Sizzling Nights with Dr. Off-Limits

He assumed she’d gone home at the end of her shift, but maybe not. He’d seen her talking with Meghan prior to leaving the hospital. It was possible they’d gone somewhere.

If so, then what? He’d been sitting in his office, thinking about Emily, about the past, about the present, about life. He’d kept arriving at the same conclusion. The accumulation of the past made up the present and his future, and nothing in the past, present or future mattered without Emily.

He’d headed to her apartment, not sure what he was going to do, what he was going to say, just that he had to go to her.

He didn’t have time to debate within himself further because Emily opened the door and stared at him.

“What do you want?”

“You.”

She grimaced. “Let’s not do this. I can’t handle it.”

“You want me to go?” Lucas’s heart pounded in his chest. Was she sending him away before he’d even gotten started spilling his heart to her?

“If you come in, we both know what will happen.”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m not here for sex.”

“But you just said...”

“You asked me what I wanted and I told you.”

The apartment door next to hers opened. A head peeked out to see who was in the hallway.

Lucas gave Emily’s neighbor a reassuring smile. “Let me come in, Emily.”

Emily sighed, then stepped aside. She walked over to her sofa and sat down. She picked up a throw pillow, put it in her lap and toyed with the tasseled fringe. “Sit down, please.”

Lucas sat on the sofa but kept a good distance between them. He didn’t want to be distracted by her nearness. He needed a clear head to tell her all the things he’d done the past couple of days.

“I checked on Cassie before I came here. She is doing great off the ventilator.”

“You could have texted to tell me that,” she said.

“I could have, but there’s a lot more I need to tell you, Emily. Things that have nothing to do with Cassie or the hospital.”

She didn’t say anything, just held on to the pillow in her lap and waited.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking over the past couple of days,” he continued. “I stayed at my parents’ the other night after I left here, had breakfast with them and did a lot of talking.”

“You told them about our baby? Did they think I’d gotten pregnant on purpose to try to take your money?”

Lucas sighed. “I told them. Not once did either of them say anything about you getting pregnant on purpose, Emily. They couldn’t help but question you in the beginning with how quickly we met and married. There are a lot of women who marry for money.”

“I didn’t.”

“I know that.” He did know that. Maybe during prideful moments he’d let his thoughts go there, but he’d never believed Emily had married him for financial reasons. She’d loved him and had simply wanted to be his life partner. “My mother was devastated by the news you’d been pregnant and miscarried, that she may have played a role in you feeling you couldn’t tell me. She wanted me to tell you how very sorry she is that the two of you never got close, that she wasn’t there when you lost our baby.”

A sob broke free from Emily and she swiped her eyes, covered her mouth as she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“You have no reason to be sorry, Emily. You didn’t do anything wrong. My mother knows that. I know that.”

“That’s not true. I did a lot of things wrong. I—”

“Emily,” he interrupted. “I need to finish telling you this while I can.”

She folded her shaking hands over the pillow. “Okay.”