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Cindy’s brow rose, and she shook her head. “Oh, yeah, comments like that one from my way-too-serious, too logical, always-overthinks-things friend doesn’t raise questions in my mind. Not at all.”
Was that how her friend saw her? Fine. She’d earned the right to be logical and serious. Brielle winced. She had to get her act together. To quit being so jumpy where Ross was concerned. Three months. Less than three months now. She could keep her cool for that long. Then he’d be gone and hopefully never come near her again.
That gave her pause.
Never see Ross again?
Not that she’d thought she ever would. Not after he’d told her he didn’t want anything to do with her ever again, that she was holding him back, and he planned to get on with his life. Without her.
And he had. All too quickly he’d moved on.
Yet, here he was, back in her life, creating emotional havoc.
Just as Cindy was, waiting for an explanation. Any moment her friend would start with the hands-on-hips foot-tapping.
“Look,” Brielle said slowly, hoping to put off the interrogation, “the man annoys me and isn’t someone I’d be interested in. Let’s just leave it at that. Please.”
Cindy considered her a moment, then shrugged. “Okay, for now, but only because your annoyance factor is about to skyrocket anyway.”
Brielle took a deep breath, turned slightly to see Ross headed their way. Great. Her annoyance factor shot into orbit.
“Hey, Brielle, can I talk to you a moment?”
One one thousand. Two one thousand. Three one thousand. If she counted to infinity it wouldn’t calm her Ross-ified nerves.
She could do this. She could be calm, professional. He meant nothing to her. Nothing but a pesky fly she’d like to swat away.
Swat.
“Obviously, you can.”
Perhaps she shouldn’t be so snappy with a physician who was her superior, but she couldn’t help herself. Not so close on the heels of Cindy’s question about Justice.
Her son’s eyes were the exact shade of blue of Ross’s. He had the same strong chin and facial structure. Made expressions that were so similar to Ross’s that at times Brielle’s breath caught and memories pierced her heart.
Justice looked a great deal as Ross must have looked at a similar age. Except that her son had arrived into the world two months early and was small for his age. She couldn’t imagine six-foot-two-inch Ross ever having been anything but big.
“I’m going to go clean Bay One,” Cindy told no one in particular as she fanned her hand over her chest one last time and grinned at Brielle while mouthing, “Hot.”
When they were alone at the nurses’ station, Ross sighed. “Is this how it’s going to be the entire time I’m here?”
“This?” She pretended to have no clue what he referred to.
“You hating me.”
“I don’t hate you.” She didn’t, did she? She just wanted him to go away without disrupting her life further, without disrupting Justice’s life. No way would she let Ross hurt their son the way he’d hurt her.
“Good to know.”
“Don’t let the knowledge go to your head,” she advised, not wanting to encourage him in any way as keeping an emotional distance was difficult enough already. “I may not hate you, but I don’t like you.”
Not looking one bit nonplussed, he grinned. “Let me take you to dinner tonight so we can work on that. Once upon a time there were a lot of things you liked about me. Let me remind you.”
An invisible hand jerked at Brielle’s throat, choking the breath from her. No sound would come out so she shook her head.
“Why not?”
Did he really not know?
