Page 25 of You Loved Me Once
Damn it. Pull it together, Serenity. You have to do this. You don’t have a choice, because you know this will ruin everything you’ve built. It’s a conflict that will keep you weak and unable to give her the care she needs.
I’m weak when it comes to him, though.
I always have been.
I always will be.
There is a line and I can’t cross it. I made the choice years ago to let him go, and I have to do it again.
Pushing myself off the wall with the determination to get this over with, I gather all my strength to say the words. When I turn the corner, I come face to face with Bryce, and all my plans disappear.
I gasp with my hand over my pounding heart. The years and distance have done nothing to stop the ache that seeing him causes. Having him here right now has brought that to the forefront. Looking into his blue eyes stirs things inside me I never thought I’d feel again.
My life has been steady since I left Duke University. I had to make a choice that day, and I chose to come home to my mother and attend med school close to home. When I did that, it was the end of my love story with Bryce.
Sure, we tried for a few months, but absence didn’t make our hearts grow fonder. I closed the book on us and when I needed him most, he wasn’t around.
Now here we stand, with the pages flipped back, and I’m reliving it all over again.
“Bryce,” I breathe his name and try to get control of my pulse.
“Chick,” his deep voice practically croons my name.
That name. No one has called me Chick since him. No one even knows about the stupid name. Hearing his voice caress over the nickname, my chest is tight and I want to scream.
Instead, I go to what matters...getting answers. “What are you doing here?”
“Allison...” he pauses.
“I don’t mean the hospital, I mean standing here, now,” I clarify. “I figured you’d be with your wife.”
I’m trembling inside, but using every ounce of control to keep my outward appearance together. How can I look at this man after fourteen years and still want to cry? How can he bring me to my knees with a single look? It shouldn’t be this way. I’m a goddamn doctor who has faced incredible odds with grace and poise, but Bryce Peyton is the lynchpin that could destroy everything.
He rubs the back of his neck. “I came looking for you.”
“Why?”
He rubs the back of his head and looks away. “Why do you think, Serenity? It’s been damn near fifteen years, and now I see you again out of nowhere? I thought maybe we should talk before all of this goes sideways.”
No, I’ve been here since the day I left, it’s him who showed up out of nowhere. Which makes no sense. Why would he ever think this was a good idea?
“Sideways, you mean like lying that we don’t know each other?”
Bryce looks up and releases a heavy sigh. “I didn’t know what to say.”
I huff. “So your first instinct was to lie?”
“It’s not like I thought I would ever seeyouas her doctor. So, yeah, I lied.”
Well, that’s a great way to function in a marriage. Not that what Allison is doing is any better. Still, it doesn’t even make sense, this web of lies. Why not just tell her and then we could all make sense of it? She’d never want me to treat her and I wouldn’t have to.
“How could you not know it would be me as her doctor? You’re at my hospital, in my trial, you had to put two and two together. I don’t know any other Serenity Adams, do you?”
He rocks on his heels. “I never knew the doctor’s name when she mentioned this trial. Allison has seen countless doctors and tells me about every trial under the sun. There are so many details involved in these things, and the doctors’ names usually aren’t pertinent. I learned to let her lead with this and don’t ask questions. When she told me she was accepted into this one, I came with her without hesitation.”
I close my eyes while shaking my head. “How doesshenot know? I don’t understand any of this.”
He waits and I finally bring myself to look at him again. “She doesn’t know you ever existed.”
