Chapter 2
Scarlett
“Miss Ford,” the doorman says, wariness in his voice. “You’re home…early.”
His greeting shouldn’t stop me. I’m usually inside my head thinking about work. Tonight, I’m extra distracted because I got caught in a sudden summer downpour.
“Is Dr. Langston out?” I ask the doorman, thinking there must be a reason he’s pointing out that I’m home early.
“I’m not sure, miss,” he says, clearing his throat. “Excuse me.”
My boyfriend, Dr. Pierce Langston—the III if we’re getting snooty and technical—is medicine royalty.
He’s the oldest son of celebrity heart surgeon Ramses Langston.
Pierce asked me to move in with him last year after my mother died.
I’d made the painful decision to leave medical school and was looking for a place to live.
Out of nowhere, he proposed to me last night, but I said no. Not because I don’t love him. I do. I think. I should. He’s perfect for me. But after months of soul-searching, I decided I don’t want to just be an EMT, a certification I got in high school. I want to be a doctor.
Only, Pierce wasn’t too happy to hear that I wanted to go back to medical school. He grumbled about how the classes, clinical hours, and rotations would take my time away from him.
The doorman’s unexpected comment stays with me as the elevator races up to the tenth floor. My emotions are raw. I just want to talk to Pierce and make sure we’re okay.
Stepping inside the sprawling luxury duplex in Chelsea, I’m surprised by the dead silence.
This place is a flurry of activity when Pierce is home, sports on the big screen television, classical music playing from the kitchen’s Bluetooth speaker, and he is almost always on the phone consulting with someone about a patient.
Or making fantasy football trades.
Perhaps the doorman got it wrong. Maybe he saw Pierce earlier, but then he left again? He’s always in and out with emergencies.
My head’s been all over the place since I took on twelve-hour shifts. I worked at the Bronx ambulance station part-time during my first two years at Hamilton Medical College.
Then Mom died the summer after my second year. I was distraught and crying all the time. I couldn’t imagine how I’d handle the pressure of a third year, so I painfully didn’t go back.
Still needing a purpose, I asked the station manager to put me on full-time EMT shifts. I needed to help people.
After a year, though, it’s not enough. I’m better, and I can handle more.
I shrug off my coat and drop it on a chair in the living room, then climb the stairs to the bedrooms. This place is all polished marble floors, ridiculously expensive imported furniture, and curated art I never liked. It doesn’t feel like mine. Nothing here ever did.
It’s also insanely big for two people. But I suspect Pierce plans to fill it up with a horde of little Langstons. Last night’s proposal means I’m supposed to pop out all those kids. I want to have kids someday. And with Pierce, I guess. I love him. I think.
I’m just not ready. For marriage or motherhood right now.
I loved Pierce at first sight. Who wouldn’t? He’s six feet tall with mink brown hair and gray eyes. He’s got tawny skin, sculpted cheekbones, and a perfect body.
Me… I’m not so perfect. But rarely does a med student win beauty contests.
Last night, it seemed Pierce agreed. In a tailored suit and trust-fund confidence, he looked at me like I belonged in the psych ward for turning him down.
I just hope we can work something out and get back to…
I stop at the sound of a moan coming from the bedroom. I take a breath and listen again.
Yeah, that was a fucking moan.
Pierce must be jerking off. I denied him sex last night. Not after the way he talked to me. But I chalked up his lashing out to him being hurt.
“Pierce…” a female audibly moans next.
Goddamn it!
I stand there dumbfounded. I’m a statistic. I’m about to walk in on my cheating boyfriend.
Then a wave breaks in my chest. The tension I’ve felt these past few months while plotting to go back to medical school, knowing Pierce wouldn’t be happy about it, vanishes.
I’m free. I didn’t think I wanted that freedom until this second. It’s so freaking crystal clear. But I’ve been known to radically change my mind on a dime.
Riled up, I open the bedroom door.
Pierce Langston III is naked and on his knees, facing away from the headboard. He’s railing some blonde, whose black dress is pushed up over her hips. She’s also wearing red hooker pumps.
I’m actually more offended by her germ-riddled shoes on my bed.
Yeah, much of the rage I feel is because that is my bed.
Not anymore. Not after tonight.
“Pierce!” I call out and delight in watching him freeze.
The blonde lifts her head. “Oh, God,” she cries out and scrambles off the bed, pushing her dress down.
I can’t help but laugh. “Really, Pierce? Your brother’s wife?”
I look down at his dick, semi-grateful he had the good sense to wear a condom.
Margeaux rushes by me, but stops to say, “Please… Please don’t say anything to Barron.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I mutter, folding my arms and staring at Pierce.
Yanking the condom off his dick, he smoothly gets off the bed. He doesn’t even glance at his sister-in-law running from the bedroom.
Heels click down the metal staircase. Marge is a mess, but Pierce is proud. Proud of getting caught.
“What did you think would happen?” he says, stepping into a pair of sleep shorts. “You left a twenty-thousand-dollar ring on the kitchen counter, Scarlett.”
I swallow hard. “I told you I wasn’t ready.”
He rushes me, pushing me against a closet door. “No one says no to me.”
The air leaves my lungs at this show of fury I didn’t expect.
“I didn’t ask for a ring,” I say more softly to de-escalate the anger.
“You’re making a mistake,” he seethes.
“The mistake was thinking you’d understand.” I try to move, but he keeps me pinned.
“I gave you a place to live when your father was ready to disown you for leaving medical school. What? Do you think you can do better than me?” His shrill voice alarms me.
“Better than a man who cheats on me and then gets rough with me because his fragile ego is hurt?”
“Did you just talk back to me?”
“Yeah, I did.” I shrug. “What are you going to do about it?”
The backhand across my cheek comes so quickly that I feel like I’ve left my body. Like I’m watching myself.
“Shit, Scarlett…” Pierce jumps back, his hands shaking. He takes a few breaths. “I shouldn’t have done that. Let’s discuss this rationally.”
“Rationally? I just got fucking smacked in the face.” That changes shit, right now. “How long?” I ask, moving past him to pack my clothes.
“How long what?”
“How long have you been fucking Margeaux?”
“This was the first time.” He tries to grab me again. “That’s how distraught I was.”
“I’ll still have to get an STD test.”
“You’re acting crazy,” he snaps. “I hate to be the one to tell you, you won’t make it as a doctor. That’s why you left Hamilton in the first place.”
“My mother just died.” I stop and start to shake, feeling triggered. “Grief affects people in different ways.”
“You were crying uncontrollably in the shower every morning, Scarlett.”
My ribs tighten around my lungs. The pain and grief come rushing back to me.
Was I really expected to suck it up? I had a lot to live up to.
A boyfriend from a medical legacy that goes back decades, and my own father, who’s no medical slouch.
As the Dean of Hamilton Medical College, the best medical school on the East Coast, my father is just as respected.
“I watched her die, Pierce,” I remind him of those last weeks with my mom.
How she withered away in hospice. And no matter how much morphine they pumped her with, she was in so much pain.
I can hear the wailing. My father couldn’t handle those nights and left me with her.
It was torture, watching her suffer, but I stayed, of course.
All that my mother went through to have me. I owed it to her to be there.
It just wrecked me.
Pierce sneers, recognizing the mess he took in a year ago. “I don’t want a wife who’s a doctor working crazy hours like me. I want someone to be here when I come home. Someone to take care of me and raise our family.”
Jaw dropped, I say, “I had no idea you felt this way. I’m sorry. Find someone else to plan your parties and have your babies.” My eyes fly around the closet.
Not having the energy to lift a suitcase, I grab a weekend bag and start packing it with whatever I can get my hands on.
“You needed space and clarity.” Pierce laughs, bitter and sharp. “I gave it to you. You’re the one who needed a break. I took care of you. You owe me, Scarlett.”
He did, but evidently, he also kept score. That’s not love. That’s control.
“Do you hear yourself?” I zip the bag, straighten, and push past him.
My heart hammers when he grabs my arm, and I think for a minute, he won’t let me leave. That he’ll keep me here.
“I will cut off my share to fund that radiation wing being named for your mother, and all those other cancer charities you coerced me into supporting,” he says quietly.
Heat floods my face with anger.
My brain quickly calculates what his monthly donations have been doing for cancer patients without insurance.
“That’s pretty disgusting.” I pull back. “That will keep your head held high?”
“Then I’ll…”
“There’s a headline I can’t wait for your father to read,” I huff. “Prominent cheating surgeon sabotages cancer treatment fund to get even with the girlfriend who won’t marry him. A woman he assaulted.”
More than being accused of assault, the mention of his father, Ramses Langston, sends a visible shiver through Pierce.
“Shame on you for belittling my efforts to help people,” I add.
“You’re just a Ford. I don’t think my rep will take a hit,” he says, blocking the doorway, looking unhinged. “Don’t you dare twist this. I’m not throwing you out. You rejected my proposal. You’re the one leaving.”
“After you fucked someone in our bed. And hit me.”
“You are so na?ve, not to mention ungrateful,” he hisses. “No one else will tolerate you like me.”
“You’re disgusting,” I mutter.
“This is how the world works,” he keeps taunting me. “You wanted to be with a man at this level of wealth and power. This is what you should expect, Scarlett.”
“I want to be a doctor. Not some medical idol who only wants to be worshipped,” I say, wrenching out of his hold to leave the bedroom.
I grip the banister to get down the stairs in one piece. On the main level, I spare a glance around the cold, lifeless rooms. There’s nothing in this apartment that is mine. I went from student housing with just some shabby clothes on my back to this palace.
Every step closer I get to the door, my future sharpens. I’m going to be a doctor. But I have a long road ahead of me. Two more years of medical school and then residency.
Yet I’m more energized than I have been in a really long time.
“You’ll be sorry, Scarlett,” Pierce calls out from behind me.
It reminds me that I’ll be in his orbit one day. He can try to hurt me and my career down the road. But it’s a chance I have to take.
“I’m only sorry I didn’t see you for who you are sooner.”
“You’ll be drugging yourself with Adderall to get through your third year and walking people’s dogs in the rain, picking up shit for money to eat. Then you’ll appreciate how I gave you everything.”
Something inside me snaps.
“You didn’t give me anything,” I bite out, waiting for the elevator. “You let me stay here. You loaned me the life you wanted for me and expected me to pay for it with obedience and subjugation.”
He steps in front of me, and for a beat, he just stares. Then his voice drops into a cold, unfamiliar register. “Good luck without me.”
I pull the bag over my shoulder. “Get out of my way.”
“Keys.” He holds out one precious palm for the apartment keys and the card to work the elevator.
I slam them into his stupid hand and tromp to the stairwell without looking back. Pierce wasn’t a monster until I told him no. He doesn’t know how to love someone without owning them.
I don’t remember the steps down to the lobby, but I will always remember how the doorman doesn’t even look at me. His pale, worried face from earlier now makes sense. He probably winked at Pierce, heading up the apartment with Margeaux hanging on him. Bastard.
On the street, I walk aimlessly and consider my options.
I can’t show up at my father’s place. As Dean, he lives in a house on the Hamilton school grounds.
He sold our house after my mother died to pay off some of the debt, thanks to our crappy insurance.
It’s a sad irony that a doctor could be bankrupted by his own family’s medical bills.
But it happened.
How will my dad take the news that Pierce and I broke up? Will he also think I’m not ready to go back to school? Not strong enough? Was marrying a Langston supposed to make up for failing to become a doctor?
I had hoped to meet with my dad about going back to school while still living with Pierce.
Now, Dad might twist my motives. Plus, he’s tight with Ramses Langston. Those two were probably naming our babies over cigars at the Glass Knife club.
My phone buzzes with messages.
Pierce: You made your point.
Pierce: Come back upstairs.
Pierce: We will discuss this rationally.
I block the number and keep walking.
This area of Downtown Manhattan has narrow, cobblestone streets with gothic buildings and scary moldings when the streetlamps hit them at a certain angle at night.
The rain is only a slight inconvenience. It barely registers this time. And of course, I left without an umbrella.
Adrenalin pumping through me, I keep walking, but fear curls low in my gut. I’m technically homeless. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes. I shouldn’t cry. I whisper a promise to myself there and then that I won’t cry over Pierce Langston III. Or any man who slapped me.
I keep walking slowly, my lungs filling with the warm July air, only slightly cooled by the rain.
When I cut across the street, my eyes widen when a pair of headlights slice across the night and come right toward me.