Sizzling Nights with Dr. Off-Limits

“They wouldn’t

let me see her,” Emily said, her tortured words invading his thoughts, making him ache with the pain he heard in her voice.

“I wanted to,” she continued. “I wanted to hold her, but they wouldn’t let me.”

Lucas got off the sofa, went to Emily and wrapped his arms around her while she cried. He shed tears of his own.

“You’re a much better person than I am,” he told her long minutes later.

Not speaking, she shook her head. “I’ve held that in for so long. I can’t believe I told you.”

“You should have told me long ago.”

“Why? What good can come out of you knowing? Nothing.”

“At least now I understand why you signed the divorce papers.”

“You told me to leave, then sent me divorce papers. Did you think I wouldn’t sign them?”

“In the middle of an argument, I told you that if you were that unhappy being married to me, you should leave. You left.”

She closed her eyes. “How could I stay when you wanted me to leave?”

“I never wanted you to leave.” He disentangled himself from where he held her. He needed to process the things that had happened, the things he’d learned and how he felt about those things, how he felt about Emily, about himself, about the fact he’d had a child he never knew about. “I just couldn’t be what you needed me to be at that point in my life. You were crying all the time, so moody, I felt I could never do anything right, could never make you happy. Between my fellowship, my mom’s grief over my grandmother’s death, the financial constraints you insisted upon, the stress of wanting to be a good husband, I just wasn’t coping well. When, between crying bouts, you started talking about wanting a baby, I choked. I already felt like a failure. How was I supposed to add in daddy duties?”

“I guess it’s a good thing you never had to.”

“No, Emily, that isn’t a good thing. Not at all. Had you been upfront and told me you were pregnant, I would have wanted our baby.”

“How could I have told you I was pregnant? Your parents were already accusing me of being a gold digger, warning you that I’d get pregnant on purpose. You were drifting further and further away from me and the more I tried to pull you back, the further away you slipped.”

“I wasn’t slipping away, Emily. I was staying away because I didn’t want to make you pregnant.”

She stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“I was afraid you’d intentionally get pregnant.”

“I’d never have done that.”

“I know that. Now. At the time, I was stressed and was hearing from all sides how I’d rushed into marriage and how you’d be quick to want to start a family so you’d have a permanent tie to my family’s wealth.”

“I never wanted money from you.”

“No, you never did.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry, Emily. For making you so sad, for everything I ever did wrong.”

“Me, too.”

Lucas wasn’t sure how long he stood at Emily’s window, staring down at the street below. When he turned, she sat on the sofa, watching him with her red-rimmed eyes.

He’d done that. He’d put that deep hurt inside her. He’d pushed her away and she’d lost his baby. No wonder she’d changed hospitals to get away from him. No wonder she’d not wanted anything to do with him when he’d first shown up at Children’s.

He’d hurt her in ways that couldn’t be easily forgotten, couldn’t readily be moved beyond. The fact that she hadn’t told him she was pregnant, that she’d kept something so significant from him during their marriage, caused pain he’d not easily forget or move beyond, either.

Tonight, he needed to hurt, though, to feel the pain and let it cut at his very soul while he came to grips with the past, with the loss of a baby daughter he’d not even known about.

Emily had said too much had happened for them to ever have a second chance. He hadn’t understood that before.

Now he did.