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“We can do it,” Red agreed with her usual enthusiasm.
“How?” Tessa asked. “Dean must hate me.” He hated her so much he hadn’t even called to yell at her.
“He forgave me,” Susan said.
“You’re his mother. I’m…nothing.” She nearly choked on the word and the truth behind it. How could being nothinghurt so badly?
“Tessa.”
She spun at the sound of her name. Irrationally hoping the male voice somehow, impossibly, belonged to Dean. That he’d flown back to work things out between them.
Instead Liam stood in the doorway.
“I was hoping to catch you here.” Liam’s dark expression told her he knew too.
She drew in a breath. “It’s okay. You can say Itold you so. You were right. I should have told Dean the truth. About everything.”
Liam shook his head. “I’m not here to gloat. Are you okay?”
“No,” she answered, being completely honest. In fact, she was going to be totally and brutally honest about everything from now on. That couldn’t result in things being any worse than they were now.
“Give him some time to cool off,” Liam suggested.
“That’s what I said,” Red chimed in.
“Thank you. All of you. But it’s no use.” She drew in a breath, feeling strong and proud that she hadn’t broken down and cried in front of them all.
Maybe she was just out of tears after all the crying she’d done last night. Possibly she was in shock and it would hit her later. Either way, she needed everyone to move on from the subject. “Can we all get back to work now?”
All of them, the four horsemen there to witness the apocalypse of her now dead love life, nodded.
“Good. Thanks. I’ll be at the lab later,” she told Liam then turned to Ruby. “I’ll go restock the supplies.”
With one final glance at the group, which had yet to disperse, she moved past them and to the back where she hoped to hide and not have to speak to anyone for the rest of her shift.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Two weeks.
Two of the most miserable weeks Tessa had ever lived through. But she’d survived.
Things had to get better soon, right? She’d now been shunned by Dean for longer than she’d actually known him. The pain had to fade eventually.
What exactly was the half-life of heartbreak? Double the time they were together? Triple? Their love affair had been so fast either multiplier wouldn’t be too long. But somehow she doubted this pain would ever go away completely. It would remain there, faint but ever present. Like a scar.
“I have a speaking engagement coming up.” Liam’s words had her lifting her head from where she’d been transcribing his handwritten notes into the computer.
“Okay,” she said then went back to trying to decipher his scribbles. When Liam was engrossed in work his handwriting proved the stereotype that all doctors had terrible handwriting.
He continued, “In Virginia. And I’ve lined up a couple of meetings while I’m there as well. So I’ll be away for three days. Friday through Sunday.”
“All right. Did you want me to keep working while you’re away or take those days off?” she asked.
“I was wondering if you wanted to come with me. I’d pay for the flight and your hotel room, of course.”
“Really?” she asked, her pulse racing at the opportunity.
He lifted two dark brows. “Yes, really. If Ruby can spare you, that is.”
