Page 53 of The Doctor's Simple Life

I take a deep breath and turn back to Mikey with a smile. If Sienna doesn’t want to talk, then fine. She can sit and be moody in the corner.

The conversation turns back to things we’re going to do in Miami and what the gang at home has been doing. Mikey says that nobody will play tennis with him anymore because they’re all afraid that he’ll send them out to a backwater town like he did to me.

“Between you and me,” he says, leaning in conspiratorially, “I wish I had sent one of the others. You’re one of the least annoying of them all.”

Sienna huffs in the corner, and we both ignore her. I don’t really feel like getting told that I’m the worst again, not by a woman who I thought had changed me to my core. Not by the woman I had been falling for.

Guess that all means nothing to her now.

“Well, I’ll be back before you know it. Maybe next time we can go doubles and exile Joe and Nathan while we’re at it.”

“See, that’s a great idea. This is why I need you back.” Mikey laughs at himself again, and I steal a look at Sienna.

She’s not looking at us. I guess she has no reason to. None of this is going how I thought it would. I had thought that she would hold her own against Mikey, to show him who’s boss instead of moping in a corner. I had wanted her to be awesome and brilliant so I could say to him,See? This is the kind of person I’ve met here.

But she’s sitting there frowning. And I don’t know what to do to make it better.

So, like the coward I am, I turn all my attention to Mikey and think about going home. My real home.

I just hate that going home means leaving the home I thought I had found here.

CHAPTER 26

SIENNA

Ishouldn’t have agreed to this at all.

It was a terrible idea from the moment it was suggested, and I should have refused more adamantly. I should have said no and meant it. Maybe I was just excited to see Reece and Mikey’s posturing, but whatever the reason was that made me agree, it was stupid.

The second we got to the bar, I should have left again. I should have said thank you and goodnight there and then, made a clean break from Reece and blocked him on my phone. Simple, easy. A tidy ending.

But I didn’t. And now I guess I feel some sort of stupid responsibility to stay, like I have to babysit him because they’re drinking. I don’t want to let them drive. I know it’s not far, but I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.

Doesn’t make me want to be here, though. And the more they laugh, the more they make fun of us, the more I want to run. Mikey is being so dismissive of patients, his own and ours, of people, of the town. Nothing is good enough for him, and if I never had to look at him again, it would be too soon. He’s not the kind of man I care to know.

But Reece… he’s laughing and mocking too, and it’s breaking my heart. This isn’t the man I was getting to know. This isn’t the man I was beginning to fall for. This isn’t a man who I would ever want to stay in Silverbell. To stay with me.

And for some stupid reason, I still don’t run. It’s like I’m waiting for Reece to change his mind, to pull the rug out from under Mikey’s feet and jump to our defense after all.

Every second that he doesn’t is like another knife in my back.

Eventually, Mikey gets bored or tired or both, and he says, “Well, I’ve got a long way back to my hotel because I booked a good one in a real town, and I don’t know how long it’ll take to get a cab out here.”

“Not long,” I mutter. Despite what he thinks, we are quite a modern town. We have all of the facilities of anywhere else, and even if we didn’t, it wouldn’t make us any worse for it.

“I’ll leave you two to say your goodbyes, then.” As he stands, he winks the least subtle wink that has ever been winked at Reece, then throws a look of what I would describe as disgust at me.

How the hell is Reece friends with this guy?

Reece doesn’t seem to care about his behavior though, because he waves him off with a grin.

Then he turns back to me and looks at me like he sees me for the first time all night. A look that quickly turns into a concerned frown as if he’s trying to ask me what’s wrong.

And that is exactly the wrong look to give me because, at the moment, I’m a tightly wound coil of misery and revelations that has just been waiting to snap.

“I never meant anything to you, did I?” I say.

He blinks at me, cocking his head slightly like he thinks he misheard. “What?”

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