The Doctor's One Night to Remember

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HE SHOULD LET her go, of course. It would solve all of his problems.

Except for the biggest one of all, that was. Namely, that he couldn’t bear the thought of her actually leaving. What was it about this woman that got under his skin? There she was, creeping around his head—no, striding around it—and kicking open doors he’d long thought locked and barred.

Even now she stared at him, her head cocked as though she had every right to ask the questions she was asking.

/> The worrying part was that, as much as he resented the intrusion, he couldn’t bring himself to walk away from her. As though a part of him wanted to hear what she had to say. Worse, as though a part of him wanted to answer those questions that were falling from her lips.

So why not? What better way to show her the monster that you are?

The voice was almost insidious, and even as Nikhil tried to silence it, he couldn’t. It taunted him, telling him that if she knew the truth about him then she’d surely run as fast and as far as she could in the opposite direction.

And wasn’t that what he claimed to want?

‘Fine.’ He gritted his teeth at last. ‘You want to know me, then don’t say that I didn’t warn you.’

But, instead of looking apprehensive, as he’d expected, she cast him an almost scornful look.

‘Is this you playing the role of Big Bad Nikhil? Only I have to tell you I’ve seen it before, and it doesn’t convince me.’

‘It should.’ He resisted the urge to step closer to her. Barely. ‘But if you really need more convincing, then allow me to indulge you.’

With a supreme effort he made himself step back. Away.

‘The day Daksh was in Chile, he was there to see me. Though the fact that it was my birthday is almost certainly pure coincidence. Either way, it would have been the first time we’d seen each other since I was fifteen. Since the day of our father’s funeral.’

Almost two decades later—it still rankled. More than rankled, if he were to be honest. Good thing he’d learned to be so adept at lying to himself, then.

‘What did he want?’ Isla asked, when he didn’t continue.

‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘Neither do I care.’

‘I think that’s a lie.’

Her voice was soft, so soft that it almost felt like a caress, and yet it was almost his undoing that she seemed to read him as easily as she did.

‘That I know, or that I care?’ he demanded, more to buy himself time than anything else.

‘I think you care more than you want to admit.’

He chose not to answer. Instead he clung onto that old, familiar rage that had started to recede from him ever since she’d walked into his life. But he wasn’t fooled. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to think that it had suddenly disappeared after all these years.

All that anger, and resentment, and grief. All that debilitating guilt. This unique, incredible woman might have unwittingly chased it off for a moment, but it had to have gone somewhere.

It would only stay away for so long—until the novelty of someone as different as her wore off. Then it would be back, as dark, and winding, and bleak as ever.

Which was why he couldn’t let her get close to him. He couldn’t risk taking her down with him, when he eventually fell.

However hard it was—however much he’d kept this story inside and not told a single soul for almost twenty years—he had to say it now. He had to find a way to say all those ugly, twisted, damning words.

And the easiest way was to do it quickly. Like ripping off a plaster.

‘My brother left me to rot in the home of our drunk, violent, abusive father.’

‘Your father hurt you?’

She looked shocked for a split second, and then caught herself, slipping back that doctor’s mask of hers.