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CHAPTER ONE
Drake
I met the love of my life on a night when meeting a new woman and starting a relationship was the last thing on my mind.
That night, if you had asked me if I was going to get married again, I would have scoffed and said something like, “Tried it. Not for me,” or something along those lines. I truly felt that I was not the marrying type, too wrapped up in my career to need a life partner or companion to live with me and share my life.
Lara, my best female friend and partner in crime in the BDSM world, had pestered me for several years to find someone to spend my life with, but I’d resisted. Back then I’d rationalized it, saying that marriage and domesticity weren’t my thing.
Then I met Kate.
The night I met Kate, my focus was on shaking Ethan McDermott’s hand, handing him a generous check as my donation to his fundraising event, and getting through the evening so I could go home, hit the sack and get much-needed shuteye. I’d been working hard since the start of the Fall semester with classes and evening call, and was mentally and physically exhausted. On top of a specialized surgical slate as a neurosurgeon, I had my cover band Mersey, I had my father’s robotic implements business to oversee, and I had the charitable foundation I started in his memory to head. Although I was almost a figurehead for the corporation and foundation, I still had responsibilities.
On the romance front, I’d just split with a long-time submissive and the breakup wasn’t as amicable as I would have liked. I wanted a new submissive, but I wasn’t obsessed with it. At that point in my life, I was hyper-focused on my career and establishing myself as a neurosurgeon specializing in robotics.
Managing my very busy life meant I had little time for romance, so I gave it up in favor of a straight no-emotional ties session of bondage and dominance three times a week with a submissive who knew to expect nothing in return but orgasms with some kink.
Now, here I was, eight months later, eager to marry and start a new home and family with the woman who became part of my life completely unexpectedly. Katherine Marie McDermott had become the biggest part of my life, filling a huge hole I didn’t realize existed and which I had swept under some emotional rug so I wouldn’t have to stop my busy life and consider what was wrong.
I sat in my office at the Aga Khan hospital and smiled as I closed the patient file I’d been reading unsuccessfully. I knew that when I read the same paragraph over three times that I was done for the day. It was close to 7:30 PM and I’d been at the hospital for more than twelve hours.
That was enough for one day.
Kate awaited.
I almost made it out the hospital exit to the parking lot when who should round the corner ahead of me but Sam.
Samantha Cuttington.
She was a medical student with whom I’d had a brief affair two years earlier. She had been a medical student doing a surgical rotation in her final year when I was a visiting scholar teaching neurosurgery. Sam had recently returned to Nairobi to take my class and do a clerkship in neurosurgery so she could get experience in the field before she decided on her specialization. Given how close she was to Michael Owiti, I suspected she’d ultimately go on to be a neurosurgeon, and perhaps in pediatrics. It meant that we worked together on cases and of course, I taught the robotic surgery class she was taking.
She hoped to rekindle our previous relationship but she failed to win me back. She didn’t seem to want to take no for an answer even when my fiancée accompanied me to Africa during my stay.
I frowned when I saw her but then caught myself. There was nothing she could do now to hurt my relationship with Kate, so I tried to approach her with patience and humor when straight avoidance didn’t work.
“Hello, Sam,” I said as I passed her. Of course, she reached out and grabbed my arm.
“Just the man I wanted to see.”
I pulled my arm out of her grip and waved her off as I rushed past. “Sorry, can’t stop and chat. Gotta run,” I said. “Dinner’s waiting.”
“Wait,” she said, stopping in the hallway and turning to me as I reached the exit. I stood there, my hand on the door, ready to push it open, and considered whether to keep going or to turn to face her.
The urgency in her voice made me stop. I turned and looked at her, trying to hold in my impatience. “What is it?”
“I was just going to ask about a pediatric patient in the ER…” she said. “I know you want to specialize in pediatric neurosurgery so…”
“Isn’t Michael still here?” I said, frustrated that I couldn’t prevent Sam from being part of my day. I didn’t want to give Kate any reason to be jealous or uncertain about our bond. To me, it was unbreakable, but to Kate, it might not seem that way. Not yet.
“He had to scrub in on another case,” Sam replied.
I sighed and let go of the door. “What have you got?”
She came to where I stood and smiled, running her hand down her hair. “A seven-year-old boy. Fell off a climbing structure at school. I could use your expertise.”
I’d been working with Michael Owiti, Chief of Neurosurgery at the Aga Khan hospital in Nairobi, and had assisted him on several pediatric cases. I planned to specialize in pediatric neurosurgery with a fellowship at NYU in Manhattan when I returned to the US in August and so was always interested in getting more experience in the field. But I also had a beautiful and seductive fiancée at home waiting for me.
Kate would be disappointed if I was late yet again.
“There’s no one else?”
She shook her head. “You’re Michael’s backup.”
I nodded. “Okay. Let me send a text and I’ll meet you down in the ER.”
She went back the way she came while I stood in the hallway and sent Kate a text.
Sorry to do this yet again but I have to consult on a pediatric case in the ER. Will be home as fast as I can so I can see you for at least a few hours before bed.
I waited for a few seconds but there was no answer so I slipped my cell in my pocket and went back to my office. I slipped on my lab coat and made my way to the ER. A pediatric head trauma was right up my alley. Still, as much as I enjoyed working on such cases, I enjoyed my soon-to-be wife even more.
There was nothing to do about it but get there and see what was waiting for me.
Forty-five minutes later, I left the ER after consulting on the case. It was pretty straight-forward and in truth, I didn’t think Sam really needed my advice. I checked over the patient’s chart, examined him in the ER room, looked at the CT results, and ran Sam through her paces. As I expected, she had everything figured out so she probably wanted me to come down and check on the case just because I was there and Michael was busy.
In other words, just to spend more time with me. Or to impress me with how well she had already done assessing the ca
se.
Whatever the reason, I was annoyed with Sam for needlessly delaying me but I was not going to spend any time thinking about it. Instead, I left the ER, dropped my lab coat off at my office and was back out the door in less than an hour.
I took out my cell and checked, but there was still no answer from Kate.
Where was she? Perhaps out by the pool, reading. Maybe stopped at a shop to pick up something for dinner.
Maybe she was still at the studio working late on a project?
I got in my car and drove home, eager to find out why she hadn’t answered my text. Luckily, traffic on the Mombasso Road at that hour was light and I made it home before nine o’clock. Later than I hoped, but earlier than midnight, which I’d pulled quite a few times in the last month.
I parked the car and entered the cool dim interior of our house, surprised to see that there were no lights on. Everywhere there were half-filled packing boxes. We were leaving in a few weeks and were starting to pack up our life. A pang of nostalgia filled me that we’d be leaving the house where we’d been so happy, but it was time.
I dropped my keys off on the table in the entry and took in a deep breath to see what was cooking but didn’t notice any aroma coming from the kitchen. I stopped in and grabbed a glass of ice and poured a shot of vodka for myself, then took the glass and looked out the sliding doors to the patio and pool, but Kate was nowhere in sight. I went back to the living room and then saw a light in the back of the house, so I checked out Kate’s studio.
There she was, still dressed in her little white nightgown, standing in front of a large canvas, her paintbrush in hand.
