“Ugh,” Isabella groaned.
“When you find love, you go with it, no matter what.” Cynthia looked at her husband. “Don’t let some silly spat get in the way of your relationship. You’ll only regret it.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Mom. You’re not sleeping with your brother.”
James’s jaw clenched. He was doing everything in his power to stay calm and level-headed.
The table’s conversation carried on without Isabella as she sulked and ate her salad. She wanted to be at home in her own bed, far away from her new family.
Her rational side felt bad that she was having a crisis during what was supposed to be a nice evening out for her mother to show off her new husband. Charles was a good guy, but she just wasn’t in the mood to get to know him.
Maybe in a few years, enough time would pass where she could be around her new stepfamily and be able to laugh about it all. First, that would mean that her mom would have to stay married to the guy for a while. Second, it would mean that she and James would have to find a way to remain cordial around each other.
At the end of the dinner, Isabella put on a brave face and gave her mother a hug goodbye. She even gave Charles a quick hug. When Isabella embraced her mother, her mom whispered in her ear, “We’ll talk soon.” It sounded like more like a threat than a comforting sentiment.
“I’m going to call a cab,” Isabella said when she and James got outside.
“There’s no need. I’ll take you home.”
“I think it’s best if I left.”
“Isabella.” His voice was stern. He squared his shoulders with hers. “Get in the car. You don’t have any cash left, anyway. You spent it at the bar, remember?”
Once again, he was right. She walked behind him through the parking lot. The first five minutes, they rode in complete silence.
If James didn’t want to talk, Isabella certainly didn’t. What was there to say, anyway?
“This is just too weird, Isabella,” James said quietly. “We’re stepsiblings. I can’t believe I had sex with my sister.”
“It would be different if we started hooking up before our parents got married, but they got together first. Maybe I was stupid to want to keep it a secret.”
“Well, it’s not like we’re blood related. Like, we’re not twins separated at birth.”
“I guess.”
He sighed. “So, what does this mean for us?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m not sure if you noticed, but you were really mean to me during dinner—in front of my dad.”
“You weren’t the kindest yourself,” she retorted.
“You’re right. And I’m sorry about that, but that dinner was a mind fuck, and I was freaking out.”
“Me too.”
He sighed again, searching for the right words. “This isn’t over, is it?”
She looked away from him. She couldn’t stand to look at him when he looked so sad.
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe it was crazy thinking that this would work in the first place. I mean, things were almost too good up to now. Neither of us have a lot of time for each other, and I don’t know where we’d end up. I know that you want to settle down soon, and I just can’t promise you that I can too. I don’t want to waste your time.”
“I do want to settle down. There are things that I’ve known I’ve wanted all my life. I wanted to be a surgeon with a wife and kids, maybe even a dog. I wanted to live in a big, beautiful house and give my family everything they could ever want.”
“I don’t think I can fit in with that dream,” Isabella said.
“Then maybe it’s best if we end things before they get worse,” he said.
“I think you’re right.”
They sat in the car in front of Isabella’s apartment. No one wanted to give the final blow to their relationship.
“What about work?” he asked.
“We continue on like we were before we started hooking up. I’ll hardly see you anyway. We go back to normal.”
“So this is it?” He said it more like a statement than a question.
“Yeah, I think so.” She slowly reached for the door handle and opened the door.
“Isabella,” he called to her as she left the car. “What we had really meant a lot to me. I just wanted to make sure you knew that.”
“It was fun while it lasted.”
Isabella walked up to her apartment, put on her pajamas, and washed her face. Then, she crawled into bed and cried until there were no tears left.
Chapter Fifteen
If Isabella knew that making out with the hot attending in a moment of passion would cause so much unhappiness, she would have never allowed herself within ten feet of the man.
Her weekends were now free, giving her time to brush up on surgical techniques, even moonlight at some other healthcare providers. It was a fairly common practice amongst young doctors, but she didn’t do it for the money. Instead, it gave her more time to practice and less time to sit idly by and think about James.
She understood why they couldn’t be together. Besides the obvious hang-up of dating one’s stepbrother, she knew that he wanted very specific things from life, things that she wasn’t sure she was willing to provide.
Work was more awkward than ever. Isabella started taking the stairs because she knew that James used the elevator, even if it meant that she showed up for a surgery soaked with sweat. She avoided the doctor’s lounge at all costs and changed her clothes in vacant rooms. Even when she was on-call, if she had time to sleep, she opted to stay awake. Not only would she be safe from an accidental encounter with James, but she wouldn’t have to deal with the memories of that place.
James avoided Isabella in equal measure. He fiddled with the schedule whenever necessary to ensure that he didn’t have to interact with Isabella. He traded shifts with doctors, even if it meant working for two days in a row without going home.
There were a few rare instances where they were forced to work together. Dr. Jensen presented at a conference, and James couldn’t get out of working with the interns. Instead of quizzing and joking around with the interns, he randomly handed out charts without looking at whom he was giving them to.
“What’s his deal today?” Jordan asked Isabella. She shrugged in return.