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“Yeah, I heard he stalked her to the parking garage a few weeks back.”
“I heard he trolls her in the elevators.”
As the nurses and techs continue to go back and forth, I go from a barely there smirk to a deep frown. Zane. I can’t blame him for trying to win her back, but that doesn’t mean I don’t also want to kill him. Katy hasn’t mentioned him to me in a while and hasn’t said a thing about any of this. Though, now that I think back, Cayden mentioned something about pretending to be her boyfriend in the elevator with her ex. I was too worked up from seeing him to give it any thought.
Between my relentless ex and Katy’s, we make quite the pair.
I told Zane if he didn’t leave her alone, I’d ruin him, but that’s the problem. He’s not doing it on my floor, and I have no real jurisdiction over him. I can’t fight him off as her man. This constant feeling of being stuck in between is stifling.
Katy is mine. She’s always been mine.
And my heart irrevocably belongs to her.
The woman who brought sunshine back into my dreary life and made me long for everything I’ve been reading to my mother in her romance books.
I want us to be something real—something lasting and permanent and for more than just the baby we’re trying to make—except she’s nowhere close to wanting that with me. So that’s where my pretending comes back into place. Because I don’t think I can do it again. Not with her. I can’t offer my heart up to her on a shiny silver platter and have her smash it into oblivion.
I will love the baby we make, and I’ll love it more because I’m in love with its mother, but I have to learn to accept that that’s where my love needs to end.
After an eternity in the OR, we finally manage to save this patient’s life and tell his family that he needs to not only stop drinking but that he needs a new liver. They don’t even try to play it shocked or cool. My guess is they’ve heard this before and know exactly how bad his alcohol addiction is.
The second I’m done with them, I race my ass down to the ER, through the back web, and after checking the board, straight to Katy’s room. The door is closed, and I hesitate for only a second before I slide it open and freeze, my heart in my throat. Katy’s small body is on the gurney, wearing only a hospital gown and a thin blanket, with an IV coming straight from her arm up to a bag of saline with glucose. She’s pale and her hair is a matted mess, but she’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
I stand here for no longer than a second or two before my gaze flickers up to the monitor, where I do a quick assessment of her vitals, and then over to the tall man sitting in the chair beside her bed. I haven’t met Callan Barrows yet, but I know it’s him without requiring introductions. They have the same eyes, and I wonder if her father had them as well.
Entering the room, I shut the glass door and close the curtain behind me to give us privacy.
“Hi,” I say, extending my hand. “I’m?—”
“Bennett Lawson,” he answers for me, half-standing and shaking my hand before he retakes his seat. “Yeah, I know who you are. You’re the man getting my Katy pregnant.”
That pulls me up short, and I practically fall into a chair on the other side of her bed.
“Um, yes, sir, I am. But that’s not?—”
He holds up his hand and stops me with a chuckle. “Relax, Bennett. Call me Callan. I’m too old to kick your ass, and if her cousins haven’t done it already, then there’s no need for me to. Owen, Vander, and Mason are terrorizers when it comes to her. They’ve scared off nearly every boyfriend she’s had and then honestly nearly killed Zane when he didn’t heed their very direct threats about not hurting her.”
“I can’t blame them for that. I’d love to kill him myself.”
He nods and stares thoughtfully at me. “I figured as much. Katy told me about your situation. You’re taking quite the risk with her.”
I wipe at my lips. “She’s taking quite the risk with me too.” Which is probably why I trust her as much as I trust anyone right now. Yet another realization that leaves me winded. Katy is everything lovely and selfless in this world. So different from everything I’ve known in the past. I don’t think Katy has it in her to intentionally hurt or betray anyone, and fuck if that doesn’t make me love her even more.
“Katy has always done things her way and made no apologies or excuses for it. The fact that you’re still here is reassuring for me, and the wrecked and terrified expression on your face when you came in and saw Katy like this makes me think she’s more to you than just a ride to a baby. Am I wrong in that assessment?”
I lean forward, my elbows digging into my thighs. I glance over at Katy, who’s still asleep, and then back at him, staring him straight in the eyes, man to man. I won’t lie to him. It’s not who I am. “No. You’re not. She is a lot more than that to me.”
He tosses his ankle up to his opposite knee and leans back, throwing his hands behind his head and butterflying his elbows out.
“I’m assuming based on the way you said that, she doesn’t know that’s how you feel?”
I shake my head.
A wry grin hits his lips, and he sets his forearms down on the arms of the chair. “So then tell me, Bennett, what’s your plan?”
My eyebrows bounce. “My plan?”
He pans a hand in my direction. “I’ve been where you are before. I loved the hell out of a woman who didn’t want any of that with me. She too had been hurt by an asshole who didn’t deserve her. It sucks, so I get it.”
