39. TESSA
TESSA
I paced the penthouse like a caged tiger, my phone clutched in my hand like a lifeline.
It was a wonder that I’d been able to get any work done today after Blake had snuck out.
After he’d betrayed me by taking something that didn’t belong to him, something that was so private that I couldn’t believe he’d dared taken it.
All day, I’d had to be productive. Frantically searching for wedding locations that had any cancellations.
Sadly, one other bride and groom had called it quits two days ago, so I’d snagged a coveted venue, one that my bride was thrilled about.
It took hours to do the paperwork, do the tour, and then I came back to this empty place. Pacing.
When the elevator finally pinged, I whirled around, my heart leaping into my throat. Blake stepped out, and one look at his face made my stomach drop.
“Where were you?”
“Out.” His tone was clipped, controlled.
“Did you take that letter off my dresser?”
“You’re a smart girl, Tessa. You already know the answer to that.”
“That letter was private!” With humiliating taunts from a sadistic bully.
Blake stalked past me toward the kitchen, his jaw set in that stubborn line I knew too well.
I followed him, my bare feet silent against the hardwood floors, watching as he retrieved a bag of frozen vegetables from the pristine stainless steel freezer.
“Give us a minute,” he barked at his chef.
She scurried out, leaving dinner half prepared.
“Tell me you didn’t beat someone up!” I said, though the evidence was literally right there on his hands.
He pressed the makeshift ice pack against his knuckles. “Voss proved more difficult to track down than expected. The punching bag at the gym took the brunt of my frustration.”
Voss. He knew his name? When I’d told him about the attack, I’d also told him the attacker’s name?!? File that in the that can’t be good folder.
“With the hand you need to treat patients with?” I balked. “What has gotten into you? You’re not some hotheaded teenager anymore, Blake. You’re a board-certified doctor with everything to lose by going after ghosts from my past.”
“That letter he sent you is very much in the present.”
“He’s not worth you risking your career by beating him up.”
His gaze snapped to mine. “I intend to do more than beat him.”
My neck sprang back. “Okay, I’m going to assume that’s a heat-of-the-moment comment, and you don’t actually mean that.”
No response.
“This is not your fight.”
He said nothing for a minute. Was too busy inspecting his knuckles, theoretically with his doctor lens. “The guy assaulted you. Now he’s threatening you. You honestly think I’ll let that go?”
“How have you made it this far in medicine with that temper? Last I checked, doctors weren’t supposed to moonlight as vigilantes.”
“Studying medicine never changed who I am, Tess.” The way he said my name, low and rough, sent an avalanche of ice down my body.
That’s when I realized how toxic I was being for him. I was his illness, infecting his world and his rational thinking, drawing him back to his teenage fighting days.
“I won’t let you torch your career over me,” I insisted.
Blake shook his head. “I need air.”
He tried to walk away from me, but unlike two years ago, this time, I didn’t let him. I followed him up a stairwell that led to a door, which led to, of all things, a rooftop terrace.
Seriously? Before me stretched a scene straight out of a movie: twinkling string lights draped between poles, ivory-wrapped railings framing the glittering Chicago skyline, and plush loungers arranged intimately around a stone fireplace.
In another life, this would be the backdrop for something beautiful, like a proposal.
Instead, the elegant setting was now the stage for what was shaping up to be the worst fight Blake and I had ever had.
“I don’t understand why you turned back into this alpha, vendetta guy, stealing that letter and beating something until your knuckles are bloody. Is that all this is? Saving me? Because I don’t need to be saved, Blake.”
Here I’d been, thinking about our almost kiss, wondering what it meant, wondering what-if. Again. Just like I’d done so many freaking times before, and he wasn’t thinking about any of that or me. He was thinking of victim Tessa, sick Tessa, who needed big bad Blake to put his cape on and rescue me.
Our feelings were on different frequencies, and it hurt.
“I don’t understand why you’re so upset?”
“You mean, aside from me being bad for you?” I snarled, cutting him off before he could come back with a retort.
“This is what we’ve always done, Blake.” I gestured between us, my laugh bitter.
“One minute, you make me feel like I’m the most important person in your world, moving me into your penthouse, vowing to solve my medical mystery. But I know what comes next.”
“And what’s that?”
“Every other time I’ve let my guard down, you blow me off and make it clear how you really feel about me.”
The moment the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I watched them hit like land mines, his shoulders tensing. Seconds later, his fists clenched, and he crossed the space between us in three long strides.
“You think I don’t care about you?”
I said nothing.
“You’re important to me, Tessa. How do you not know that by now?”
“Intellectually? Sure. But my heart has never been able to figure you out. Your constant push and pull, making me feel special one moment and invisible the next.”
“You matter more to me than anyone else in my life.”
“Really?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism from my voice. “Then why wouldn’t you return my calls? You made me feel humiliated!”
“ You stopped returning my calls. I’d tried calling you, repeatedly, but after a while, I got the message loud and clear that you never wanted to talk to me again.”
I laughed, the sound harsh in the night air. “I didn’t answer your calls because before that, I’d sent you dozens of texts after that night I embarrassed myself.”
“Is that how you see it? You embarrassed yourself?”
“Two months,” I shot back. “For two months, you ignored me.”
“What was I supposed to say?”
“How about accepting my apology?”
“You had nothing to apologize for.”
“Your silent treatment said otherwise.”
His jaw ticced. “I buried myself in work because I wasn’t sure what to say to you.”
“It takes two people to kiss, Blake.” The words exploded out of me. “You kissed me that night, and I kissed you back. I know I left, but I tried to reach out to you. But you regretted it so much that you blew me off!”
“You think I didn’t want to kiss you?”
“You made that perfectly clear when you ghosted me.”
“I didn’t ghost you. I took time to figure out what to say, and then you wouldn’t take my calls.”
“Because you blew me off for two months, and by that point, I was mortified!” The words burst out before I could stop them.
“You had no reason to be mortified, but for whatever reason, you pulled away from me, Tessa. You pulled away from me . That night was one thing, but when you did it again when I was trying to call you, it devastated me.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the warm night air.
“Do you want to know why I ran that night?” I forced myself to meet his gaze.
“That kiss … it wasn’t about you. I mean, it was about you, but my reaction wasn’t.
” I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the words out.
“I hadn’t been intimate with anyone since …
since the assault. I wasn’t sure if it would trigger me, so I’d avoided it at all costs. ”
Blake went still.
“Deep down, I knew I was ready. My therapist had been telling me that for years, but I’d never …
you know, put it to the test. Dating just never felt right.
Then that night when you kissed me … God, everything felt perfect.
It should have been the perfect moment to find out if I really was ready. But I panicked.”
Which was ridiculous for several reasons.
I wasn’t scared of Blake. Nor was I the least bit uncomfortable around him the way I was with other men.
Even with Eli, I’d felt a little unsettled.
With Blake, everything had always felt natural and amazing, and when he kissed me that night?
Also amazing. Theoretically, the second course of the kissing meal would also feel natural and amazing.
But I’d panicked because what if I was wrong?
What if I went to that next course with Blake and then fear kicked in or it suddenly didn’t feel natural?
Our friendship surviving a kiss was one thing.
Surviving an abandoned night in the sheets?
Sounded impossible. Ironic, I know. Considering me running away after that kiss ruined everything anyway. But there it was.
Drawing in a shaky breath, I continued, “If I did freak out when we were … intimate, I would’ve had to explain why.
And that meant telling you about my past. I was planning to take that secret to my grave.
I couldn’t risk anything happening between us until I was absolutely certain my past wouldn’t come crashing in. ”
When I started dating Eli, I finally let myself try with him. And it was fine. Not magical fine, but trauma-wise, I was fine.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Blake’s voice was gentle, filled with a tenderness.
“Because it was my secret to keep. I had that right, but I’m so sorry, Blake.
I never meant to hurt you that night. I never meant for everything between us to fall apart.
For two years, I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain that my anxiety attack had nothing to do with you, without having to tell you about everything else. ”
“Tess.”
“No,” I insisted, feeling his rejection all over again. “No pity. I’m fine. All healed. My point is, I know why I ran, but you ran for different reasons. You ran because I was disposable to you.”
“Disposable?” He couldn’t look more offended, or angry, by that word.
“I stopped the kiss. I tried to apologize for any hurt feelings or whatever, but you made it clear that you regretted that kiss more than I did. You discarded me, Blake. When I needed you the most, you just … forgot about me!” I clenched my fists, all that rejection and sleepless nights assaulting my chest.
“You think I haven’t thought about you”—his voice dropped to a dangerous whisper—”every moment since I first saw you?”
Heat flashed through me, but I ordered it to cool down.
“And every moment since that kiss? How do you think I got this scar?” He jabbed a finger at the small silver line slashing through his eyebrow.
The one I’d noticed in the ER. “I walked straight from that party to the shittiest bar I could find. Picked a fight with the meanest bastard in there because getting knocked on my ass felt better than remembering how incredible your lips felt against mine.”
The confession hit me like a hurricane. I’d spent two years thinking he’d walked away unscathed when, in reality, he’d sought out violence just to numb the pain?
He moved forward, forcing me to retreat until my back hit the concrete ledge. Behind me, only a decorative metal railing separated me from a fatal fall.
“I wanted that kiss, Tessa,” he said, his voice rough. “I wanted more than that kiss.”
I blinked, taking in three long breaths.
“What are you saying?” My brain ping-ponged.
His eyes locked on to mine, dark with an intensity that set my nerves aflame.
He leaned in closer, his breath heated against my ear as he whispered words that ignited my soul. “I didn’t want to just kiss you that night, Tessa. I wanted to bury myself in you.”
And then he crashed his lips to mine.