The tears escaped and dripped down my cheeks. “Atlas—”
“I should have told you right in the beginning, but I was an asshole.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re an asshole.” I wiped the tears away. “I understand how hard this is for you.”
“Trust me, you don’t understand.” His arms returned to his knees, and he stared at the floor for a while, his eyes open and vacant, reliving memories that he didn’t want to share.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to fix this.
He pushed to his feet again, grabbed his sweater off the floor, and slowly walked to the door.
I didn’t try to block it.
He grabbed his keys then walked out without saying a word.
3
Atlas
I wanted to call in sick and skip Monday.
But I didn’t have the luxury of sick days.
I had too much shit to do.
I went to the lab in the morning, and thankfully Dr. Hamilton had meetings that required his attention. It always happened at this time of the month, when he had to reflect on the wellness of the company as a whole with his CEO—his wife.
I went to the clinic afterward, my gaze locked on my office in the rear.
My assistant followed me inside, giving me all the messages waiting for my attention.
I got rid of her then worked in the office for the day, didn’t even look through the glass at my colleagues.
The last thing I wanted to do was see her.
She was smart and didn’t call.
Gave me space.
I would need a lot of that for a while.
Anthony came into my office at the end of the day. “Shelly and I just discharged Mr. Northridge. Fuck, Lyme disease is ruthless…”
“That’s great.” I tried to force the enthusiasm I normally felt in victorious moments like this, but I felt none. My chest was an empty pit. There were no emotions. Just venomous snakes. “I’ll assign you a new patient first thing in the morning.”
“Great.” He walked out.
Then Daisy walked in.
Fuck, I didn’t want to do this.
She shut the door behind herself then approached my desk, her eyes timid like a kid in time-out.
“I’m not ready—”
“I’m here for work. Only work.” She held a folder in her hand, dressed in black pumps and a black dress, looking elegant and powerful.
Even if that was the case, I still didn’t want to talk to her. But that would be a whole different level of unprofessional. I gave a nod to the armchair in front of my desk.
She took a seat, crossed her legs, and as if nothing had happened, talked to me about her patient.
I used to enjoy these conversations because they gave me an insight into her mind that I didn’t have before. I could see her thought process, how she connected ideas, how she jumped from one conclusion to the next with superior intelligence. Now I wanted nothing to do with her. Didn’t even want to see her face.
She placed the copies of the lab work on my desk. “He’s been admitted to the hospital for multiple heart attacks. I wouldn’t ask, but he doesn’t have much time left.”
I stared at the numbers she placed in front of me, and once a life was on the line, I snapped out of it. I straightened in my chair and organized everything on my desk before I spun around to grab a couple textbooks off the shelf behind me. I threw them on the desk before I hit the button on the intercom. “Lillian, grab dinner for two before you go. I don’t care what it is.”
Daisy’s head was down, reading through her notes. “Make it three.”
My eyes narrowed.
She answered my unspoken question. “I asked Dex to join us.”
The second Dex walked in the door, he was all business. He didn’t even acknowledge his sister before he sat in the other armchair and helped himself to the folder Daisy had made for him. With one ankle crossed on the opposite knee, he sat there and read through everything. Like me, he was dressed casually, just jeans and a t-shirt. You’d never know he was the best heart surgeon in the world.
We worked in silence, all of us thinking hard and fast, racing against the clock.
Dex flipped through a stack of papers. “It’s his medication.”
Daisy immediately turned to him. “Really? Which one?”
“All of them.” He bent the stack of papers with his thumb like a deck of cards and let them slide down one by one. “Who the fuck is on this much medication? The guy is in his fifties. I have patients in their nineties who take a fraction of this amount.”
I grabbed the medication list.
“Of course you’re going to have a heart attack when you’re on this much shit.” Dex grabbed a pen and started to make notes on the paperwork. “Piece-of-shit doctors…can’t figure out his problem, so they just throw medication at it. Fuck off.”
“You’re right,” I said. “There’s no way he needs all these.”
Daisy was quiet, her fingers brushing over her lips as she thought. “I bet he’s taking something he doesn’t need, and it’s causing distress to his heart.”
“You guys keep looking.” I grabbed another stack of papers. “I’m going to read through his physician notes.”
Another bout of silence passed, none of us touching the dinner on the table.
Too focused.
Dex released a sigh here and there, and Daisy hardly moved, just her fingers when she made a note on the paper.
The patient had been to the doctor a million times, so it was a lot for me to read through.
But after the fifteenth visit, I found something. “He was prescribed Viagra.”
Dex looked up from his chart. “It’s not on the medication list.”
Daisy looked up too.
“But if he were to take Viagra every single day, it wouldn’t be surprising to have this many heart attacks.” My mind worked quickly, finding an explanation within a few seconds. “He has so many pills to take, he’s probably taking the Viagra by mistake.”
“Shit.” Dex turned to Daisy, his eyes wide. “I bet that’s it.”
Daisy must have agreed because she threw her stuff down and darted out of the room. “I’ll call the hospital.” She ran in her heels to her office to make the call.
I shut the folder and leaned back in the chair. “Hope we figured it out in time.”
Dex grabbed a sandwich and relaxed in his chair, taking a big bite. “Fuck, me too.”
“Thanks for coming by to help.”
“Anytime.”
Daisy came back a few minutes later. “I got the message to his doctor, but I’m going to head to the hospital anyway.”
Dex picked up a sandwich and held it out for her.
“I don’t have time for that.” She grabbed her folder and bag and darted off without saying goodbye.
“Damn.” He turned in her chair and watched her go. “I’ve never seen Daisy turn down a meal.”
I watched through the window. She strutted to the main doors then stepped onto the sidewalk outside, my heart going with her. “Yeah, there’s only one thing she cares about more than food. People.”
A few more days passed, and Daisy and I didn’t talk about that final conversation in my penthouse. We discussed Mr. Northridge and his recovery, new patients, basically work. She was either giving me my space…or she knew it was over.
It was the end of the workday, so everyone gathered their things and went home.
I stayed—because I always stayed.
All I had was work. My parents didn’t invite me over for dinner in the middle of the week—because they were dead. I didn’t have a sister to tease—because she was dead too. Because I didn’t pick them up from the airport like I should have. And then I couldn’t make my own family, and no woman wanted to be with a man who was sterile.
The door opened and Daisy emerged.
I knew the moment had arrived—because she didn’t have her bag or paperwork.
My heart tightene
d, a rush of chemicals dropping into my bloodstream, anxiety to put me on edge, adrenaline to heighten my focus. I took a few deep breaths, trying to dissipate them in my blood.
With her eyes on me, she approached my desk. “Are you ready to talk?”
I would never be ready. “Yeah.”
She took a seat, her ankles crossed, her hands in her lap, her eyes a little uneasy. She was normally fearless, normally so confident she was arrogant, but she was completely unsure of herself in this moment.
I lowered my gaze, organizing the words I’d share. “I dropped a lot on you, and I think us having our space to process it was necessary. I’m just going to say this.” I spoke with a calm voice, I adopted a calm expression, but inside, I was dying. I’d been dead inside since that conversation, the precipice of my downfall. I fell in love with a woman who believed in family above all else—and that was the one thing I couldn’t give her. “I want you to really think about this. You’re smart, so I know you can do that. Our relationship has only scratched the surface, so it would be much easier for us to go our separate ways now than wait years and see where it goes…when we both know it won’t have the ending that you want. Don’t say that you’re okay with my situation unless you’ve really given it some thought. Because when a woman goes through that phase of her life, trying to have a family, her reactions are biological. It’s intense. It’s instinct. You can act like it’s not a big deal now, but it will be a big deal for you at that time.”
“Atlas—”
“I want you to think about it. Please do that for me.”
She released a deep breath she’d been holding.
“Not just for you, but for me. Because I can’t go through that again. I can’t be with a woman who says she’s okay with it…and then changes her mind and leaves. It wasn’t just losing my wife that hurt. It was the pain of inadequacy, of feeling like less of a man because I can’t fulfill my biological purpose. It’s really…fucking shitty. I can’t articulate it better than that.”
Her eyes filled with that look I despised—pity.
“While I give it serious thought, can I still be with you?”
My heart clenched.
“Because I miss you.”
Fuck, I missed her too. Missed her more than she understood. “I don’t think that’s the best idea.”
She inhaled a breath, visibly pained.
“I have a lot of work to do, so…”
She remained seated, her hands together, looking out of place in her own clinic. Hesitant and uncomfortable, she was out of her element. Her fingers started to fidget, pulling at a loose thread on her hem. But then she gave a nod—and walked out of my office.
I filled in the charts at the desk at the hospital, ordering more scans for the patients who had improved airways. I was working nights at the hospital and research during the day, along with the clinic. All I did when I wasn’t at work was work out and sleep.
It didn’t bother me before.
Now it did—because I was about to lose the one thing that gave me meaning.
“Atlas?”
I turned to see Dr. Hamilton standing there in his blue scrubs, his stethoscope around his neck. His intelligent eyes looked me up and down, seeing something that someone else wouldn’t have noticed. “Have you been here all night?”
“What time is it?” I looked at the corner of the computer screen. It was seven in the morning. When I looked around, I noticed the shift change, nurses coming onto the floor to relieve the ones who had been there all night. “Yeah, I guess so.”
He took a seat in the chair beside me then turned to regard me head on. “What’s going on?”
“Mrs. Montana was taken off oxygen—”
“With you.” Those dark eyes drilled into mine, the same way Daisy’s did, with that powerful intelligence. It was like a telescope, able to see galaxies and distant suns, when everyone else could only see a bright spot in the sky.
“Oh…I’ve just got a lot going on right now.”
“If you’re so busy, then why are you spending all night at the hospital?”
“Honestly, time just flew by—”
“Atlas.”
I suddenly felt scolded by my father, when I hadn’t been scolded by him in a very long time. I felt like Derek or Dex, their father putting them on the spot because it was his job to do so. He asked the hard questions, made me uncomfortable, because it was his job. It was like being with a ghost—the ghost of my father. It was like…he was still here.
“Son, talk to me.” His hand moved to my shoulder.
Just the way my dad used to.
He gave me a tight squeeze with his fingers, that penetrating gaze with his eyes.
There was nowhere to run.
“You can tell me anything.”
“Sir…I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. And stop with the sir shit. I’m not your boss.”
“Then what are you?” He was the owner of the company, the person who hired me, the person who hired everyone who stepped foot on his property. He was the person who paid me, who assigned projects.
His hand left my shoulder as he regarded me. “I’m not religious, but…I like to think I’m your godfather. I’m here to look after you.”
The emotion pumped in my heart, made me weak, and that made me want to push it away. “I’m a grown man…I don’t need someone to look after me.”
His expression didn’t change, like he didn’t believe me. “I wish my father were still here to look after me. I wish he’d been there when I married my wife. I wish he’d been there to help me with Derek. I wish he’d been there for advice for all the stages of life that he’d already experienced. My kids are all grown, and they still come to us for almost everything.”
I looked away, nurses passing by and checking on patients in their rooms, techs taking patients to radiology, announcements on the intercom. The world passed by, completely oblivious to our conversation.
“Now talk to me, Atlas.”
“I just… It’s Daisy.” I released a sigh. “I feel weird talking about it with you because…you know.”
He gave a slight nod, his eyes dropping down. “Do you love her?”
Put on the spot, I stared into the dark eyes that stared into mine. “Yes.”
“Then it’s not weird.”
We stepped through the elevator doors into the living room of my penthouse.
In his scrubs, he walked inside and took a look around. “You have a nice place.”
“Thanks.” I went to the kitchen and poured two glasses of scotch, since I knew what he liked, and carried it to the dining table. I took a seat.
He took a seat across from me and took a drink.
I was so fucking tired right now. We’d finished our day at the hospital because our patients needed us, but that meant I’d worked for about fifteen hours straight. My fingers rested on the surface of my glass, and I stared at it for a while, unsure where to start. I’d never been in this situation before, but I was certain no one had ever been in this situation ever before. I was about to talk to the father of my girlfriend…about my girlfriend.
He didn’t drink from his glass. He chose to stare at me instead.
“I really love her, but—”
“There is no but. If you love her, then you work out whatever that but is. If there’s love between two people, then all those disagreements, all those problems, they just don’t matter. My wife and I don’t have much in common. I’ve met women more compatible for me, but I’ve never turned my head because our love is bigger than compatibility.”
“It’s…it’s not that.”
“Alright.”
“The reason why my first marriage ended was because…we tried to have children. After several trips to fertility experts across the country, we realized we couldn’t have children—because of me.” I looked down at my glass, ashamed. “She said she was fine with it, but…she wasn’t. Then she left me.”
Dr. Hamilton was absolutely st
ill, showing no emotion, his mind working to process what I’d just shared.
“Daisy wasn’t on my radar at all because we didn’t get along at first, but also because she’s my boss’s daughter. But then things happened really fast, and a week felt like a lifetime. It felt right—straight from the beginning. It’s only been a few months, but it feels like she’s always been there. I can’t really explain it—”
“You don’t need to. Because I understand perfectly.”
“So…I didn’t tell her. And then I met her family, and without asking about her plans for the future, I knew exactly what she wanted. So, I continued not to tell her…because I didn’t want to lose her.” I looked up to see his face.
His look changed, his eyes dropping to the table, his body still. “I’m really sorry to hear that, Atlas. I can’t even imagine everything you’ve been through.”
Yes…I gave lone wolf a whole new meaning. There wasn’t a single person I was related to on the planet, and I would never be related to anyone ever again.
“This conversation will be hard, but you need to tell her.”
“I did.”
He lifted his eyes, his look pensive.
“She told me we could adopt…sperm donor…all of that. But…” I shook my head. “That all happened in the moment, and she may not care about those things right now, but if she really thinks about her future, she might care. I asked her to take some time for herself to really think about the situation.”
Dr. Hamilton inhaled a deep breath then let it out slowly. “I wish I knew what to say right now.”
“It’s okay. It’s a lot. I understand.”
He bowed his head, quiet. “May I ask exactly what the doctor said about your condition?”
“Because of my blood disorder, every embryo I contribute to has one defective chromosome, so the pregnancies constantly result in miscarriages. After my ex and I had three, we knew something was wrong.”
“You know, doctors are wrong about this all the time—”
“No.”
He looked up, his eyes narrowing on my face.
The Girl Who Always Wins (Soulless Book 13) Page 3
