Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“There sure as fuck won’t be with me,” I gritted out. “But if you want, I can give you Matthew’s number. Took me ages to figure out he’d been hooking up with my deputy behind my back, and I’m sure he’d be happy to meet up with you and give you some pointers.”
His eyes flashed to mine. No twinkle in the hazel now, I thought with vicious satisfaction. Just anger and confusion and hurt.
Well, join the fucking club.
“I don’t cheat,” Tommy said in a low, tense voice. “I’ve never cheated. But you kissed me, and—”
“Oh, I kissed you?” I shot back, incredulous. “So it was all me, then? I just imagined your tongue in my mouth, kissing me back?”
His hands clenched into fists. “That’s not what I—”
“Tell me this,” I cut in. “Have you told your bride about what happened?”
“No. But I will,” he added quickly. “I told you in my note—”
I shook my head. I’d heard everything I needed to hear.
I’d come on this vacation looking for a no-strings hookup, but somewhere along the way, I’d bought into Daisy Sunshine’s bullshit about kismet and The One.
And it turned out she was right: the worst part was, I never saw it coming.
“Take care, Tommy. Congratulations, I guess.” I turned to move past him, to leave him to his nosy family and awkward explanation about why a stranger was wearing his shirt, when he stopped me with a hand to my chest.
“Wait. Please, Foster.”
The warmth of his palm through the cotton went straight to my dick. I looked down at his hand before meeting his eyes.
His expression nearly brought me to my knees. Regret. Confusion. Exhaustion. I wanted to think there was even a little bit of hope there, but I knew that was ridiculous wishful thinking.
One thing I knew for sure was that whatever Tommy Marian’s future held, it had nothing to do with mine.
I reached for the hand on my chest and removed it. “Good luck to your bride, Dr. Marian. She’s gonna need it.”
4
TOMMY
When Foster walked out of the conference room, I wanted to both vomit and sob. The feeling reminded me of one of those long shifts in the ER where absolutely everything went wrong, where lives seemed to slip away at every turn, no matter what I did.
The ghost of Foster’s hand on my wrist burned like a brand as I made my way back to the lobby. My family and friends were still standing around chatting, happily unaware that my world had just been tossed into a blender and set to Max Crush.
“There you are,” Kari said, a divot of concern between her eyebrows. “I was about to send a search party after you, but Tilly said you ran into a friend. Was it anyone I know?”
“No,” I said, trying to force a smile. “A guy I met on the plane yesterday. He, uh, lost his luggage, so I helped him out. Listen… can we go somewhere and talk?”
The following conversation—in the same empty meeting room where Foster had walked away from me with pain and contempt in his eyes—was one of the worst of my life.
In the end, I didn’t tell Kari the truth about kissing someone else. It might have made me feel better to confess but would have only hurt her further. Kari deserved better than to be hurt more than she already was.
Instead, I told her another truth. That I was confused about what I wanted, that I needed time to reassess… and that I was so very sorry.
Kari crossed her arms in front of her chest, drawing attention to the sashes her best friend had thrown over our heads in the lobby earlier. “We’ve been together for a decade, Tommy. How much more time do you need?” she demanded. “Is this about the anesthesia thing? Because this is an incredibly immature way of handling it. My mother will be disappointed if you back out on her mentorship, but she’ll get over it.”
I blinked at her. “You think I’m calling off the wedding to get out of pursuing an anesthesia specialty?”
“What other reason could there be?” She lifted her hands and let them flop back down to her sides. “Everything else has been lining up perfectly, just the way we planned, and now this.” With the kind of disappointed grimace you might give a tantrum-throwing toddler, she added, “It’s not like you, Tommy. You usually have your shit together.”
Kari didn’t look hurt. She looked annoyed. Frustrated.
“This isn’t about my career,” I argued. “Or not just that. I feel like I’ve been on this carefully planned trajectory for a long time. College, med school, residency… find a nice partner and settle down. Start a family. I’ve had such a perfect image in my head of what I should do, I didn’t stop to consider what I wanted to do. I don’t want to get married until I figure that out.”