Because of Them: Heartfelt Romance

by Melissa Macomb

  Because of Them

  A Highland Hearts Novel

  Melissa Macomb

  Copyright © 2021 by Melissa Macomb

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design: QDesign

  Editor: Autumn Gantz

  Proofreader: Sarah Plocher, All Encompassing Books

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. Tessa

  2. Bram

  3. Tessa

  4. Bram

  5. Tessa

  6. Bram

  7. Bram

  8. Tessa

  9. Bram

  10. Tessa

  11. Bram

  12. Tessa

  13. Bram

  14. Tessa

  15. Bram

  16. Tessa

  17. Bram

  18. Tessa

  19. Bram

  20. Tessa

  21. Bram

  22. Tessa

  23. Bram

  24. Tessa

  25. Bram

  26. Tessa

  27. Bram

  28. Tessa

  29. Bram

  30. Tessa

  31. Bram

  32. Tessa

  33. Bram

  34. Tessa

  35. Bram

  36. Tessa

  37. Bram

  38. Tessa

  39. Bram

  40. Tessa

  41. Bram

  42. Tessa

  43. Bram

  44. Tessa

  45. Bram

  46. Tessa

  47. Bram

  48. Tessa

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  Tessa

  My dinner is trying to make a reappearance and I can't find my date anywhere. The handbag I'm carrying is too small for my phone. Why do designers even make bags that won't fit a phone? I’m aware that I’m whiny but, I'm at a charity gala, supposedly with my fiancé, Mitch, who’s just disappeared into thin air, and I feel freaking awful. On my left, I recognize a few big money donors being courted by the head of Trinity Baptist Hospital. Normally that's where I'd find Mitch. He's Chief of Surgery at Trinity, and a big part of his job description is kissing up to rich people on behalf of the Oklahoma City Medical Association. I’m a lowly surgery nurse, so if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m Mitch’s date, I’d never be invited to one of these things.

  Across the luxurious ballroom of the Riverside Mansion Hotel is another group of doctors from Trinity. Spotting Mitch's best friend, Don, I head over to see if he knows where the hell Mitch has gone off to. My feet are unsteady in these ridiculously high heels. I hate them, but Mitch insists I wear them, and I hope to God I don't fall. My designer gown is dragging the floor, but for once I don't care. All my effort is focused on getting across this impossibly large room without spewing lobster everywhere.

  "Hello, Don. Where's Gloria? I haven't had the chance to say hello." My stomach rolls again, and not just because I'm sick. Gloria is one of the people I like least in the world. She's a real bitch, to put it bluntly. Gorgeous and she knows it, obscenely rich and she flaunts it.

  "I haven't seen Gloria since dinner. You know how she is, always flitting around here and there. I'll tell her you said hello." Don gets right in my face, alcohol fumes so strong I can almost see them. His kind brown eyes behind his thick glasses go all squinty as he inspects me. I must look as awful as I feel.

  "Are you okay, Tessa? Are you feeling unwell?"

  "Actually, yes, I feel awful. I don't think dinner is sitting well with me. Will you let Mitch know I've gone up to our suite?"

  "Of course. Take care."

  Drunk as a skunk. He'll forget all about that message before I'm even out of the room. Now, do I climb the stairs or chance the elevator? I decide on the stairs, but not before slipping out of my heels. They're Jimmy Choo and cost more than I make in a month. My dress is another two months’ worth of my salary, but luckily, I didn’t have to pay for either of them. When it became obvious our relationship was getting serious, Mitch insisted on buying me a whole wardrobe of clothes he deemed ‘appropriate for the date of the Chief of Surgery.’ I tried to resist at first, but when he told me I’d be an embarrassment to him if I wasn't wearing the latest designer fashions, I gave in. It does still bother me, though, more than I admit to Mitch. I’m proud of my ability to take care of myself. Roman, my older brother, jokes that I'm a kept woman, which pisses me off. I've worked really hard to pay my own way. I worked the whole time I was in college, so between my pay, my scholarship, and a hefty student loan, I had just enough to make it, but not enough to do much of anything else. Since then, I've worked full time as a nurse, paid off most of my loan, and last year I bought my own house. That I accomplished that by the age of twenty-five, completely on my own, makes me pretty damn proud; so yeah, Roman’s little joke ticks me off.

  Finally, there's the door to our suite. Thank God. Mitch always says it's better to crash at the hotel than crash the Jag on the way home. The alcohol is always free-flowing, and Mitch likes his scotch, so I don’t argue. Sure, I could drive, but this is more fun. And right now, I can say, I’ve never been happier to see a door in my life. My mouth is filling with saliva as the nausea rises again. I say a little prayer that I’ll make it to the toilet on time.

  My key card slides easily into the lock and I watch anxiously as the light switches from red to green with a tiny click. Relieved, I lean on the heavy door to open it and quickly glance around for the bathroom. Directly in front of me is a gorgeous deep purple velvet couch. I barely have time to register that the glass coffee table is holding a huge bouquet of red roses and a bucket of champagne before I see my fiancé. His Armani tuxedo pants are in a pool around his ankles, and his ice-blue eyes peer guiltily over the naked shoulder of the copper-haired woman straddling him. The rest of his clothes, and seemingly all of the woman's, are scattered near the door at my bare feet, abandoned in lustful impatience, no doubt.

  My face goes hot, and the room starts to spin like I'm drunk, but I haven't had anything but water all night. Lots of pale white skin, long, bright, red-gold hair, and wide hazel eyes kaleidoscope together. My poor body decides it's had enough, and every single drop of my stomach contents spew out violently. I step back carefully, eyes closed, hoping against hope that when I open them the beautiful purple velvet couch will be empty, or that Mitch will be sitting there alone, without Don's wife Gloria perched on top of him. One eye peeks open.

  Nope. The bitch is still there.

  Gloria is not only still there, but she's looking over that white, freckled shoulder at me, gloating. Does her hair really have to look so perfect, even when it’s all messed up?

  "Really, darlin’, you don't actually think he loves you?" Her words, spoken in that awful, over-done Texas beauty queen twang, hit me like a sledgehammer in my already mangled stomach.

  I'm not crying in front of them. Do not cry in front of them, Contessa Sophia Stephenson. In times of stress, I hear my mother's voice in my head, giving me strength. I gather courage from the thought of her, a strong, proud Cherokee woman who taught me at a very young age the value of
being able to take care of myself. Straightening up to my full five feet, five inches, I meet Mitch's cold blue eyes. I expect him to say something. Something like, I'm sorry, she doesn't mean anything to me, it'll never happen again, but the silence between us is so loud it hurts.

  I turn to go, and as I do, I notice with pleasure that all my nasty pink lobster vomit has not only ended up in Mitch's Italian leather shoes but is also Jackson Pollocked all over Gloria's white Dior gown. Good. I hope they're ruined. Petty, I know, but right now I don’t give a damn. My stomach is happier now that it's empty, but my head is still spinning. I run back down the stairs, pulling up short at the bottom. I need to find a discreet way out of here. My humiliation will be complete if the entirety of Mitch's social set sees me standing here, barefoot and with puke clinging to a strand or two of my long, black hair.

  Pushing open the ladies’ room door in the lobby, I send up another prayer. Please let it be empty. Blessedly, it is, but I have to hurry. I slip my Choo’s back on, clean up my hair and face and resolutely refuse to think about what's going on upstairs as I slip back out into the lobby. I need to get home first, to my sanctuary, then I can break down. Unfortunately, I’m known far and wide for crying at the drop of a hat. To be fair, though, this time it’s the sympathetic look on the doorman's face that tips me over. I come undone by it. What is it about the kindness of strangers that is so touching? I barely manage to crawl into the taxi and stutter out my address before the tears come.

  Mitchell, how could you? We were going to be a family.

  Family. That one word holds all my hopes and dreams for the future. I lost both of my parents in one day when I was only eight years old. Roman and I were left orphaned when they were killed in a freak storm. That tornado cost us our farm, our home, and the only two people in the world who loved us. From then on, it was a succession of foster homes. Sometimes great, mostly not. To make matters worse, Roman and I were split up and sent to different families. My brother reacted by going quiet, refusing to speak to anyone at all, for any reason. I reacted by making trouble. I took my anger and hurt out on everyone around me and was constantly being punished for it. Social services were forced to admit defeat a year later, when they started having trouble placing us. One very wise woman suggested we stay together, and it worked. We were all each other had back then, and we’re still close, but my dream has always been to rebuild the family I lost.

  Roman has helped with that. He met and married a New York socialite, Mary Carter, about six years ago. At first it was hard, sharing my big brother, but it's so obvious that Roman and Mary belong together. The love I see when they look at each other makes me ache for the same thing. And their sweet little twins, Abigail and Archer, make their family complete. As much as Mary and Roman include me in their lives, I just want a family of my own so badly.

  Damn you, Mitchell Sanders. You're supposed to be the one.

  The house is quiet and dark inside, except for the light spilling out from the kitchen. I always leave that light on, so I don't come home to total darkness. I still have nightmares about being in the tornado shelter with Roman during that awful storm.

  I head straight for the brightness like a moth to a porch light. The kitchen is my favorite room in the house. It's decorated with blue and white tiles along the back splash. The whole room is dazzling in its brightness and makes me so happy. Pots of the traditional herbs my mother taught me to use, for both cooking and medicine, cover the windowsills. Those lessons were passed to her from her mother, and generations going back thousands of years. What she didn’t have time to teach me, I’ve studied on my own over the years.

  God, I wish I could talk to my mom right now. I'm engaged to marry a man who is cheating on me with his best friend's wife. I just can't wrap my head around this.

  Mitch is drop-dead gorgeous, and one of the top surgeons in the state. He could have his pick of women. God knows I see women fawning over him daily at work, so I’ve always wondered why in the world he picked me. First of all, I don't belong to the same social class that he does. Even before my parents died, we were poor. Mom and Dad were modern-day hippies, raising us on a farm out in the middle of nowhere. Mom homeschooled us, and we spent most days outdoors, learning first-hand about plants and animals. It was idyllic and I loved it, but it’s definitely not what you usually see in the biographies of people in Mitchell’s world. Second of all, I don't like all the glittering galas and charity events that Mitch is required to attend. I'm not good at small talk, and I certainly don't like to pretend I'm something I'm not. Both of those things are required characteristics if you want to succeed in Mitch's world. When I tried to get out of going to tonight's event, Mitch told me, "If you ever hope to be the wife of a successful surgeon, Tess, you're going to have to get good at smiling and flirting, even if you don't want to be there and can't stand the old fart you're talking to. You'd be quite an asset for me if you'd only play along, cozy up to some rich old geezer. It’ll make his night and he'll be so flattered he'll reach even deeper into his pockets." I had answered him back, "I don't want to be just any old surgeon's wife, I want to be your wife." And it was true.

  As much as he exasperates me, I do think I loved Mitch. At least, I loved things about him. That’s the same thing, isn’t it? I loved his drive and ambition. I loved that he respects nurses and understands that I want to continue working even after we have children. Mostly, I loved that he’s eager to have a family. We talk about it all the time, and that’s so important to me. But even though I’ll never understand why he chose me, I never thought he’d cheat on me. I never saw this coming.

  Did I let myself be fooled because I want a family so bad? Is that how I managed to overlook any warning signs that Mitch might not really love me? I'm making myself sick again with my thoughts chasing each other, running on this endless loop of I love him, no I hate him, what went wrong, can we fix this. I know this isn't something I can forgive and forget. A husband I can't trust doesn't belong in the family picture I have in my head.

  Family. There’s that word again. My dream is further away than ever now.

  My eyes fall on a picture I took just last year, before my brother and his wife moved to Scotland. It shows Roman and Mary laughing with their toddlers, Abbie and Archie. It's literally the picture of a loving family. I feel tears spilling over onto my cheeks again. I want what they have. I don’t know if I’ll ever find the right man for me, someone who really loves me. Someone worthy of being the father of my children.

  Maybe I'll call Mary. What time is it in Scotland now? It's nearing eleven at night. That'll make it almost five in the morning in Inverness. Way too early to be calling. I know she would tell me to go ahead and call if she knew, but I can't do it knowing she has to be up soon to take care of two energetic little munchkins. Besides, Mary and Roman have never really liked Mitchell. It's not like either of them to say I told you so, but it would just hang there, unspoken but impossible not to hear. No, I should just take a hot bubble bath and climb into bed.

  In the bathroom with the hot water running, I look at myself in the mirror, trying to see what a stranger would see. Oh hell, I’ll just admit it. I'm trying to see what Mitch sees. I need to know why I'm not enough.

  The young woman in the mirror has tanned skin, courtesy of her Cherokee heritage and the amount of time she spends outside, and long black hair. The steam is just creeping along the edge of the mirror, hiding bits and pieces, but I know the woman's eyes are dark brown. Her nose is long and straight, and her cheekbones are high and well-defined. Her chin is rounded and above it is a mouth that I happen to know she has always thought is just a little too small to sit comfortably under her nose. I like what I see of her body, though, as I peel off the expensive gown that I've never really felt comfortable in. Yes, I've worked hard on my body. I swim, do yoga and gardening, and I watch what I eat. But even more importantly to me, I know I'm a good person. I'm loving and kind, and I try my hardest to be a good human.

  So why
did Mitch choose Gloria over me?

  I turn away from my reflection in the mirror. The answers to my questions aren't going to be found there.

  The room is filled with the scent of my lavender bath salts. I have trouble sleeping sometimes and lavender usually helps. Somehow, though, I don't think it will be enough tonight. My thoughts are back to chasing each other around in my head. Why am I not enough? What signs did I miss? How am I ever going to trust my instincts, my judgment, again?

  When I close my eyes, I see the white skin of Gloria's back, with Mitch's long, strong surgeon's fingers cupping her butt cheeks as she moves up and down on his lap. Up and down, up and down, copper curls cascading down that white back.

  Water sloshes all over the floor as I jump out of the tub and retch into the toilet bowl.

  2

  Bram

  I can see my reflection in the glass if I shift my perspective from the city below. It's funny how that works. I'm sure there's an analogy about the world in there somewhere, but I'm too tired to find it. I should've just worked from home today, but if there's anything I've learned from my father, a self-made millionaire by the time he was fifty, is that I have to show up and do my duty, every day, or I can't expect the people who work for me to show up and do theirs.