AllFreeNovel
Share Us
After grudgingly agreeing to go see the insanely expensive town house Coburn’s business acquaintance was selling, she’d fallen in love with the wildflower garden in the back rather than the extensive entertaining spaces and gleaming kitchen. She’d also come to love Chelsea. Coburn was right. It was the perfect place to bring up a child: vibrant, hip and family friendly, miles away from the very proper environment she’d been raised in. And maybe she needed that—to start over in every way with her husband.
She gave the butcher her order for the dinner they had planned with Frankie and Harrison and sat on a stool by the window to wait. Something had happened the night she and Coburn had come together in that raging storm that had electrified them both. She had finally penetrated the rock-hard exterior he’d adopted. Maybe not as completely as he had scaled her defenses, because her husband was now a complex enigma of a man she wasn’t sure she’d ever know entirely. But she did know when he expressed true emotion.
It had ruled him in the kitchen that morning on the island when he’d confided in her about the recall and taken her with a desperate need he couldn’t hide. Since then, he’d been letting her in. He was allowing her to support him through this crisis. It was clear he wanted, needed her on a level that was more than just sex. What that was, exactly, she wasn’t sure. It was the piece still tugging at her gut.
She turned her attention to the stream of passersby, tucked into jackets and sweaters to ward off the chill. She couldn’t deny it was strange to be running domestic errands instead of battling her way through a list of cases in the OR. She missed it. She missed it as if a piece of her identity had been stripped away. But she also knew this break had been good for her. She’d needed to take a step back and think about what she really wanted. Rescuing James on that cliff that night had confirmed everything about why she’d become a doctor. She needed to get back to that feeling, to that soul-deep confirmation that what she did mattered.
But right now her husband needed her. Her marriage had to come first for the next few months until her husband weathered this crisis.
Coburn’s words on the way home from the Kents that night had stayed with her. She couldn’t spend her life allowing what-ifs to rule. She’d spent her entire marriage doing that. Wondering every time she and Coburn had an argument if he was going to leave. Petrified he would. She’d crippled them before they’d even gotten started. And it hadn’t just been her marriage. She’d spent her life afraid to put herself out there. Afraid to say what she really wanted. Burying her identity in a job she couldn’t let go of because to do that meant she had to figure out who she really was.
She was figuring that out now. This opportunity she had with Coburn to make things right, to grab the happiness she knew they could have, was about building a new foundation for her life based on what she wanted for the future. On who she wanted to be. She needed to let her heart rule, not the insecurities that had driven her her entire life.
She watched a woman walk by with her toddler son wobbling beside her in a chunky knit sweater and pants, his hand tucked in hers. A throb pulsed low in her abdomen. She wasn’t messing her marriage up this time. This time she was going to be the one to offer her all. And if the thought of making herself that vulnerable made her want to throw up, so be it.
“Diana—I thought that was you.”
She looked up to find Frank Moritz, her mentor and the surgeon whose pediatric fellowship she’d refused to beg for, making his way through the door of the shop. She’d been so far in her head, she hadn’t even noticed him walk by.
He was as tall and dominating as ever, and there was a distinct European twist to his mouth as he bent to give her a kiss on both cheeks.
“I thought you were in Africa working. Or have I screwed up the timing?”
“No—” She hesitated. “My plans changed. I’m back in New York.”
He fixed her with one of his trademark aggressive studies. “Well, that’s an interesting development. I wanted you for the fellowship. Why didn’t you compete?”
She swallowed. Lifted her chin. No time like the present to start speaking her mind...
“I thought my work spoke for itself. I didn’t want to win a popularity contest with you, Frank. I wanted you to choose the surgeon who deserved it.”
He kept up that level stare, as if deciding whether or not to take the insult. Finally he inclined his head. “You were the best. I wasn’t happy with any of the applicants. It’s still open if you want it.”
