A few more days passed, and Daisy and I didn’t talk about that final conversation in my penthouse. We discussed Mr. Northridge and his recovery, new patients, basically work. She was either giving me my space…or she knew it was over.
It was the end of the workday, so everyone gathered their things and went home.
I stayed—because I always stayed.
All I had was work. My parents didn’t invite me over for dinner in the middle of the week—because they were dead. I didn’t have a sister to tease—because she was dead too. Because I didn’t pick them up from the airport like I should have. And then I couldn’t make my own family, and no woman wanted to be with a man who was sterile.
The door opened and Daisy emerged.
I knew the moment had arrived—because she didn’t have her bag or paperwork.
My heart tightened, a rush of chemicals dropping into my bloodstream, anxiety to put me on edge, adrenaline to heighten my focus. I took a few deep breaths, trying to dissipate them in my blood.
With her eyes on me, she approached my desk. “Are you ready to talk?”
I would never be ready. “Yeah.”
She took a seat, her ankles crossed, her hands in her lap, her eyes a little uneasy. She was normally fearless, normally so confident she was arrogant, but she was completely unsure of herself in this moment.
I lowered my gaze, organizing the words I’d share. “I dropped a lot on you, and I think us having our space to process it was necessary. I’m just going to say this.” I spoke with a calm voice, I adopted a calm expression, but inside, I was dying. I’d been dead inside since that conversation, the precipice of my downfall. I fell in love with a woman who believed in family above all else—and that was the one thing I couldn’t give her. “I want you to really think about this. You’re smart, so I know you can do that. Our relationship has only scratched the surface, so it would be much easier for us to go our separate ways now than wait years and see where it goes…when we both know it won’t have the ending that you want. Don’t say that you’re okay with my situation unless you’ve really given it some thought. Because when a woman goes through that phase of her life, trying to have a family, her reactions are biological. It’s intense. It’s instinct. You can act like it’s not a big deal now, but it will be a big deal for you at that time.”
“Atlas—”
“I want you to think about it. Please do that for me.”
She released a deep breath she’d been holding.
“Not just for you, but for me. Because I can’t go through that again. I can’t be with a woman who says she’s okay with it…and then changes her mind and leaves. It wasn’t just losing my wife that hurt. It was the pain of inadequacy, of feeling like less of a man because I can’t fulfill my biological purpose. It’s really…fucking shitty. I can’t articulate it better than that.”
Her eyes filled with that look I despised—pity.
“While I give it serious thought, can I still be with you?”
My heart clenched.
“Because I miss you.”
Fuck, I missed her too. Missed her more than she understood. “I don’t think that’s the best idea.”
She inhaled a breath, visibly pained.
“I have a lot of work to do, so…”
She remained seated, her hands together, looking out of place in her own clinic. Hesitant and uncomfortable, she was out of her element. Her fingers started to fidget, pulling at a loose thread on her hem. But then she gave a nod—and walked out of my office.
I filled in the charts at the desk at the hospital, ordering more scans for the patients who had improved airways. I was working nights at the hospital and research during the day, along with the clinic. All I did when I wasn’t at work was work out and sleep.
It didn’t bother me before.
Now it did—because I was about to lose the one thing that gave me meaning.
“Atlas?”
I turned to see Dr. Hamilton standing there in his blue scrubs, his stethoscope around his neck. His intelligent eyes looked me up and down, seeing something that someone else wouldn’t have noticed. “Have you been here all night?”
“What time is it?” I looked at the corner of the computer screen. It was seven in the morning. When I looked around, I noticed the shift change, nurses coming onto the floor to relieve the ones who had been there all night. “Yeah, I guess so.”
He took a seat in the chair beside me then turned to regard me head on. “What’s going on?”
“Mrs. Montana was taken off oxygen—”
“With you.” Those dark eyes drilled into mine, the same way Daisy’s did, with that powerful intelligence. It was like a telescope, able to see galaxies and distant suns, when everyone else could only see a bright spot in the sky.
“Oh…I’ve just got a lot going on right now.”
“If you’re so busy, then why are you spending all night at the hospital?”
“Honestly, time just flew by—”
“Atlas.”
I suddenly felt scolded by my father, when I hadn’t been scolded by him in a very long time. I felt like Derek or Dex, their father putting them on the spot because it was his job to do so. He asked the hard questions, made me uncomfortable, because it was his job. It was like being with a ghost—the ghost of my father. It was like…he was still here.
“Son, talk to me.” His hand moved to my shoulder.
Just the way my dad used to.
He gave me a tight squeeze with his fingers, that penetrating gaze with his eyes.
There was nowhere to run.
“You can tell me anything.”
“Sir…I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. And stop with the sir shit. I’m not your boss.”
“Then what are you?” He was the owner of the company, the person who hired me, the person who hired everyone who stepped foot on his property. He was the person who paid me, who assigned projects.
His hand left my shoulder as he regarded me. “I’m not religious, but…I like to think I’m your godfather. I’m here to look after you.”
The emotion pumped in my heart, made me weak, and that made me want to push it away. “I’m a grown man…I don’t need someone to look after me.”
His expression didn’t change, like he didn’t believe me. “I wish my father were still here to look after me. I wish he’d been there when I married my wife. I wish he’d been there to help me with Derek. I wish he’d been there for advice for all the stages of life that he’d already experienced. My kids are all grown, and they still come to us for almost everything.”
I looked away, nurses passing by and checking on patients in their rooms, techs taking patients to radiology, announcements on the intercom. The world passed by, completely oblivious to our conversation.
“Now talk to me, Atlas.”
“I just… It’s Daisy.” I released a sigh. “I feel weird talking about it with you because…you know.”
He gave a slight nod, his eyes dropping down. “Do you love her?”
Put on the spot, I stared into the dark eyes that stared into mine. “Yes.”