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Standing, she closed the gap between them and tipped her gaze to his. “I need to get away. I can’t be here. Everything is just a reminder.”
Logan nodded, expecting this. “How much do you need?” he asked, knowing she wanted money without needing to ask. It was what she always wanted.
“I think I’ll go to Europe for Christmas . . .”
“How much?”
“Two grand should do it.”
Two thousand dollars would sting. But it was a small price to pay to ease her suffering, to relieve his guilt. He couldn’t erase the past, but he could make amends, and if his checkbook was the only way he could do it, then so be it.
Logan slipped his wallet from his back pocket, removed a blank check and a pen from his coat. The black ink looped and swirled with his signature, and then he thrust it toward her. “Is that all?”
She bit her lip, staring down at the square of paper in her hands. “Is it real?”
Logan cast her a wary look. “What?”
“With the girl, Marti. Do you really care about her?”
He tensed. Even if he had an answer, it wouldn’t be the right one for her. “We’re dating,” he said, evasively, hoping she’d drop it.
“She doesn’t want a husband or a family. But I . . . I do.” Allison met his eye. “I could tear this check up, right now,” she said, her meaning hanging in the air between them. If you’d just be with m
e. “We could make up for all that was lost.”
Logan moved his hand to the empty ache in his chest. “We’ll never be anything again. You know that.”
“I made a mistake.”
“And so did I,” he snapped, then closed his eyes, instantly regretting it. Would she ever let him live it down?
It was a mistake—all of it. Proposing. Staying with her for so long. Trusting in his attending physician when he needed to trust his gut.
He blinked his eyes open again. Not a day went by where he didn’t wish he had made a different choice, called in another doctor for a second opinion about her pregnancy, insisted she see someone else. But he’d made his bed. Now he had to lie in it. He had chosen to listen to someone he thought knew better, while Allison knowingly made a choice to hurt him by cheating on him, then lying about the paternity of her child. For that, he could never forgive her.
He had moved on with his life—vowed to be a better doctor and to learn from his mistakes. He’d spent the last three years trying to make up for his past.
It was time she did the same.
His chest burned, a hollow ache around his heart. Her words didn’t come from love. It had taken him many months after she gave birth and he discovered her infidelity through the autopsy report to accept she had never loved him. Instead, she spoke from a place of pain, greed, and jealousy. She didn’t love him any more now than she had years ago when she cheated on him.
She stared at him, her forehead creased with tension, her posture rigid, hungry for a fight. But he refused to give her what she wanted. Fighting implied he cared.
He shoved his wallet back into his pocket, along with his guilt and forced a neutral expression. “Enjoy your trip,” he said as kindly as he could, then turned and made his way to the door.
“Glad to get rid of me, huh? Does it make it easier to forget you didn’t save her?” she called after him, and as he let himself out, he hated that she was right. Because his feet couldn’t move fast enough.
And he did feel relieved.
She’d be gone for the anniversary of her baby’s death. The reminder of how he failed to save his fiancés child would diminish with her absence. The guilt clamping around his heart would loosen its grip, and he could pretend like Hidden Heartbeat wasn’t at least in partial atonement for his mistakes.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MARTI
AFTER HER EVENING SPENT with Logan, Marti did what any sane twenty-something interested in learning more about a man would do. She stalked his social media.
Curled up on her bed with Fuzz at her feet, Marti clutched her cup of coffee and scrolled on her laptop.
