Chapter 19 #2
“Did it ever occur to you that Luca broke your heart for a reason?”
I groan, my head falling back. Tossing my napkin at him, I say, “Not this again.”
“I was there that night. Don’t forget that. I know the truth even if you don’t want to acknowledge there might be more to this than you know or care to accept.”
“He did it partially for me, Kaplan. I know. I may not have realized it that night and it might have taken me a very long time to work that through, but I know that’s why he did it.
He wanted me to go to school and play so I didn’t give up on my dream, which worked out nicely since he didn’t want to be tethered down with an eighteen-year-old kid while he worked on his. ”
“All true except the tethered down part. He would have done that in a heartbeat. He did marry you, after all.”
I roll my eyes in disdain. “Whatever. It doesn’t change anything for me because he still did it in such a way that left me devastated for two years.
He was a cruel, uncaring, miserable prick that night.
He said things that can never be taken back.
Two years I sat heartbroken and inconsolable.
Untrusting and man-hating. For the last two years, I’ve done everything I could to force him from my thoughts and my heart.
But the bastard kept popping up. Kept sticking his head out of the sand.
Digging that knife in deeper and deeper.
And for what? To remind me he was there when I couldn’t have him?
To keep stringing me along while he was off pegging every woman he could get his hands on? Fuck that. Fuck. That.”
Kaplan is for once stunned speechless.
Finally, he blinks and clears away his expression. “So you think you know it all, which you obviously don’t, but that’s why you won’t let him talk and explain himself?”
“Why would I let him when I have you?” I tease.
He gives me a dark look. “Don’t tempt the lion when the lion can’t indulge in the meat. You should talk to him.”
“There’s no point. Nothing he tells me will change the reality I went through.
I can’t do it again with him. I can’t go through that again.
I don’t trust him. Not even a little. Eventually, he’ll grow bored with whatever game he’s playing with me and that will be that. He’ll move on and leave again.”
“Well, fuck me sideways. I’m at a loss.”
“A first for you, no doubt.”
“Do you want me to buy you a cookie?”
I grin, sinking my teeth into my lip. “I’m not a child anymore, Kap. You don’t have to comfort me with cookies and milk.”
Kaplan stares out the glass wall onto the main floor of the hospital, his eyes dancing about until they catch on something. He smirks before turning back to me. “He’d kill me if he knew what I was doing with you.”
That perks my interest, my eyebrows at my hairline. “And what are you doing with me?”
“Truth? Trying to help the woman I had hoped would one day be my sister-in-law. But I doubt he’d see it that way.”
Oh. Now I’m the one impersonating a goldfish. “Are you breaking up with me?”
He laughs, getting up out of his seat and clearing our trash away.
His hand extends for mine and I take it, allowing him to help me up.
He tosses his big arm over my shoulders, and we walk back out into the lobby, which is noisy beyond belief with the interactive art installation they have here and the kids coming and going.
He spins me around in his arms and cups my jaw in his hands. “No. I’m not breaking up with you. But I’m not giving up on you either, if you get my meaning.”
I give him a squeeze because I get it and I love him for it even if it’s a lost cause. “Thank you again for getting me the job. And for being there when I needed someone and had no one.”
His lips plant a kiss the top of my head. “Anything for you, lil’ sis.”
I pinch his side and he jumps back. “You know you look younger than me, right?”
He groans, rubbing at his smooth jaw that’s sharp enough to cut glass. The man really is something else. “Aw, come on. Don’t start that shit. I do not. I look my age.”
“Yeah, if your age was twenty-two.” I blow him a kiss. “I’ll see you around, big bro.”
Wrapping my coat tighter around my body, I exit the hospital, needing to get my butt over to Symphony Hall for rehearsal. Between this gig, my orchestra job, and the ridiculous thing I have coming up in the next couple of weeks, I should be set for money for a—
Before I know what’s happening, someone is grabbing my arm, dragging me into an alleyway, spinning me around, and slamming me into the bricks. My knee comes up to strike on instinct, but I miss my target. A scream flees my lungs, only to be stifled by a pair of lips covering mine.
“What are you doing in my hospital with my brother?” Luca snarls at me.
I push him off me. “Your hospital? I thought you work at Brigham and Women’s.”
He crowds me, his hard cock pressing into my lower belly and making me ache. “I do. But I also work here two days a week. Now answer me.”
I shake my head, pissed off. I didn’t know Luca worked at Children’s. Kaplan certainly never mentioned it to me, the devious wanker. And since no one else speaks to me about him, Brigham was all I had heard.
“You wanna know so bad, go ask him yourself. I have to get to work.”
I nudge him back again, scooting around him to get out of this alley, away from him, when he catches my arm and yanks me back. Straight into his hard chest.
“Oh no, Little Bird. You’re not going anywhere just yet.”