Chapter 50
Collins
I barely slept last night—just fractured moments of rest, shallow and restless, never quite coming together into anything that felt like sleep.
At some point, exhaustion won, and I fell off to sleep with my phone still warm in my hand.
I must have fallen asleep scrolling through photos of Anna.
Snapshots I’d taken without thinking—moments I never imagined would become lifelines. Her smiling at something I’d said under my breath. Her counting her beads with that focused little crease between her brows. Sitting in quiet light, simply existing. Her in her element. Her in my life.
I used to think love was reserved for the hopelessly romantic. For poets. For fools. For men who believed in things that didn’t last.
I was wrong.
You don’t start out hopelessly romantic. You become that way when you fall in love.
Love.
The word felt foreign on my tongue even now.
It wasn’t something that had ever lived comfortably in my childhood home.
My father never loved my mother. Not really.
He left when I was thirteen, as if we were an obligation he’d finally crossed off his list. Marriage, to him, had been a box to tick, not a promise to keep.
I see him once a year at most. Brief conversations. Polite distance. Nothing that resembles warmth.
For a long time, I was convinced I’d end up just like him—detached, untouched, emotionally unavailable by design. That belief shaped me more than I realised. It’s why I never pursued women seriously. Why I kept things clean, simple, forgettable.
Well…except for two times. And even those never mattered enough to leave a mark.
Until Anna.
I still remember our first encounter with unsettling clarity.
The way the night shifted around her. The way my chest felt too tight, my thoughts too loud.
That night was the first time I understood restlessness—the kind that lives under your skin.
Because I wanted a woman I knew I couldn’t have, so bad.
And wanting her felt dangerous in a way I’d never allowed myself before.
I told myself it would pass.
It didn’t.
Last night, I felt that same restlessness again. The same ache. The same pull.
Only this time, she was mine.
And now… now it feels like I’ve lost her.
The absence sits heavy in my chest, a quiet, constant pressure. I replay her voice in my head. The way she looks at me when she thinks I’m not watching. The way she fits so naturally into the spaces of my life, as if she were always meant to be there.
I pray this separation is temporary. I pray the law, the accusations, the cruelty of a man who mistakes possession for love don’t steal her from me.
Because one thing I know with absolute certainty…
I am not planning to lose her.
Not now. Not ever.
“Dr. Collins…are you awake?” Zelda’s voice came through the door, soft but insistent.
I stirred, blinking against the morning light filtering through the blinds. “Come in,” I said, my voice rough from sleep.
She stepped in, carrying something small in her hand. She hesitated at the bedside, then extended it toward me. “It’s from…Miss. Mathews,” she said quietly. “She asked me to tell you…she’s thinking of you.”
I reached out and took it. A tissue, delicate and soft—but the deep, blood-red imprint of her lips made my chest tighten. A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth, though my eyes betrayed the storm of longing behind it.
I rose from the bed and moved to the closet, sliding off a shirt from a hanger that still had my scent.
I held it in my hands for a moment, feeling the weight of the morning and the distance between us.
“Zelda,” I said, my voice low, almost a whisper, “when you see her this morning…give her this. And tell her she might want something warm for the evening.”
Zelda looked at me, understanding flickering in her eyes. “She only wants me to come in the evenings.”
I nodded. “Then tonight,” I said.
She smiled faintly, nodding, before leaving the room with my shirt tucked carefully under her arm.
I sat back on the bed, cradling the tissue in my palm. I pressed my lips to the exact spot where hers had been, feeling her in that tiny, stolen imprint. Slowly, almost reverently, I folded it and placed it in the nightstand drawer.
For a moment, I let myself imagine her smiling, warm, alive, and I could almost feel her presence beside me. And even though the law and Michael’s schemes kept us apart, on that quiet morning, in the secret language of a single kiss on a tissue, we were together.
I decided to get ready for work. I’d be a little late today, but still early enough for my first appointment. I grabbed my towel and turned toward the shower out of habit—until my gaze landed on the bathtub.
The sight of it stopped me.
I could picture Anna instantly, crouched low in the water, laughing as she piled bubbles into careless mountains. I could see my hands again—steady, careful—as I bathed her, the way I always had. The way it had become second nature.
Without thinking, I turned the tap.
This morning, I will take a bath.
It wasn’t something I ever did alone. Baths were ours.
I’d always preferred the shower—quick, efficient, forgettable.
But today, instinct overruled routine. I lowered myself into the water, letting the warmth wrap around me, and for the entire time I was there, my thoughts never strayed far from her. Not even for a second.
By the time I stepped out, the water had gone lukewarm, and the silence felt heavier than before.
Zelda had prepared lunch for me, but I had no appetite for breakfast. I left the house without touching a thing. A cup of coffee at work would have to be enough.
“Good morning, Dr. Collins,” Petra greeted as I walked in.
“Morning.”
“Hey,” Marlon said, his brow furrowing as he looked at me. “You alright?”
“I’m good,” I replied automatically.
“She went home?” he asked, concern evident now.
“To her dad’s,” I said. “I took her last night. Her home is mine.”
He hesitated, then cleared his throat. “Do you need a lawyer? I know a good one. Let me know.”
“Who do you have in mind?”
“Morgan Simmons. She’s excellent—specialises in healthcare litigation. I’ll grab her card from my office.”
“Wonderful. Thank you.”
Moments later, I was ushering my first patient in—slipping back into the role expected of me, as if my world hadn’t already collapsed.