Mills & Boon Showcase

It worked, and for the first time since they had awoken, words were spoken. “Oh, God, Katie, I want you so badly,” he whispered against her cheek, breaking from their kiss.

His words, however softly spoken, had the opposite effect on her. Katie, she wasn’t Katie any more. Katie had been the foolish girl who had fallen in love with her best friend and had had her heart broken. Katie was the girl he had walked away from and ignored. The memory of that feeling was the only emotion powerful enough to break her from the path to ultimate fulfillment that she had been on. Instantly she felt vulnerable and weak, and very exposed, which technically she was. Her hands pressed against his chest and she shoved as hard as she could.

“Stop.”

He made eye contact with her, and she wasn’t sure what he saw, but he moved. She scrambled off the bed and headed for the nearest door, praying it was the bathroom.

She closed what thankfully was the bathroom door and pressed her back against it. The dark, empty room calmed her growing sense of panic as she gulped for air, trying to hold back her tears. She looked around, her eyes adjusting to the city night’s light filtering through the frosted window. She was in Matt’s bathroom, virtually naked, only a door separating her and Matt. What had she been thinking? She hadn’t. She had completely lost control; she had almost lost herself in Matt. Again. Self-loathing rose up inside her. She knew better. If anything had come from their last time together, it had been the hard truth that in life the only person she could depend on was herself, and tonight she had let herself down.

Her hand found the light switch. She blinked rapidly at the brightness and studied the reflection looking back at her in the large bathroom mirror. Her hair was wild, her lips were swollen, her cheeks showed the marks of Matt’s five o’clock shadow, there was a faint mark on her left breast, and she was naked except for her purple thong. She shuddered, looking around the room for something to cover up with, needing to hide the evidence of her mistake. Her eyes fell on Matt’s robe. She hated it that that was her only viable option, but nothing else in the room would provide her the coverage she desperately wanted so it would have to do. The brown terry-towel robe smelled like Matt, but she blocked that from her mind, ran the cold water and splashed it on her face.

Now what? she thought to herself. Naked Matt was on the other side of the door, waiting, probably, for an explanation. He would be waiting a long time for that, because she couldn’t explain how tonight had started and had no intention of telling him why she had put an end to it.

It took another ten minutes before she was ready to leave the room, holding her breath as she opened the door. Folded up in the doorway were her clothes. Her eyes darted around the room. She saw the bed and the tangled sheets, but there was no sign of Matt. She took the clothes back into the bathroom, closed the door and dressed quickly, pulling her hair back with the extra hair tie she found in her jeans pocket. She took a final steadying breath, trying to summon the strength she was going to need to face him.

She found him in the living room, sitting on the couch, his attention fixed on the gas fireplace in the center of one of the walls. He looked up as soon as she came in. He too was fully dressed, not that it mattered as she could still see every contour of his naked body in her mind. It was a battle in her mind between the need to be with him, feel him against her, and the memories that told her to run as fast as she could and never look back. Before she could say anything he was walking towards her, reaching out with her coat and bag in his hand. He passed them over carefully so as not to touch her and gave the impression of not even wanting to be near her.

“I’ll drive you home.” He didn’t sound like himself, but she couldn’t figure out much beyond that. This was not the reaction she had expected, and while she was grateful not to have to replay the details of their encounter aloud, she was also hurt by his dismissal and couldn’t control the accusation in her eyes when she looked at him again.

He misunderstood the look. “I did drive you home earlier, but when we got to your apartment I couldn’t wake you up and couldn’t find your keys to carry you inside. So I brought you home so you could sleep here. That’s it; that’s all.” He sounded defensive and angry. Well, so was she.

“Thank you.” The words were terse. She put on her coat and snatched her bag from his outheld hand. He grabbed his own jacket and unlocked the apartment door.

They traveled in silence down the elevator, into the parking garage and during the entire car ride back to her apartment. At three in the morning traffic was minimal, so the drive was mercifully short. Normally silence like this would be uncomfortable, but she knew talking about what had just happened between them would take discomfort to a whole new level.

Her hand was on the door handle as he pulled up in front of her building and she had the car door open before the vehicle had even come to a full stop. She needed to get away from Matt, she needed time to figure out what tonight meant, if anything. Her foot was on the curb, half-out of the car, when she heard his voice.

“He’s not going to change his mind.” She would have missed the words if it had not been for the dead silence of the night.

It made her pause, settling her body back into the seat. She looked back at Matt, whose hands were still gripping the steering wheel, his gaze focused straight ahead, not looking at Kate. What was he talking about? She slumped further back into the passenger seat, too thrown by his statement not to voice the thought in her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Tate Reed.” By now he had turned to look at her, and she still didn’t understand. The mention of Tate, though, brought a comparison to mind. She hadn’t ever felt with Tate the way she had tonight with Matt. Never so out of control, never so desperate for release, so passionate.

“He doesn’t love you,” Matt stated, almost apologetically, like he was breaking bad news to a client.

It felt like a slap in the face, a reminder of another time long ago. Okay to have sex with but not worthy of love. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to talk about what had almost happened between them tonight. It was no big deal for Matt, just as it hadn’t been the last time. She could feel a lump start to form in the back of her throat and focused her eyes into a hard glare in effort to control the tears of humiliation that were forming at the edges.

“No, he doesn’t love me any more. But he did love me and he still respects me and would never hurt me, which makes him a better man than you.” She had meant to hurt him, to wound him, to have him feel some of her pain, and when she looked over and saw that she had succeeded, it didn’t make her feel any better. What was she doing here with Matt? Wasn’t the definition of craziness repeating the same actions again and again and expecting a different result?

“I’m a complete fool,” she muttered to herself, and completed her departure by slamming the car door and not turning back to look at Matt, who remained parked outside as she entered her building. She was locked safely inside her apartment and lying in bed before she heard his car start up again and leave.

He sped through Boston’s underground tunnels too angry to return to the memories that now awaited him at home. He looked at his now-empty passenger seat, remembering her in it curled up, sleeping, looking no different than she had almost a decade ago. When he had lifted her out of the car and carried her to the apartment, she had curled her arms around him and he had remembered what it had felt like when she’d been his.

When she had woken up he had seen the same trusting eyes of the past and he had been unable to resist kissing her. He didn’t know what he’d meant by the kiss, he’d just felt a need to be closer to her, to regain the intimacy they had lost. The instant he had felt her lips, tasted her, he had lost all control. He shifted uncomfortably in the sports car seat, his erection returning painfully with the thought of Kate and her passionate response. The Kate he had been with tonight was not the same Katie he had known. The new Kate was no longer tentative. She had grabbed at him, moaned beneath him, had eagerly lain back and opened herself to him. Or so he had thought.

It had been a complete and sudden change, a moment of recognition. The moment she had heard his voice she had pushed him away and run. It had felt like a cold knife had stabbed him in the chest as he had felt the full impact of her rejection. He had wanted to go after her, to make her face him, but pride had held him back. He hadn’t wanted or needed to hear that the reason she had stopped was because he was not the man she wanted or loved. He hadn’t wanted to hear her reject him aloud, to tell him that she only wanted and loved Tate. That in her sleep-deprived state she had fantasized that he was Tate, right up until his voice had broken the illusion.

Her rejection tortured him. He never expected Kate to live a life of celibacy, but he had also deliberately chosen not to think about the alternative. Now he was faced with a reminder of the facts, what she looked like, what she felt like, how she would react and respond to the most intimate of touches, in essence how she would make love with the man she loved. And in acquiring that knowledge he was also faced with the fact that he was no longer that man.

CHAPTER FOUR

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.