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We lulled into a surprisingly comfortable silence as she continued to poke and prod at me like a pincushion. She took a few samples of my blood, performed a chest exam, and then asked me to lie on my back.
Over my dead body.
“I’m drawing the line at a pelvic exam,” I sneered, pushing her hand away when she tried to coax me onto my back.
“It’s just standard procedure.”
Un-fucking-believable.
“So is me breaking your fingers if you try to get anywhere close to down there,” I threatened. The doctor huffed.
“I’m not your enemy, Bailey,” she huffed. “I’m just trying to do my job.”
“Always wanted to be a mob doctor, huh?” I rolled my eyes. “High aspirations you had.”
“Actually, yes,” she admitted candidly. “I grew up wanting to do exactly this. My entire family has served the Kavanaughs since the clan’s inception in Ireland over a hundred years ago.”
“Good for you,” I muttered. “Still not going to get you in my knickers. My last gyno appointment was three weeks ago, and I haven’t had sex since then. You’re the one with all my medical files. Take that and shove it up your—”
“Are we having a problem here, Dani?” A feminine voice spoke up from the bedroom doorway. The doctor, whose name I now knew as Dani, turned toward the woman and shook her head.
“Not at all, Nan.” She smiled at the woman. “We were just finishing up.”
Damn right we were.
“Good.” The woman in the doorway eyed me shrewdly. Her cold hazel eyes assessed me as she stepped into the room, a pile of clothes in her hand. Placing the clothes on the bed next to me, she drew herself up, hands on her hips. At full height, she looked to stand about five foot eight. Several inches above my measly five-foot-four frame. She was slender and willowy, with long legs encased in flowing black slacks and a paisley blouse. Her graying brown hair was tucked into a messy bun at the top of her head, accentuating her long neck.
The woman could give my stepmother a run for her money in the intimidation factor. Eyeing me one last time, she turned back toward Dani, and the two started their own lax conversation that I didn’t even bother to try to eavesdrop on. I didn’t care what the two women had to discuss. What I cared about was figuring out how to get the hell out of here.
I wondered if my father was searching for me at all.
Or even Drew.
Would they have discovered my car in the parking lot? I hadn’t answered a single one of my stepmother’s texts. She’d sent the guards after me one time for not answering one of her phone calls while I was in a lecture at college.
It had been embarrassing to have them storm into the room during the middle of a lecture and tow me out like an errant child or a criminal of some kind. Some of my classmates had filmed it, and within hours it had spread across campus. Sarah had never done that to my sister.
Dalia, of course, could do no wrong. While my father had kept me in the background of our family my entire life, Dalia had been at the forefront. While I’d worked my ass off in college, she’d walked Parisian runways and posted her vacations on Instagram. Her future had been handed to her on a silver platter, and mine was made with sweat and tears.
A lot of tears.
On the surface, it appeared as if I was one of their shining jewels. They talked me up like I was Queen of the Nile. Once the lights faded, so did the affection, and I was no longer the miracle adoption child but the dirty product of an affair.
It wasn’t that I didn’t also live in the lap of luxury. Growing up, I wanted for nothing except the one thing I wished for most. Affection. I was given clothes, food, a roof over my head. My father never raised his own hand to me, and I was allowed to pursue my interests.
But I was rarely taken on family vacations unless it was somehow political. There were no hugs or kisses unless it was staged for the cameras. I grew up with what most in the world would kill for. Luxury. But with that came something that no one should have to experience.
Loneliness.
I wondered if that was why I clung to the idea of marrying Drew so much. At sixteen, most girls would have been mortified by the idea of having to one day marry the boy their family picked for them, but I saw it as a way out of the cold pit of isolation I was surrounded by. My clothes were handpicked by a designer. The food I ate, the classes I took before I stood my ground and applied for journalism school, the friends I was allowed to keep, the events I went to—they were all chosen for me.
Lina had been my first real friend. One that hadn’t been hand chosen by my stepmother to spy on me. She never sucked up to me because of who my father was. Lina never knew.
“Into the bathroom with you, love.”
“What?” I shook the thoughts from my head, trying to clear the cobwebs I’d gotten lost in. No use reminiscing about what couldn’t be changed. The past was the past, and all that mattered was going forward.
“Shower, dear.” Her tone wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t brusque either. It was more along the lines of pure indifference. That in itself was impressive since I doubted she came across many situations like this one.
