothing but a red towel around his lean waist.
“Did I hear someone knocking?”
He was rubbing another towel over his head and the scene was so intimate, so devastating, I thought that maybe I was going to pass out. I had to actually put a hand on the doorframe to keep my legs from folding under me. When the towel cleared his dark head, his eyes locked on mine. I expected guilt, or shame, but the periwinkle blue just glittered at me.
“Uh …” Royal looked like she was going to grab me, so I pulled back before she could touch me.
“This is what you do to your friends?” My hurt, my disbelief, my rage roiled in my stomach as I bitterly launched the most hateful words I could think of at her. “I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
I wanted to punch her in the throat, but what I wanted more than that was to go back in time and never, ever let Nash Donovan back into my life. If I thought he had hurt me before, watching him kiss teenaged Ashley Maxwell had nothing on the idea of him cozying up to sexy and physically perfect Royal. This wasn’t a smack in the face or a sting of betrayal. This was him proving to me that I was right all along and that boys could never, ever be trusted with a pretty girl. This was me having known better all along. I was always going to lose out when an easier, better, more emotionally available option was presented. Time and time again that fact seemed like it was going to get thrown in my face and there was no denying this little scenario was breaking everything inside me into tiny, piercing fragments of hurt and pain.
I turned on my heel and was back out in the rain, back at the Jetta, when a hard hand gripped me above the elbow and spun me around. He was still in a towel, rain coursing over his shaved head and down the furrowed lines in his forehead. He gave me a little shake that had my teeth snapping together.
“What the f**k? She locked herself out of the apartment again. She was at the gym and soaking wet because of the goddamn rain. I gave her a towel and let her throw her shit in my dryer. If I had known you were coming by, I would have called to let you know what was going on, that she was here.”
I was breathing hard and his hand burned where it touched me. My heart was breaking, I was dying on the inside, and he had the nerve to look like he was the one falling apart.
“If you had known I was coming, I probably wouldn’t have caught you in the act. I knew it was too good to be true. She’s beautiful and convenient. Why work for something that might never pay off? Right? I always knew when someone simpler came along you would choose her over me. You just can’t stop yourself from breaking my heart, can you, Nash?”
The water that was hitting him dribbled over his chest and trickled through the definitions in his abs. The way he was breathing, the way he was shivering, made it look like that dragon was trying to pull up off his skin, trying to lift him away from the lash of my hateful words. He took a step back from me and put a hand on the knot of his towel. He shook his head and I saw his mouth draw down in a harsh frown. It wasn’t only his body that was bared to me, it was everything else he had as well. It was all shining out of those beautiful eyes, but I steeled myself and refused to see any of it.
“That’s the thing, I would have worked until it killed me, whether it ever paid off or not, if that something at the end was you. And I couldn’t have broken your heart this time, Saint, because you wouldn’t let me get close enough to put my hands on it. I told you I can’t see anyone but you, that you are my only, simple or not, and no one else compares. Does this situation look bad? Yeah, it does. I’m not blind or an idiot, but if you knew”—he blew out a breath and looked up at the sky like it held all the answers—“how much I totally f**king love you, you wouldn’t have any question, and wouldn’t think I could ever even think about another chick like that. You are it for me, Saint. I would never do anything to hurt you because it hurts me just as bad.” He shook his head, sending raindrops flying in every direction. “I’m not your dad. I would never make you go through that again.”
I gasped and wanted to smack him across the face. “You don’t get to say that to me. You can’t love me when you have another n*ked girl in your apartment. From where I’m standing, you look exactly like him, Nash.”
“No, I don’t get to tell you that I love you because I can’t ever love you enough to make up for the fact that you refuse to love yourself. You love your job. You love your family. You probably even f**king love me right back, but until you wake up and realize how perfect you are, how incomparable and wonderful you are, there is no hope for this to work out. I thought I was fighting a losing battle with some imaginary version of my younger self, trying to fight against all the other men that have let you down in your life, but now I know it’s a battle against you. I love you, Saint, all of you, but if you don’t believe that, then I don’t know where we can go from here.”
I was crying, sobbing really. The tears were falling so hard he was getting blurry, and I just hoped the rain was hiding some of it from him.
“I’m leaving. That’s where I’m going from here. I don’t think you know anything about love, Nash.”
He flinched when I leveled the words at him, but his eyes also shifted to that dark indigo like they did when he was upset.
“Maybe not before, but after you, and after everything with Phil—my dad—over the last few months, I most certainly do. I know you deserve to be loved better than anyone in the world because of all you do for others. I also know that I’m a decent guy, Saint. I deserve the best kind of love back in return, and if you aren’t ever going to be the person to do that, then I’m glad this is over. I would give you everything.”
He turned his back on me and I could have sworn that artfully designed dragon, the armor he wore to protect himself, was looking back at me with baleful eyes, accusation and something else, judging me.
I slid behind the wheel of the car and continued to cry while I frantically searched around for my phone. Part of me wanted to run back to the apartment and confront them both, cover both of them with my rage and sorrow, but the bigger part of me that was suddenly an insecure and lost teenage girl again just wanted to run away and pretend none of this was happening to me.
The first call I made was to Sunny. She could tell I was upset, asked me a million questions, but all I could get out was that I needed a few days off from the hospital. I had a bunch of vacation days saved up, so it wouldn’t be a problem other than I was leaving her in the lurch and she still needed to set up the interview for the promotion. None of it mattered to me. Nothing mattered to me. I felt like I was turning to stone.
The next call I made was to my mom. I should have called Faith, she was going to be furious with me when she found out I was bailing once again because of Nash. I don’t know that my mom understood a single word I tried to tell her while I sobbed and shook, but I got an assurance that she had plenty of room for me down in Phoenix.