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Then again, what had he expected? He should thank his lucky stars that she hadn’t made a scene.
The look she’d given him said she’d like to have smacked him. Or worse.
“I think you two got off on the wrong foot.” Meghan rejoined him after the photographer had snapped a few shots of her and her date winner. The brunette frowned after Emily. “I don’t understand how that’s even possible. Emily gets along with everyone. She’s the sweetest, kindest person I know.”
They hadn’t gotten off on the wrong foot, but they’d ended that way.
He closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath, catching the faintest whiff of Emily’s perfume still on the air. She’d always worn the light vanilla scent. He could never smell anything even close to the fragrance without being haunted by memories of the past.
Lately, most everything had his mind filling with Emily.
Ever since he’d been offered the position at Children’s, he’d been confronted with memory after memory. Probably because he’d known taking the job meant coming face-to-face with his biggest regret.
To head the department, oversee research in traumatic brain injury, play an active role in the decisions being made that would impact how things were done on the pediatric neurology unit—Children’s had offered him all that and more. The position was his dream come true.
He’d still hesitated.
Because of the woman walking away from him.
Just as she’d walked away five years ago.
Not that he hadn’t deserved her leaving. He had. He just hadn’t thought she’d walk away from their marriage, no matter how bad things got.
He’d been wrong.
But Emily had been right to leave. She’d been so unhappy, crying more often than not. Marriage to him had rapidly done that to her. He’d thought she was depressed, needing counseling, but when he’d suggested as much, she’d burst into tears. That night had been the night she’d packed her things.
His wife leaving him had hurt like hell, but he had gotten over it, had moved on and made a good life for himself.
But seeing Emily again had been tough. More so than he’d been prepared for. He wasn’t sure
quite what he’d expected of her, but the cold shoulder he got every time he walked onto the unit just had to go.
No, he didn’t expect her to do cartwheels that he’d joined the hospital where she worked, but he was a good pediatric neurosurgeon and was now medical director of her unit. What had happened between them was a long time ago, water under the bridge, they’d both moved on. He was happy. She was happy. There was no need for awkwardness between them.
That was why he’d bid on her date.
Mostly.
As Emily’s bid had proceeded, he’d grown more and more annoyed with the man she’d arrived with.
The man she’d been comparing him unfavorably to.
The man who’d acted as if bidding on Emily was an inconvenience.
Emily was too good for the guy.
He supposed it could be argued that she’d been too good for Lucas, too. She probably had been.
Besides, the guy must make her happy, since she’d defended him to her friend. Something Lucas had failed miserably at.
Regardless, the man’s reticence to bid had irked. As he’d watched her on stage, the insecurities that only someone who knew her as well as he had would recognize flittering across her lovely face had brought out something protective.
So much so that he’d placed a bid. Then another, then, when her foolish date had hem-hawed on his last bid, Lucas had more than doubled the amount.
Probably not his brightest move.
But the guy needed to be hit over the head with the news that a date with Emily was worth every penny.
