by Lara Lacombe
Alex took a step forward, his eyes glinting dangerously. “As I recall,” he said coldly, “you were very willing to sleep with me, as well.”
Jillian felt her face heat and turned away, but he grabbed her arm, holding her in place. “Don’t try to cheapen what we did, or what was between us. That meant something to me.” He released her and stepped back, giving her room. “It still does.”
The couch was a few feet away and she staggered over to it, dropping onto the cushion and putting her head in her hands. It hurt to breathe. Her chest felt tight and constricted, and it seemed as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.
How could she have been so wrong? She’d allowed herself to fall in love with this man, thinking he was a good guy, that he would never hurt her. But he’d been lying to her all along.
Just like Mark.
It’s not that surprising, a cynical voice inside her head commented. He’s an undercover agent. He lies for a living. Why should you be any different?
Why, indeed? Thinking back, the signs of his deception had been there all along. His reaction to the photo, which she’d assumed had been due to the pain of his injury. His reluctance to talk about his past with the gang and the things he’d done. The way he’d squirmed when she’d told him about Jason. Seemingly innocent actions that took on a new terrible meaning now that she knew the truth.
“I know you blame me for Jason’s death,” Alex said softly. “And I can’t tell you how sorry I am for it. I’d give anything to be able to go back and stop Tony from shooting him.”
Jillian stared at him in disbelief, then shook her head. “I don’t blame you for that.”
“You don’t?” He sounded puzzled and the slightest bit relieved, as though he’d just been granted an unexpected reprieve. His expression brightened and he moved to kneel next to her. “Then we can move on?” He sounded almost shy, but his eyes were shiny with hope.
Jillian’s heart crumpled at the sight. Moments ago she would have gladly said yes, would have thrown herself into his arms and cried tears of happiness at the thought of their future together. But now she couldn’t look at him without seeing Jason, without hearing the echo of Mark’s voice. And while a small, foolish part of her would always love this man, his betrayal had cut too deeply, leaving a wound that couldn’t be healed with pretty words and apologies.
“You lied to me,” she said, hating the way her voice shook. “You lied to me about Jason’s death. What else have you been keeping from me?”
“Nothing. I swear to you.” He wrapped his large hands around her smaller one, squeezing gently. “What can I do to prove it to you? I’ll do anything—just tell me what I need to do to make this right.”
She shook her head, ignoring his pleading tone. “It doesn’t work that way.” She pulled away from his touch, growing colder as she withdrew deeper into herself. “I can’t trust you, Alex. And that’s the truth.”
Chapter 16
“Okay, spill it.”
Jillian looked up from her salad as Carla slid into the chair across from her. The hospital cafeteria wasn’t crowded, and she made a show of glancing at the empty chairs nearby while she continued to chew. Carla merely raised a brow at her, unimpressed.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m not really in the mood for company right now.” Jillian returned her focus to her plate, hoping Carla would take the hint.
She didn’t.
“You’ve been working almost nonstop over the past few days. You volunteered to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and I know you tried to get on the schedule for tomorrow, even though tonight is New Year’s Eve. While I’ve never thought of you as lazy, that schedule is pretty extreme. Makes me think you’re trying to avoid something. Or someone.” She took a healthy swig from her water bottle.
“You might be able to fool everyone else, but you can’t fool me. I know something happened to you, missy, and I want you to tell me about it.” The crinkle of cellophane punctuated her words as Carla unwrapped her sandwich and crumpled the malleable film into a ball.
“I’m fine. Really.”
Her friend snorted and set to work opening a single-serve bag of chips, popping one into her mouth with a crunch. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I let you off the hook once before, but I’m not going to do it again.”
“Carla...” Jillian set her fork down with a sigh.
“Jillian.” Carla’s brown eyes were wide and beseeching. “You’re my friend. I can see that something is eating at you, and it worries me. Won’t you please talk to me?”
Jillian blinked hard, trying to rein in her wayward emotions. She was not the kind of woman who cried at work, and certainly not in the cafeteria! But Carla’s obvious concern soared over the protective wall she’d built around her heart, and in that moment she felt less alone.
It had been a week since Alex had dropped his bomb and destroyed her hopes regarding both him and her brother. She had always known that the silence from her brother was a bad sign, but having his death confirmed wrecked her illusions. Over the years she had taken comfort in pretending that Jason had moved to a new city and started a fresh life, free from his addictions and troubles. Now, she could no longer hide from the truth, and she grieved the loss of Jason all over again.
To make matters worse, every time she closed her eyes she was assaulted by a host of horrible images, a movie reel of Jason getting shot and bleeding out playing on constant loop thanks to Alex’s description. He hadn’t been graphic by any means, but her imagination filled in all the gaps with a prize-winning director’s attention to detail. It made sleep almost impossible, and what rest she did manage to get was fitful and sporadic.
And then there was the problem of Alex himself. His lies cut her more deeply than Mark’s ever had. Even worse was the fact that even though she couldn’t trust him, she still wanted him. Being separated from him felt unnatural, wrong even. She moved through her days feeling like an amputee, the phantom pain of Alex her constant companion. But no matter how much her heart cried out for him, her mind held strong. For a relationship to last, it had to be built on a foundation of trust. And as much as it hurt her to say it, she couldn’t trust Alex.
In her darker moments she wondered which was worse: the pain of losing her brother or the burning sting of betrayal she felt every time she remembered Alex had deliberately kept that information from her.
“You still with me?” Carla waved a chip in front of her face, pulling Jillian out of her reverie.
“Yeah. Sorry about that.” She glanced down at her plate and poked halfheartedly at a cherry tomato. It didn’t look very appealing, but she still had several hours left to go on her shift.
“S’okay,” Carla replied through a mouthful of sandwich. She washed it down and fixed Jillian with her take-no-prisoners stare. “I’m sure you were just deciding how to tell me what’s going on.”
“Something like that,” Jillian muttered. How could she tell her friend? Yeah, the other night I was kidnapped by an undercover federal agent and we spent forty-eight hours on the run from a psychopathic gang and the traitor in his organization. And while all this was going on, I kind of fell in love with him. But then I found out he was keeping the truth about my brother’s death from me, so now I don’t trust him anymore.
As if Carla would believe that! Jillian would dismiss it herself, if she hadn’t actually lived through it all. No, perhaps total honesty was not the way to go.
But she couldn’t deny that Carla deserved some kind of explanation. The woman was her closest friend, and she didn’t want to sour their relationship by pushing her away.
Choosing her words with care, Jillian sketched out the basic problem. She didn’t go into details about Jason, or the circumstances that had led to Alex finally telling her the truth. Instead she explained she was seeing a guy who worked
undercover in law enforcement and she was having trouble trusting him.
“He kept something really important from me,” she explained. “And since he lies for a living, I’m not sure I can trust him.”
Carla studied her for a moment, chewing thoughtfully. “Has he given you reason to doubt anything else he’s said?”
Jillian frowned. “Well, no,” she said slowly, replaying conversations in her mind. “But how can I be sure?”
“You can’t,” Carla said. “But that’s no different from any other relationship. No matter who you’re with, you have to decide to trust them or you’ll drive yourself crazy second-guessing their every move. That’s no way to go through life.”
“Yeah, but in this case, he lies all the time. That means he’s especially good at it.”
“He’s in law enforcement, right?” At her nod, Carla continued. “Well, there you have it. He lies to the bad guys to stay alive. That doesn’t mean he’s automatically going to lie to you.” She paused for a moment and then added softly, “He’s not Mark, honey.”
How many times had she thought the same thing, before Alex had told her about Jason? Coming from Carla, it sounded so simple, so obvious. But while she couldn’t deny the truth of her friend’s words, she couldn’t let go of the pain of knowing Alex had deliberately kept the news of her brother a secret.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “But I’m so angry with him for the way he acted. I don’t know if I can get over that.”
“I understand. But are you being fair?”
Jillian bristled, her eyebrows shooting up. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know what he kept from you. But I’m sure he had his reasons for it.”
“Whose side are you on?”
Carla shot her an exasperated look. “Yours, of course. I’m just playing devil’s advocate here.”
“Humph.”
“I just want you to consider his side. Maybe he was scared to tell you. Maybe he hadn’t had a chance to bring it up because he was waiting for the perfect moment. Maybe he couldn’t figure out how to tell you.” She shrugged. “From what you’ve told me, he sounds like a good guy. I don’t think you should automatically cast him out for making a mistake, especially if his heart was in the right place.”
Dammit. Jillian’s anger faltered in the face of Carla’s argument. Thinking back, she was forced to admit that perhaps she wasn’t being fair to Alex. Given the nonstop action of their first meeting, there really hadn’t been an ideal time for him to share the news of Jason’s death. Hadn’t he said as much, when he finally did tell her? But once the danger had passed, and their lives returned to normal, he hadn’t hesitated to talk to her. That took courage, something she hadn’t acknowledged until now.
She knew better than most how hard it was to deliver bad news. As a doctor, she’d lost her share of patients. Notifying the surviving family was never an easy task, no matter how she tried to soften the blow. She closed her eyes, recalling the creeping dread that accompanied her steps down the endless hospital corridor. A trek to the waiting room to deliver bad news always made her feel like she was walking in quicksand.
Had Alex felt the same way? Had his feet slowed when he’d approached her door, responsibility and reluctance warring for dominance? Had he drawn a fortifying breath before lifting his hand to knock?
He didn’t have to tell me, she realized with a small shock. Jason had been gone for two years, and she had stopped looking for him around every corner. Alex knew he was dead, and knew his family had never been notified and likely never would be. It would have been much easier for Alex to keep her in the dark. They could have moved on with their lives, with her none the wiser about her brother’s fate. The fact that he had stepped up and shared that information, despite the consequences to himself, spoke volumes about his character.
She’d been spending so much time comparing Alex to Mark, but they were nothing alike. Mark had used her for sex, and had never intended to tell her the truth about his wife. He was a liar and a cheat, and he would never confess to any wrongdoing unless confronted with evidence. He was nothing like Alex, and she’d done Alex a disservice by lumping the two of them together.
“You may have a point,” Jillian muttered, feeling slightly foolish. Perhaps she had overreacted a bit after hearing the news, but in her defense, it had been a huge shock.
“Just talk to him,” Carla suggested. “Give him a chance to explain why he did it. If you don’t like his reasons, you can move on. But I think you still care for him. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be pushing yourself to exhaustion.” She polished off the rest of her sandwich, looking a little too pleased with herself.
“Maybe I enjoy my job,” Jillian said, unwilling to give in so easily.
“I know you do,” Carla replied evenly. “But you’re not working nonstop because you love it here. You’re doing it so you don’t have to think about Mr. Secret Agent Man.”
Jillian felt a smile tug at her mouth and she glanced at Carla, hoping her friend hadn’t noticed. She had.
“Uh-huh,” Carla muttered. “That’s what I thought.”
“Okay, okay.” Jillian raised her hands in surrender. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Today.”
“Tonight, after I get off.”
Carla raised a brow, unimpressed.
“You can’t expect me to call him in the middle of my shift,” Jillian said, exasperation creeping into her voice.
“I suppose not,” Carla said. “But you better be out the door as soon as your shift ends. No hanging around looking for extra stuff to do so you don’t have to go home like you’ve been doing the past few days.”
“Yes, Mom.”
That bit of sarcasm earned her the patented Carla death stare, and she leaned back, chastened. “Sorry.”
Before Carla could respond, the pager at Jillian’s belt buzzed insistently. She grabbed it, checking the coded display. Inbound emergency. Carla’s pager buzzed a second later and the two women rose as one, tossing trash on their way out the door of the cafeteria.
It was a short walk to the ER, and they made it just as the ambulance pulled into the bay.
“What have we got?” Jillian called out, tugging on a pair of gloves.
“Multiple stab wounds, chest and abdomen. Stable during transport,” a nurse yelled back.
Jillian stepped out to meet the paramedics, who were tugging the gurney out of the ambulance. She caught a brief glimpse of long, lanky limbs and a face covered by a plastic breathing mask, and then they were moving, wheeling the patient inside while the EMT updated her on the kid’s vitals and injuries.
A quick count and the team slid him off the gurney and onto the bed. His clothes were cut away with brisk, efficient movements, and Jillian began her perusal of his body, checking for any visible wounds. The skin of his chest and abdomen was slick with blood, and she wiped most of it off with gauze to clear her field of vision.
“Can you tell me what happened to you?” she asked, her attention focused on his chest while she spoke. There appeared to be multiple shallow cuts along his ribs, indicating someone had tried to stab him but the blade had glanced off the bones of his rib cage. A few deeper wounds appeared low on his abdomen, angled to the side as if the victim had almost gotten away from his attacker.
The young man lifted his hand and pulled at the oxygen mask. Jillian reflexively moved to stop him, then caught a glimpse of his face and froze, her hand stalling in midair.
Tony cast her a slanted grin, his dark eyes glittering in the fluorescent lights of the ER bay. “Hey, there, Doc. Nice to see you made it out alive.”
* * *
Alex missed Jillian with an aching fierceness he felt in his bones, the kind of lingering soreness that followed a car accident. And wasn’t that an apt metaphor for the way their rel
ationship had ended? Crash and burn, with no recovery in sight.
He doubted Jillian missed him, or even thought of him. After all, she hadn’t contacted him in the days since she’d kicked him out of her apartment. He had hoped that after a little time had passed, Jillian would reach out to him so they could continue to talk about her brother and why Alex had kept the news of his death from her. But as the days marched on with no sign of her, Alex realized that Jillian had no intention of speaking to him and likely didn’t want to hear from him. It was a bitter pill to swallow, especially because his feelings for her hadn’t waned.
He had relived their conversation a thousand times, trying to figure out where things had gone so wrong. Could he have said something, done something differently to make her understand that he hadn’t kept his secret to hurt her, but because he’d simply wanted to wait for the right moment to tell her? Maybe he should have told her right away, as soon as he realized the connection. But he’d been desperate for a safe place to sleep, and by the time an opportunity presented itself, his feelings for her had developed to the point that he hadn’t wanted to just share the news and walk out of her life. He had hoped—still hoped, if he was being totally honest with himself—that she would forgive him and they could move on with their lives.
Now he realized she didn’t share that desire.
He stared into space, hands still gripping the steering wheel. The sun was setting, the last weak rays of light casting a soft glow over the cars in the hospital parking lot. Alex had tried to find Jillian at her apartment, but for the past several days, she hadn’t answered his knock. He felt like the worst sort of stalker to seek her out at work, but he had news to share and he wanted to deliver it in person. Then he would walk away and not bother her again.
Hopefully she would be happy to hear that the DC police and the FBI were searching for Tony so that he could be charged for her brother’s death. Maybe she’d even smile at him as she thanked him for telling her. That would be a nice way to remember her, he mused. He’d much rather their last encounter end with a smile, so that it could replace the memory of her tear-stained, grief-stricken face as she’d pushed him away.
