Page 78 of Sinfully Shameless Chef

He’s still here.

It could have been minutes or hours ago that I fell back asleep, and yet, he stayed by my side. It makes the truth of the answer to Thaddeus’ question hurt too much to voice. “I’ve been better.”

Thaddeus taps at something on the tablet. “I would imagine so.” He glances over at Jameson, then back to me. “I was surprised to hear about your engagement, considering you didn’t mention anything at your last appointment.”

Shit.

I forgot Jameson used that to get in here and Thaddeus would find out.

Jameson pushes to his feet and clears his throat. “Yeah, sorry about that. I just didn’t want to get kicked out.”

Thaddeus gives him an annoyed look, then shifts his questioning gaze to me. I know what it means. He wants to know whether to continue with Jameson in the room.

I’m not ready for him to hear all the gory details. I may never be. “Jameson, why don’t you go home for the night. It’s late.”

He looks like he’s about to argue with me, but the withering glare Thaddeus gives him makes him shrink back slightly.

“Um, okay. I’ll come back tomorrow.” Jameson locks his gaze on me and waits, but when I don’t have anything else to offer, he turns and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

Watching him walk away makes tears burn in my eyes again, but it’s something I’m going to have to get used to. The very reason I didn’t want to get involved with anyone in the first place.

Thaddeus waits until the door clicks shut before turning back to me. “He doesn’t know anything, does he?”

I sigh and drop my head back to stare at the white ceiling tiles. “Very little. The basics.”

Thaddeus wanders over and takes the seat Jameson just vacated. A little informal for a doctor, but given our lengthy history, if he acted any other way, it would just be weird. “It’s bad, Izzy. You let it get bad.”

“I didn’t know. I—”

He frowns at me and raises his tablet for me to see. "Your heart rhythm was very abnormal when you arrived, which, coupled with the fact that you have an infection of the peritoneum, is most likely why you passed out. We gave you medications to treat it and your potassium levels temporarily, plus antibiotics for the infection, but the only long-term solution is beginning hemodialysis tonight. The peritoneal dialysis you’ve been doing at home stopped working. My guess is several days or even a week ago.”

The angry edge to his voice has me cringing and the tears spilling over. “I’m sorry.”

He pulls off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “Don’t apologize to me, Iz, unless you did this intentionally because you’ve suddenly developed some death wish? Do I need to worry about depression?”

“God, no.” It hadn’t even crossed my mind that he might suspect that. “Not intentionally, but there’s a chance I may have done some things that contributed.”

“Like trying to open a restaurant by yourself and pushing yourself too hard?”

Exactly what he—and Ashley—warned me about over and over again before I even undertook this venture.

They begged me to wait until after I got a transplant. Until I was stronger and didn’t have so many other things to be concerned about. But I wasn’t having any of that. Grams’ death and my promise to her before it meant I had to move ahead and not wait for my life to pass me by.

“Yeah, like that. And there may have been a few missed sessions. I may have missed meds once or twice.”

Thaddeus releases a heavy sigh that bears the weight of the history between us. “You know what this means, Iz. We’ve already moved you over to hemodialysis, and you’ll be coming in three times a week at least for treatment until we can get you a transplant match. In the meantime, you’ll likely be weak and unable to perform some of your daily functions as normal.”

I do know what it means, but I have to ask anyway. “There’s no way I can go back to work, is there?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it, and frankly, I think it would be stupid to even try. You need to concentrate on staying as healthy as possible until we can get you a kidney.”

He would never say that to another patient that way, but we’ve always spoken frankly with each other. It’s one of the reasons Mom loved him as a doctor and why I do, too.

I nod slowly and wipe at the tears on my cheeks. “That’s what I thought.”

His hand lands on my leg, and he squeezes gently. “I’m sorry, kiddo. Really, I am.” He pushes to his feet. “We’re going to keep you here a couple days, maybe a week, until we can get some good baseline levels before we send you home. You’ll need surgery to put the permanent fistula in your arm in a few weeks. Until then, we’ll use the temporary catheter we placed in your chest, and we’ll get the abdominal one removed since you don’t need it anymore.”

“Okay.”

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