His to Heal (Saving Hearts #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

CALLA

I stood under the awning of Obsidian Hospital, watching droplets streak down the glass doors while my heart performed gymnastics it hadn't attempted in five years. The building was nothing like the crumbling teaching hospital where I'd completed my residency back in Chicago.

I told myself this was good. New city, new hospital, new start.

My reflection stared back at me from the glass. My deep red hair was pulled into a low bun and my light brown eyes, which I took after my mother, twinkled with eagerness. The white coat I'd ironed this morning sat crisp on my shoulders.

I looked good and confident.

I looked like someone who had her life together.

"Dr. Karras?"

I turned. A young woman in scrubs stood behind me, holding a tablet and wearing a cheerful, innocent smile.

"I'm Jenna, Dr. Patel's assistant. She asked me to meet you and get you started with orientation." She gestured toward the doors. "Ready?"

"Yes."

She guided me to the lobby with marbled floors, vaulted ceilings, and a reception desk that curved at the corner. Everything was pristine and polished.

Jenna walked fast, her sneakers squeaking against the floor as she rattled off information I should have been absorbing. Badge office on the second floor. Locker assignments in the basement. Cafeteria open until midnight, though the food quality dropped significantly after eight.

I nodded at appropriate intervals, letting the words sink while my mind circled to one fact I'd been avoiding since accepting this position.

Cassian worked here.

My ex-husband. The man I'd built a life with and then watched it crumble since neither of us knew how to compromise when our dreams were involved. I'd seen his name on the department roster three weeks ago, buried in an orientation packet that arrived at my apartment.

Dr. Cassian Reed, Attending Surgeon, Trauma Division, Team Leader.

I almost called to decline the position. Almost. But Obsidian had the best trauma program on the West Coast. I'd spent five years building my career just to get here.

Running away would mean admitting the separation still affected me.

"Badge photo station is just through here," Jenna said, pushing a door marked ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES. "Fair warning, the lighting is terrible. Everyone looks like they're auditioning for a crime documentary."

A smile escaped my lips, giving her a small nod. "Fine."

The photo came out exactly as predicted—washed out, my smile barely visible. But that wasn’t important. Nobody would bother looking at it anyway.

Jenna led me through the rest of orientation cheerfully, walking me through my locker assignment in the attending physician wing and explaining the temporary access codes for the electronic medical records system.

Then, she handed me a laminated map of the hospital, which I pretended to study while looking around the busy lounge.

After nearly an hour, we reached the trauma department on the fourth floor.

"Dr. Patel should be finishing up rounds," Jenna said, checking her tablet. "Her office is at the end of the hall. She's expecting you."

"Thank you."

Jenna lingered for a moment, as if waiting for something more. Yet I offered nothing aside from a polite handshake. Her smile slightly faltered but she recovered almost instantly.

"Of course. Welcome to Obsidian, Dr. Karras."

She disappeared back toward the elevators, leaving me alone in a hallway filled with the familiar scent of antiseptic.

I found Dr. Patel's office. The door was open, revealing a woman in her fifties with silver-streaked hair and reading glasses perched on her nose. She looked up when I knocked.

"Dr. Karras." She stood, extending her hand. "Nadia Patel. I've been looking forward to meeting you in person."

I obliged and shook her hand. She looked at me warmly, her grip firm but polite. The assessing stare was pretty much obvious. And I appreciated directness. It meant fewer wasted words.

She gestured to the chair across from her desk. "Sit. Let's talk."

The next hour passed in a discussion of expectations and departmental politics. Dr. Patel was straightforward without being cold and thorough without being tedious. She explained the hierarchy, the scheduling rotation, and the research opportunities available to attending physicians.

She did not mention Cassian by name. I did not ask.

"Any questions?" she asked finally, closing the folder in front of her.

"No. Everything’s good.”

She studied me for a moment, and I held her gaze without flinching. I had questions. Dozens of them to be honest. But none that mattered for this conversation.

"If you say so." She removed her reading glasses, studying me with an expression I couldn't quite read.

"Dr. Karras, I'll be honest with you. I recruited you because your trauma surgery outcomes were exceptional.

Your research on emergency thoracotomy procedures could reshape how we approach penetrating cardiac injuries.

You're exactly the kind of surgeon this department needs. "

"But I also know you're walking into a complicated situation.

" Her voice softened. "I want you to know that your personal life is your own business.

Whatever history exists between you and other members of this department stays outside these walls, as far as I'm concerned.

All I care about is whether you can do the job. "

I swallowed. "My private life has nothing to do with my professional life, that I can assure you."

"I believe you." She stood, signaling the end of our meeting. “We’ll have a department meeting the day after tomorrow at seven sharp. I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team then. For today, familiarize yourself with the place. The cafeteria has decent coffee if you need it.”

"I’ll see you tomorrow then." I rose, smoothing my white coat out of habit. I gave her another polite nod before leaving her office with my orientation folder tucked under my arm.

I headed to the cafeteria as suggested. It sprawled across the entire east wing of the first floor, filled with circular tables. Doctors, nurses, and technicians moved through the space, chatting and buzzing busily.

It was a mistake to go there during peak lunch hours. But I was there to familiarize myself with my new working place.

So I made my way toward the coffee station that sat against the far wall, keeping my gaze fixed forward, refusing to scan the crowd for a face I'd spent five years trying to forget.

Dr. Patel lied. The coffee was bad. Not remotely decent. But I poured it anyway, needing something to justify my presence in this room.

That's when I heard his voice.

It was low and warm, carrying across the noise of the cafeteria like a frequency my body had never stopped being tuned to.

I knew that sound. I'd fallen asleep to it during late night study sessions in medical school.

I'd heard it echo through our apartment on Sunday mornings when he'd burn sausages and pretend it was intentional.

I'd missed it so much it had become a phantom sound, something I could still hear even though it was gone.

Instinctively, I turned and found him before I could stop myself.

He sat at a table near the windows, surrounded by residents who listened to his every word.

His posture was relaxed, elbows on the table, leaning forward as he explained something with animated hand gestures.

He'd cut his hair shorter than he used to wear it, the dirty blonde strands no longer falling across his forehead.

He wore navy scrubs instead of the faded green ones he'd preferred during our marriage.

He looked older. Different.

One of the residents said something, and Cassian's whole face brightened as he grinned, the sound that followed threading through me like a needle pulling through fabric I thought I'd long since discarded.

I set my coffee down on the nearest counter and walked out at the same measured pace I used when leaving the operating room after a case that went sideways. Or when a patient coded and we couldn't bring them back.

Professional. Controlled. Fine.

When I reached the stairwell, I pressed my back against cool concrete.

I counted from one to ten in my head, forcing myself to breathe, following the technique my therapist had taught me during those first brutal months after the divorce.

I'd had five years to prepare for this moment. I'd built a career overseas and published research that earned recognition, having nothing to do with him. I'd learned to sleep alone without reaching across cold sheets. I'd convinced myself that I had moved on.

But thirty seconds of seeing him just proved how spectacularly wrong I was.

Tomorrow, in a room full of colleagues, I would meet the man I once promised to love until death parted us.

Death hadn't parted us. Life had—careers and ambition and a thousand small silences that calcified into walls neither of us knew how to climb.

And a secret I'd carried for five years…

One I'd never told him…

It still woke me some nights, the grief so fresh it felt like bleeding.

I closed my eyes and let the cool concrete seep through my white coat. This was going to be a disaster.

A short, humorless sound escaped me as I stood by the empty stairwell. Disaster was an understatement. But I was certain of one thing: I would be working with Cassian and pretend that seeing him didn't feel like pressing on a bruise that never healed.

The notification sound of my phone distracted me from my thoughts. It was a message from my best friend, Felice, checking in with half humor and half concern. I stared at my screen, my lips pressed tightly.

Felice

First day survival check. Scale of 1-10, how badly do you need wine?

Calla

12.

Felice

That bad? What happened?

My thumb hovered over the keys. Felice was one of the few people who got more than monosyllables from me, but even with her, I struggled to articulate my situation.

Calla

He's here. I saw him.

Three dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again. Felice was choosing her words carefully, which she rarely did by the way. She was worried.

Felice

Are you okay?

Calla

I'll manage.

I considered her question and nearly laughed. I was standing in a stairwell, hiding from my ex-husband, my coffee abandoned on a cafeteria counter, with my composure beginning to fray.

I took a long, deep breath and soothed my nerves.

That was the thing about survival. It wasn't optional.

You didn't get to choose whether you kept breathing after your heart shattered.

Your body made that choice for you, dragging you through days and weeks and years until one morning you woke up and realized you'd built an entire life on the ruins of the one you'd lost.

I pushed off the wall and straightened my white coat.

Tomorrow, I would walk into that department meeting with my back straight and my face composed. I would shake Cassian's hand if needed. I would be professional and courteous and utterly, completely fine.

And if some part of me still remembered how his arms felt wrapped around me at two in the morning, how his voice sounded when he whispered my name in the dark, or how his eyes used to track me across crowded rooms like I was the only person worth seeing…

Well. That was my problem to carry.

And I'd gotten good at it.

My phone chimed again, with a text from Felice telling me that she’s making the pasta that I like for dinner tonight. And that she’s opening the expensive wine. And that I am forbidden from arguing.

I smiled despite everything. Felice was one of the few people capable of pulling that reaction from me.

She'd been my anchor through the divorce and through every moment when giving up felt easier.

She'd moved to the city two years ago for a graphic design job, and when the Obsidian position came up, she'd started her campaign immediately.

Three months of phone calls, job listings sent at midnight, and relentless optimism until I finally caved.

Moving in with her last week felt like the first right decision I'd made in years.

I told her fine, and pocketed my phone and kept walking.

Cassian and I were going to work together. We were going to pass each other in hallways, stand across operating tables, and sit in the same meetings. There was no version of this job that didn't include him.

I'd known that when I accepted the position.

I'd made peace with it, or thought I had.

I just hadn't accounted for how much it would hurt to see him again. Easy and warm and unaware of my presence, like the past five years had healed him while it killed me.