“Don’t make me say it. Especially not now.”
“I know it hurts,” she replied, putting a hand on my leg. “But you need to get it all out.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I was actually, really starting to think there might’ve been a future between us. Something serious. Maybe even…”
Gia put her arm around me. Tears began to form in my eyes.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I mean, it’s most definitely not okay, but it will be okay.”
“It’s like he was a con artist or something,” I said. “He made all this seem so natural, but in the back of his head he knew the whole time that it was a trick.” I let out a wry laugh. “What if the guy he saved me from at the coffee shop was some dude he’d paid? I wouldn’t put it past him at this point.”
“I doubt he’d go that far,” she said, setting down her own wine glass. “But I get what you’re saying – now you have to wonder what he’s told you that’s been a lie.”
“It could be everything. Maybe he’s not even a doctor.”
She smiled. “That’d be a hell of a length to go to, getting himself on a magazine cover just to trick you.” Gia smiled, and I couldn’t help but match it with one of my own. “Listen,” she said, a firmness to her voice. “I know this is all kind of crazy. And you’d be totally justified in kicking his ass to the curb for it. But is that what you want to do?”
“Huh?” I was confused.
“Okay, maybe I’m playing devil’s advocate here, but does that mean you’re done with him?”
The first thing to come to my mind was of course it does! But before I answered, I understood what she was saying, that if I were to end things because of this lie, it’d mean throwing away our relationship, what we’d built so far.
It was enough to give pause.
“You like him, right?”
“I did like him. I…I understand what you’re doing, Gia. But the fact of the matter is our relationship is totally built on a lie. He went out of his way to make it seem like our meeting was this cute, unplanned thing, but in reality it was all some scheme to get into my pants.”
“It might not just be about sex, you know. It might be that he actually liked you. Likes you.”
I was confused. “What are you saying? Are you trying to convince me to get back together with him?”
“No-no-no,” she said, shaking her head. “Just that this is a big decision you’re about to make, and I want to be sure you’re not doing it in the heat of the moment.”
More tears trickled down my face. “I feel so, so stupid,” I sobbed, leaning over and letting my head fall onto Gia shoulder. She wrapped her arm around me and pulled me close. “This whole time I thought he was something he wasn’t. And on top of that, me and him getting involved made Andrew reconsider what he’d done.”
“It’s a mess,” Gia sympathized. “But you’re handling it like a champ.”
I laughed through the tears. “Thanks, but I’m a mess. I know I’m doing the right thing, but I feel like my heart’s been ripped out of my chest. I wouldn’t exactly call this handling it well.”
“Are you kidding?” she asked. “You have two crazy brothers obsessed with you. And you managed to deal with one of them admitting he was lying right to your face without grabbing a handful of General Tso’s and shoving it up his ass.”
Another laugh. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Gia. Thanks for being here for me.”
“It’s my freaking pleasure,” she said with a big grin. “Now, the hard part’s over.”
My face went blank, a thought occurring to me. She frowned at me and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s what you said, about the two brothers. I wish I’d never met them.”
Gia said nothing at first, keeping her arm wrapped around me. “I get it. I really do. Sometimes it feels like that’d be the easier way. But you’ll get through it.”
I didn’t know whether or not to believe her.
Two men had come into my life, and both had left it for the worse. The only thing I could think of was whether or not I’d ever be able to love again.
At that moment, it sure as hell didn’t look like it.
Duncan
I kept thinking about the conversation with Annie last night, the events playing over and over again like a nightmare that’d been particularly fresh in my mind.
It was over. I couldn’t believe it, but it was over.
I was thinking I had some brilliant plan to win over my brother’s ex. I’d been so damn certain I’d had all the angles worked out, that nothing could go wrong. But too late I realized I’d been so convinced of my plan’s brilliance that I didn’t even stop to consider that anything might go wrong.
And it had, in the worst way possible. Not only did Annie know I’d lied, and had broken up with me in response, but Andrew knew too.
My brother, the man who’d only recently come back into my life, now knew I was a liar who’d gone behind his back to date the woman he’d loved.
It was a mess. And on top of it all, the amount of mental space the situation took up meant I couldn’t concentrate worth a damn at work. The numbers and letters on the computer screen in front of me were a blur, and despite the amount of coffee I’d been throwing back, I couldn’t make heads or tails of them.
A little after lunch, the sandwich and chips I’d ordered mostly untouched on my desk, a chime sounded from the intercom letting me know that someone was there to see me.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Dr. Pitt, Dr. Adam Brand to see you.”
I wracked my brain trying to remember if I had a meeting planned. “Was he on the schedule?”
“No. But he says it’s an emergency.”
Dr. Brand was one of my oldest colleagues, a skilled general practitioner I’d tapped to run one of my new clinics in Denver. He was a serious, business-like man through and through, and not the type to call something an emergency when it wasn’t.
“Send him in.”
“Of course.”
I did my best to get my head back in the game. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but this was work – I couldn’t afford to let what had happened with Annie distract me from it.
A knock sounded at the door and I bellowed for him to come in. Dr. Brand stepped into the office. He was a stocky, forty-something man of average height with a head of thinning red hair and a lean face with features that always seemed to be in a grave expression. He wasn’t exactly the most jovial man in the world, but he was competent as hell, and wasn’t without his own wry sense of humor.
Most importantly, I trusted him.
“Adam,” I said, stepping over and giving him a handshake. “Good to see you.”
“Likewise, Dr. Pitt.”
I half-smirked. “Adam, for how long have we been working together?”
“Since the first clinic. Years.”
“And you’re still calling me Dr. Pitt.”
The corner of his mouth ticked up almost imperceptibly. “What can I say? I’m a stickler for formality.”