The Good Doctor by Jessica Payne

Author:Jessica Payne [Payne, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781837902569
Published: 2023-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-FOUR

CHLOE

Now

“I need to go.” I’m standing before I realize it. I yank my hand from his and pick up my purse and tighten my jacket around my shoulders.

“It’s still raining.” Jameson stands, too.

Is he as stunned as I am at what just happened?

Or maybe appalled is the right word. Yes, definitely appalled.

My ribs heave, straining as I try to take a normal breath. As the dim bar closes in on me and spins, and I reach out to touch something, anything, to ground myself. To keep the anxiety at bay.

“I don’t care about the rain.” I turn on my heel, bite my lip, then bite it harder, hoping the pain brings me back to reality.

“Chloe—”

I keep walking, bypassing our server, who watches us, drawn in by the drama. I burst out the door and into the night air, past the overhang until cool rain drips into my hair, my scalp, down the back of my neck. Finally, I inhale, exhale, breathe.

“I’ll give you a ride.”

I didn’t hear him step outside. Didn’t hear the door slap closed. Was it that quiet, or am I that distracted?

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” A heavy hand—his heavy hand—rests on my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says. I don’t ask what for. I don’t want to know.

But I don’t argue when he guides me to the BMW, opens the door, waits for me to get in.

“Come on. I’ll take you straight to the hospital.”

My feet move of their own accord, and it doesn’t occur to me he will do anything other than what he’s promised. His hand brushes my back as I step past him and lower myself into the seat, and the moment he shuts the door, our contact broken, something inside me mourns it.

The dark interior is just like his touch—a flashback in time to the best part of my life. Before I realized what he was doing.

The drive takes less than three minutes. I stare out my window the whole time, refusing to look his way.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says. He stays in the car, letting me get my own door this time, which I’m grateful for.

I lower myself into the Lexus. In the rearview mirror, I watch as he pulls from the lot to head home.

And I realize what an idiot I am. That I’m lucky to be alive.

Lucky he didn’t drive me somewhere and kill me.

The squeeze of panic returns. I look at myself in the mirror and try to understand who this woman is. Who I am, to be stupid enough to let myself be drawn back in by his dark eyes, the warmth of his hand on mine, his earnest voice as he told me he’d only wanted to be there for me. And then I’d done the ultimate act—gotten in his damn car, trusting he’d take me where he said he would.

A shudder runs through me.

I got lucky tonight.

And I failed. I am no closer to being free of him than I was a few hours ago when he broke into my home.

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