CHAPTER ONE
ASTRID
The day had begunwith so much promise. But now my vision blurred from reading the name on the chart I was currently holding with a death grip. I had to pinch myself to make sure this wasn’t some random dream.
Shoot. Not a dream.
I thought I’d put that part of my past firmly behind me, and yet, if I were honest with myself, knowing the possibility I’d one day run into this particular London brother again would pop into my head at least once a year.
Standing outside a therapy room in the physical therapy clinic where I worked, I had to do a quick scan instead of going through my typical deep dive into a patient’s information before I met them for the first time. But this patient had been handed to me at the last minute when my fellow PT had to go home to a sick kid. So there was no way out of this. Everyone else was already with their ten o’clock appointments.
Okay, Astrid. You can do this. You’re a professional. The pep-talk did little to untie the knots in my stomach, so I switched tosome deep breathing. Maybe I imagined that this patient with the all too familiar name was the same man from my past.
I scanned the chart again. He had recently retired from the military in his late thirties with the same birthdate. This Chase London had taken a bullet to his lower lumber region, tearing through multiple muscles and creating havoc to the surrounding tendons, ligaments, you name it.
The bullet had missed his spinal column be mere millimeters and been successfully removed. The damage was not insurmountable, but he was lucky to be alive. He’d recently been released from in-patient care at an East Coast VA hospital.
So why was he in my clinic?
The odds of him being the same London brother who’d gone deep undercover years ago, the one that Kane’s wife Chassie said hadn’t been in contact with the family for at least five years, had to be slim to none.
Not that I’d asked after him in the last year or two. Or maybe, okay, come to think of it, last Christmas I had a bit too much spiked eggnog, and my brother and Zoe had just gotten engaged, and whatever, that didn’t count. I rarely thought of him.
BecausethatChase London was someone I never expected or wanted to see again, especially after the humiliation of being dumped just one week after I gave him my virginity.
Kane knew about what happened after graduation between Chase and me, right? There was no way he’d allow me to be blindsided, would he?
There was no one to trade patients with. And reassuring myself that the man on the other side of that door probably wasn’t who I feared facing for the first time in decades wasn’t working. “Please don’t let it be him.Please don’t let it be him.”I whispered the mantra over and over to myself. I lowered my head, took a cleansing four-beat breath, and schooled my features into a bored, yet professional mask.
Somehow, I found the nerve to open the door even as my heart pounded loud enough that even our receptionist could hear it. “Hello, Mr. London. My name is Astrid and I’ll be working with you.” My gaze dropped from the ceiling, where I’d instinctively placed it upon entering. A last-ditch effort to delay the inevitable. A cold sweat and full-body goosebumps erupted as my eyes took in the six-foot-two, thirty-nine-year-old, now-retired soldier.
Now more handsome, devastatingly so, than he’d been in high school.
Now seeking rehab for damaged musculature and tendons that had been stitched back together after taking a bullet.
A Chase that was more imposing physically, his features sharper, his gaze harder, full of secrets and experience most men would never see in two lifetimes. Overwhelmed by all the thoughts bombarding me, I couldn’t miss that ever-present edge he’d worn even back in high school as it poured off him while his gaze roamed over me.
When his eyes finally settled on my face, the cold sweat was replaced by a full-body, super-heated flush that probably had already turned my cheeks red. And by the minute lift of his lips in the same smirk he often wore in school, he’d noticed my body’s reaction to him.
Sexy as hell and full of a then eighteen-year-old’s confidence, but now aged like a fine wine. What had I done to deserve this intrusion, this unwanted flash from my past into my now settled, if boring, life?
Life for me and my son had finally tipped into the positive. No more drama from my ex, my job, and my soon to be finished first house had proven that I was doing pretty damn good for a single mom in this rocky economy.
But this? Him? What had I done to deserve the shock of coming face-to-face with the man who’d taken my virginity thentaken off without a word, never to be heard from again until this moment?
“Hello, Astrid. Long time.”
Oh no, he didn’t. He didn’t get to play this moment off like some innocent happenstance. With a gruff and casual greeting. He had to know I worked here because when our patients check in, they’re given the name of the therapist who would work with them in case of any last-minute changes.
So, yeah. Chase London didn’t get to appear back in my life just when good things were happening and my son Josh was in a good, well, an okay place with his dad. The road with my ex had been long and filled with drama. Even though my heart had mended years ago, my son’s had taken longer.
I so didn’t need the man who’d spun my world out of control, sending me on a path of questionable choices in men that I’d married the exact opposite of Chase in every way I could find. Nope. Not going to happen.
I was going to hold it all in and act as if I didn’t have a care in the world, or any ill-will towards him. Chase was going to get nothing but my professionalism, even if it damaged a part of my self-worth. But if I ever saw him outside of the clinic, the gloves were coming off.
“Before either of us says anything else, I need to inform you that because of our past association, I cannot treat you professionally. I’m happy to reschedule your appointment for another time, with another PT. Unfortunately, we're fully booked today and there is no one else available. So, if you could?—”
Chase interrupted me as he abruptly stood from the exam table, favoring his right leg. “I get it. But there’s one thing I need to say before you kick me out. Please?”
