Chapter 37
37
JARED
I stood outside Amelia’s condo, the file still clutched in my hand, my heart pounding in my chest. Every fiber of my being was screaming at me to turn around, to go back inside, to tell her I messed up—that I was messed up.
But I didn’t. I just stood there, frozen, staring at the closed door like an idiot.
I didn’t even ask how she was feeling.
The woman was growing my child in her body, and I couldn’t even bring myself to ask her if she was okay.
Shouldn’t I at least buy her something?
“Fuck.”
I was doing this all wrong.
I couldn’t seem to take a right step.
This was exactly why I didn’t think I was worthy of being a father.
Or a boyfriend.
I turned around and debated what I could say to get her to invite me back in.
We had a good five minutes.
It was easy to be with her.
And then I had to be me.
An idiot.
It was amazing how I could be so gifted with a scalpel and so clumsy with the woman I was falling for, the mother of my child.
The light in her living room window flicked off.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
She was going to bed.
I wasn’t going to wake her up, not after everything.
Maybe tomorrow, if I still felt this way after sleeping on it, I could find her and fix things.
That’s what I told myself, anyway.
But deep down, I knew it was just an excuse.
I was scared. Scared of what she’d say, scared of what it would mean if she didn’t want me back.
Not that I ever had her.
But if there was a chance to get her to want me again, I wanted to make sure I did it the right way.
What that looked like, I didn’t know.
I was a man lost.
I turned and walked to my car.
I drove home in a daze, my mind all over the place.
It was so strange to be in the same room with her after all this time.
By the time I got to my house, I was exhausted.
I wasn’t someone that needed sleep, but shit, this was ridiculous.
I needed a good eight hours.
Or ten.
I went straight to bed, stripping down to my underwear and crawling into bed.
Unfortunately, sleep didn’t come easily.
I tossed and turned, replaying the conversation in my head, the way she’d looked at me, the way she’d pulled away when I held her.
I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I couldn’t keep living like this.
Morning came too soon.
I was jolted awake by the shrill ring of my phone.
I fumbled for it, squinting at the screen with one eye closed.
It felt like I had only been asleep for three minutes.
“Welch,” I croaked, my voice rough from exhaustion.
“Dr. Welch, it’s Dr. Carpenter. We’ve got a patient en route to Miami General—traumatic brain injury from a car accident. Severe intracranial pressure. They’re prepping the OR now, but they need you to lead. There’s a history with this patient. I’ve sent the file to your email. We need you on this. The guy is a VIP.”
I could hear the urgency in his tone.
I was already swinging my legs out of bed, my brain shifting into surgeon mode.
“I’ll be there in an hour,” I said.
“Hour and fifteen.”
I dressed while calling my pilot.
My jet wasn’t just about vanity and luxury.
I got emergency calls like this all the time.
I grabbed my go bag that was always packed and ready for these emergencies.
I didn’t even stop to make coffee.
I’d have some on the plane.
I headed to the airport, my mind still half on Amelia, and boarded the jet.
I sank into the leather seat, the hum of the engines already filling the cabin as we prepared for takeoff.
The attendant—Sophie, her name tag read—appeared almost instantly with a steaming cup of black coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. She set them down on the table in front of me with a practiced smile.
“Let me know if you need anything else, Dr. Welch,” she said before retreating to the galley.
I nodded absently, already flipping open my laptop.
The file from Dr. Carpenter was waiting in my inbox, and I clicked it open without hesitation.
The screen filled with scans and notes, and I leaned closer, my focus narrowing to the details.
The patient was a forty-six-year-old male who’d been in a high-speed collision on the interstate.
The impact had caused a severe frontal lobe contusion, and there was significant swelling pressing against his brainstem.
His vitals were unstable, but he was holding on—barely.
What caught my attention was the note at the bottom of the file: patient is a prominent tech entrepreneur with a history of experimental treatments for chronic migraines.
I frowned, scrolling through his medical history.
He’d undergone at least three experimental procedures in the last five years—none of them FDA-approved, all of them risky.
That complicated things.
His brain wasn’t just dealing with trauma; it was already a minefield of altered pathways and potential complications.
I sipped my coffee, barely tasting it as I studied the MRI scans again.
The swelling was bad, but not irreversible.
I could fix this. Not all of it, but the immediate threat.
I landed forty-five minutes later.
A car was waiting to take me straight to the hospital.
It was ninety minutes from the time I got the call to me scrubbing in for surgery.
I was getting gowned up when I saw Gemma.
Of all the people to be the attending in neuro, it had to be her.
“Shit. Fuck.”
She was the last person I wanted to see.
She smirked when she saw me, her eyes glinting with that familiar malice.
She loved knowing she was fucking with me.
It made her way too happy.
How did someone so cruel become a surgeon?
“Well, well, if it isn’t Daddy Jared,” she said, her voice dripping with attitude.
I clenched my jaw, forcing myself to stay calm.
“Let’s just get this over with,” I muttered, focusing on the patient.
But Gemma wasn’t done.
She kept making snide comments throughout the surgery, calling me “Daddy” and making veiled jabs about Amelia.
I kept my cool, barely.
My hands stayed steady, my focus razor sharp on the task in front of me.
But every word she said felt like a needle pricking at my patience.
“You know, Jared,” she whispered as she handed me the suction tool, her voice low enough that only I could hear, “it’s cute how you think you can juggle saving lives and playing house with that neuroscientist. Don’t you find it odd she shows up and five minutes later she’s having your baby?”
I didn’t respond.
I couldn’t. Not when there was a man’s brain exposed on the table in front of me, not when one wrong move could mean the difference between life and death.
Gemma knew that. She knew exactly how to get under my skin without me being able to do a damn thing about it.
I didn’t know how she knew I was the father.
I doubted that she did.
She was just taking shots in the dark.
Yes, she was accurate, but I was not going to confirm or deny anything.
The surgery stretched on for hours, the tension in the OR thick enough to cut with a chainsaw.
By the time we closed the patient up and moved him to recovery, I was exhausted—physically and mentally.
Gemma lingered by the scrub sink as I washed up, her arms crossed over her chest like she was waiting for something.
“You really think you’re going to settle down and play house with a baby?” she asked casually, as if we were discussing the weather and not my personal life.
“She’ll figure out what you are eventually. Or you’ll figure out you’re not into the big girls. I mean, after she’s blown up with that baby, can you honestly tell me you’re going to want her?”
I turned off the water and grabbed a towel.
“If you ever say anything against Amelia again, I’ll end your career. Do you understand me?”
She blinked, taken aback by my outburst. “Wow,” she said, recovering quickly.
“I’ve never seen you so passionate about anything in your life.”
Her words hit me like a punch to the gut.
She was right. I’d never felt this strongly about anything—or anyone—before.
And it scared me. But it also made something click in my brain.
I couldn’t keep running from this.
From her.
“No, you haven’t,” I said.
“I would have given you a baby.”
“You’re unbelievable,” I said with disgust.
“Am I? Or am I just the only one brave enough to say what everyone else is thinking?”
I took a step closer, not because I wanted to be near her but because I needed her to feel the weight of what I was about to say.
“You don’t get to talk about her. You don’t get to talk about us. You lost that right when you cheated on me.”
She laughed, short and bitter, but there was something in her eyes—something sharp and wounded—that told me she wasn’t as calm as she was pretending to be.
“Oh, please. Like you were such a saint. You’ve always been married to your work, Jared. Don’t act like you ever gave me anything close to what you’re apparently giving her.”
“You couldn’t handle the fact that I wasn’t available twenty-four-seven to worship at your feet. You couldn’t see what I was doing was important. You wanted the perks of my work, but you didn’t want me to actually do the work. Amelia is as smart as she is fucking gorgeous. You’ll never see that, which is fine because I guarantee you, she doesn’t think about you ever. Be obsessed with her… I am.”
I left the hospital without another word, heading straight to the airport.
The flight back felt like an eternity, my mind racing the entire time.
By the time I landed, it was late, but I didn’t care.
I went straight to the lab.
I had to talk to her.
I didn’t have anything planned out to say.
I figured it would come to me in the moment.
She was there, of course.
Sitting at her workstation, her laptop glowing in the dim light.
She looked up when I shut the door behind me, her eyes widening as I stalked toward her.
“Jared?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
I shook my head, my heart pounding in my chest. “No,” I said, my voice rough.
“I’m not.”
She stood as I reached her, her eyes searching mine with concern.
“What’s wrong?”
I didn’t answer.
Instead, I kissed her.
Hard. I poured everything I’d been feeling into that kiss—the fear, the regret, the longing.
I gave her a few seconds to make up her mind, and when she kissed me back, I was all in.
Her hands tangled in my hair, pulling me closer.
I wrapped my arms around her, holding her like I never wanted to let go.
It was messy and desperate and perfect, and for the first time in weeks, I felt like I could breathe.
When we finally broke apart, she looked up at me, her eyes wide and searching.
“Jared,” she whispered, her voice shaky.
“What are you doing?”
“Kissing you,” I replied and pulled her in once again.
I was a man starving.
I couldn’t get enough.
One kiss was not going to satisfy me.