Chapter 4
The operating room still carries that pungent antiseptic smell when Nerissa Ashcombe collapses onto the metal bench in the locker room.
She runs both hands over her face with a weariness that seeps into her bones.
Her back is stiff after four hours bent over a shattered knee, and her fingers still throb from the constant tension the surgery demanded.
Through the half-open door come the distant beeps of monitors and the hurried bustle of nurses, marking the clinic’s relentless pulse.
Yet all she needs is a few minutes of respite before she feels trapped between white walls again.
She exhales slowly and begins to remove her surgical scrubs.
The operation has been particularly complicated, even for someone with her experience.
A Manchester City forward had entered the operating room with multiple ligament tears and an associated fracture after a savage tackle in his last match.
Four hours reconstructing a joint torn to pieces while the player’s agent waited outside, as if Nerissa could guarantee the future of a multimillion-dollar career.
Normally, that kind of challenge is like a drug to her, because pain always has an identifiable cause and the solutions—though difficult—are there. It’s nothing like the chaos Seraphina Chapman has once again brought into her life.
After a quick shower, she locks her locker, slips into a black turtleneck and dark pants, and pulls her damp hair back into a ponytail.
She stares at herself in the mirror for a few seconds, and the image staring back at her is exactly what Maeve will say the moment she sees her: that she looks awful.
The problem isn’t the complicated surgery. The problem is that she’s been surviving on coffee for two days and an anxiety that’s beginning to manifest throughout her body. Ever since the gala. Ever since Seraphina’s office. Ever since a lie neither of them can keep sustaining any longer.
Nerissa forces herself to leave before her thoughts trap her again.
The restaurant in the Northern Quarter is packed at this time of day. Behind windows fogged by the rain, the street hums with its usual activity.
Nerissa arrives five minutes late, and her best friend is already seated by the window. She’s wearing a worn leather jacket, army boots, and her camera slung over her shoulder as though it were an inseparable part of her body while she brushes a strand of auburn hair from her face.
Maeve Donnelly always gives the impression of living exactly as she pleases. That’s probably why Nerissa has put up with her—and loved her—for more than fifteen years.
“You look terrible,” Maeve blurts out the moment she sees her sit down across from her.
Nerissa snorts as she drops her phone onto the table with a weary gesture.
“What a lovely reunion.”
Maeve signals the waiter for another coffee and studies her closely.
Nerissa tries to ignore the strange heaviness that has settled in her chest over the past forty-eight hours.
The restaurant buzzes with overlapping conversations and the clatter of dishes, but she feels exhaustion throbbing behind her eyes like a swarm ready to sting.
“Did you have a complicated surgery?” Maeve asks.
“Complete ACL tear, shattered meniscus, and a proximal tibial fracture,” Nerissa lists as she picks up the menu without really looking at it.
“A fucking disaster. I spent four hours trying to rebuild the career of a man who’ll probably get injured again within a year because someone will pay him millions to run before he’s fully recovered. ”
“That sounded very optimistic,” Maeve remarks dryly.
“I’m feeling especially cheerful today,” Nerissa replies with a crooked smile.
Maeve studies her in silence for a few seconds. Nerissa knows that look all too well: it’s the one that always precedes a conversation she’d rather avoid.
“What?” she finally mutters.
Maeve sets her camera on the empty chair beside her and leans forward slightly.
“Is she on your mind again?”
Nerissa feels her stomach tighten instantly.
“Don’t start, Maeve.”
“The look on your face belongs in a clinical manual under the heading ‘severe emotional obsession,’” her friend insists.
“I’m tired, that’s all.”
“Sure. And I’m a nun,” Maeve replies sarcastically.
Nerissa clenches her jaw as the waiter places a cup of overly strong black coffee in front of her. She thanks him and stirs in sugar unnecessarily, just to keep her hands occupied.
Maeve never takes her eyes off her.
“I just want to remind you that what happened with Daphne wasn’t that long ago,” Maeve says, pausing to take a sip of her coffee. “It still smells scorched.”
Guilt pierces Nerissa’s chest once again. Daphne Mercer. Smart, funny, and far too patient for the little she got in return. Nerissa looks away toward the rain-speckled window.
“I really don’t need you acting as my therapist today,” Nerissa protests.
“Well, that’s too bad, because you’re going to listen to me anyway,” Maeve replies, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms.
The photographer pauses for a moment before continuing with the brutal honesty that has always defined her.
“You used Daphne to prove to yourself that Seraphina Chapman didn’t control your body and your thoughts, and all you managed to do was break the heart of a woman who didn’t deserve it. Are you really going to keep wrecking your life like this?”
The words hit hard. Nerissa hates her a little for being right, but even so, she can’t help how she feels. The waiter sets a plate in front of her, but she barely notices; her stomach has been in knots for hours.
“Let’s see who’s going to tell her we’ve started this all over again...” Nerissa thinks bitterly.
“I wanted to care, Maeve,” Nerissa admits, her voice sounding broken, stripped of sarcasm and arrogance, leaving only deep exhaustion.
“I swear I tried. I tried to make Daphne’s touch be enough.
I wanted to be in control of something in my life.
But every time I closed my eyes... it wasn’t her face I saw. ”
Maeve exhales slowly. She isn’t judging her—far from it—but she’s tired, resigned to watching her best friend repeat the same pattern over and over.
“And yet you still had the nerve to drag that relationship out for months,” Maeve reproaches.
Nerissa presses her lips together. Because yes, that’s exactly what she did.
During those months of silence with Seraphina, she desperately tried to convince herself she could move on.
Daphne appeared at exactly the right moment: confident, attractive, and emotionally available.
A London auditor who never understood why the famous orthopedic surgeon at Hale Medical seemed so distant, even when she was lying naked beside her.
At first, it was easy. Fancy dinners, sex, distraction.
Then came the emptiness. The inevitable comparisons, the constant frustration, and the feeling of playing a flawed version of herself.
Until she made the ultimate mistake: one night, after drinking too much, she slept with a stranger during a conference in Leeds.
She didn’t even remember the woman’s name clearly when she woke up.
All that remained was the miserable feeling of trying to tear Seraphina out from under her skin with the wrong body.
Daphne eventually found out, and the argument that followed did nothing to improve matters.
“The worst part isn’t that you cheated on me,” Daphne had told her through tears of rage. “The worst part is that you were never really with me.”
Nerissa never knew how to respond to that, because it was the absolute truth.
Maeve takes a slow sip of her coffee before looking at her again.
“Do you know what the saddest part of all this is?”
“Surprise me,” Nerissa replies.
“That you keep acting as if the problem is Seraphina. But it isn’t. The problem is that for years you’ve accepted a second-rate role in the life of someone who never fully chooses you.”
The comment hits Nerissa like a punch to the ribs.
“She’ll kill me if she finds out.”
She remains silent, fiddling with her fork without touching her food.
Because the worst part is that Maeve still doesn’t know anything about the gala, or about how Seraphina trembled in her arms. Nor does she know the details of what happened in the woman’s office, when for the first time in years Nerissa saw genuine fear in her eyes. A fear dangerously close to surrender.
Maeve watches her for a few more seconds and sighs.
“God, you’re worse off than I thought.”
“Thanks for the emotional support,” Nerissa says sarcastically.
“You’re welcome. That’s what friends are for,” Maeve replies, reaching across the table to gently squeeze her forearm.
“Look, sweetie… I know you love her. I’ve been hearing the name Seraphina Chapman ever since you started working at that clinic and convinced yourself that what you felt was just sexual tension. But we’re way past that now.”
Nerissa lowers her gaze to her coffee.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” Maeve insists. “Because if you did, you would’ve stopped letting her do this to you a long time ago.”
The comment irritates her.
“She doesn’t force me to do anything,” Nerissa protests.
Maeve raises an eyebrow skeptically.
“Really? Because from the outside, it looks like that woman snaps her fingers and you come running back, even if you end up completely wrecked afterward.”
Nerissa’s jaw tightens. She wants to argue, to defend Seraphina, to defend herself. But she’s too tired to keep lying to herself.
“It’s just that you don’t understand,” she dares to murmur.
Maeve lets out an incredulous laugh.
“Excuse me? I’m a photographer. I make a living reading what people try to hide. I’ve run into your wonderful CFO enough times to know where she’s coming from and how she looks at you.”
That makes Nerissa look up sharply.
“How does she look at me, in your opinion?”
Maeve’s expression softens.
“Like someone who’s been terrified of taking the leap for years.”
Nerissa’s heart beats faster for a second. That’s the real problem. Because even after everything—the silence, the rejection, and the emotional wreckage—a part of her still clings to something as small as that sentence.
Maeve notices immediately.
“Don’t make that face.”
“What face?” Nerissa asks, even though she knows exactly what she means.
“The ‘maybe if I give her one more chance, things will be different’ face. Because you don’t want to give her another chance, do you?”
Nerissa immediately looks away.
Too late.
Maeve narrows her eyes.
“Wait… Did something happen?”
The silence lasts half a second too long.
“Nerissa.”
She picks up her coffee cup, trying to buy herself some time.
“Don’t start making up theories.”
Maeve’s eyes widen.
“Oh my God. Something happened. Did you sleep with her again?”
Several people at the next table turn around. Nerissa shoots her a murderous look.
“Can you keep your voice down, please?”
Maeve slowly leans back in her chair, completely stunned.
“I knew that look wasn’t just exhaustion.”
Nerissa feels her pulse pounding in her temples. Part of her hadn’t wanted to tell anyone yet, as if putting it into words would make it more real—and more dangerous.
“It was a chance encounter,” Nerissa confesses, gripping her coffee cup. “At the charity gala.”
Maeve sits motionless for a few seconds, processing the information.
“And then?”
The image of Seraphina in her office comes flooding back, and Nerissa slowly runs a hand over the back of her neck.
“Then it got worse… in her office.”
“Damn it, Nerissa…” Maeve sighs, studying her closely.
She closes her eyes for a moment, exhausted.
“I know.”
Maeve picks up her cup again and looks at her seriously.
“Look, listen carefully to what I’m about to say, because you’re probably not going to like it.
If Seraphina Chapman isn’t willing to truly walk away from the perfect life she’s living, she’s going to end up dragging you down with her while she makes up her mind.
And you…” She gently tightens her fingers around the mug.
“You’re already too messed up to survive another hit like that.
So you’d better get at least a little control back. ”