She walked the paper over to her cell phone, which was sitting innocently on the side table next to the couch, right next to the spot where only last night they’d made love. Léonie picked up her phone and pegged in all the numbers.
What would she say to whoever picked up the other end? “Who are you?” That couldn’t be right. She would need a good excuse and she didn’t have one.
She sat and thought for a bit. If someone picked up then she would just ask for someone else. If she didn’t pick up then she might find out who the phone belonged to by the answering machine. She was almost ready to hit the green dial button when she put the phone down. She couldn’t do this. Her heart was beating too fast, and she could hardly breathe. Léonie put the paper in her purse then went upstairs to change. She would ask Portia to do it for her.
When she came downstairs again, thirty minutes later, she went straight to her phone, picked it up and walked it to her purse. She pulled out the paper, dialed in the number then hit the green button. She didn’t have the patience to wait for Portia. She had to know what there was to know now and she wouldn’t wait just because she was a coward.
The phone rang and Léonie paced the floor, trying to pretend that she was just making a phone call to a patient. The phone rang again and Léonie crossed her fingers that no one would pick up. Praying that there would be an answering machine.
“Hello,” A woman’s voice filled the line. For a split second Léonie was delusional enough to think the voice might belong to an answering machine but snapped out of the delusion when there were no words to follow the “Hello,” on the other line.
“Hello, may I ask who I am talking to?” Léonie said in her most professional voice.
“I’m sorry?” The woman’s voice said back.
“I got a phone call from this number a few days ago,” She waited.
“Oh,” The woman paused. “I’m Melissa Swaneski from Baker, Parker, and Swaneski law firm.”
“Oh, I don’t know why you’d be calling me.”
“Can I get your name? I have all my files at work so I can see what it was that I called you about. We could have a quick chat this afternoon perhaps?”
“No thank you,” Léonie hung up the phone and took a deep breath. She walked with control back to the small entrance table and pulled a post it and pen out of the drawer.
Melissa Swaneski law firm? she wrote, then took the whole pad with her to her computer.
Melissa Swaneski was tall and blonde, from the photo that popped up with her search. When Léonie clicked on Melissa’s law firm bio she read that Melissa had done her undergrad at the same college as Ty. Léonie sat back. So they’d known each other before? Maybe even been a couple before?
She cleared her search history and closed her computer.
Léonie stood up quickly, too quickly. The blood rushed from her head and she had to hold onto the counter in an effort to remain standing.
What was she supposed to do now?
Go to work, she told herself. She would go to work, that’s what she would do, that’s what she’d always done. Léonie took a long breath willing herself not to begin crying again. Whatever happened, she would be strong about this.
~
When Ty had opened his eyes that morning he’d decided that he would not see Melissa again. He would research what she needed then hand the information off to Deacon who could handle it just as well as he could.
He felt like a weight had fallen off of his shoulders as he’d come down to the sight of Léonie making him breakfast and coffee. Even the entire Leslie incident didn’t feel so bad anymore… at least for the present.
He’d had a nice day. Deacon agreed to take on Melissa’s file when Ty told him that she was an old school friend who had just made a pass at him. Then he got on with the rest of his work.
He decided not to go out for happy hour but went to do some grocery shopping instead. He would surprise Léonie by making her dinner tonight. He wasn’t a great chef but he could manage something.
Because her sift hadn’t started until the afternoon he knew she’d have a long day and wouldn’t be home until late so he didn’t start cooking until forty-five minutes after she was getting off for the night.
Ty waited an extra hour beyond that trying to keep the food warm. When Léonie finally walked into the house she seemed surprised.
“What is this?” She put down her bag and slowly took off her jacket.
“Dinner,” Ty made a little bow. “It’s been warming for a bit but it will still be good… I hope.” He smiled at Léonie but she looked past him at the food he’d made. He’d also set the table and cleaned up after himself since he’d been home, which meant the dishes were done, clothes hung up and put away, and the usual mess of clutter that he left trailing behind him was now in its proper place.
“Thank you,” Léonie looked at Ty. “That’s very thoughtful of you.”
“Are you hungry?” Ty asked. Léonie looked exhausted.
“I could eat,” She walked in and sat at the table letting herself be served by Ty, something that didn’t happen very often.
“So, how was your day?” Ty asked as he sat down across from Léonie.
“There’s something I want to talk to you about.” Léonie put down the fork that he’d just raised but hadn’t used yet.
Ty put his own fork down feeling the energy change. His first thought was of Leslie. She was about to tell Ty that she had been having an affair after all. Then she opened her mouth and things changed.
“You know I’ve been happy working at Johns Hopkins—but things have also been difficult. I commute two hours, at least, for every shift. The demand is high and I’m not moving up as quickly as I’d hoped.” She cleared her throat and took a long drink of her Perrier.
Ty shifted his weight in his seat uncomfortably.
“The thing is… I was offered a job in Paris at Hôpital Necker, where I did my training.” Léonie stopped talking to make sure Ty was keeping up.
Ty nodded trying to figure her out, “So you, what are you saying? You’re going to take this job?”
“It was actually offered to me before, but I agreed to come here instead. The position is better, I would be doing work that could,” She paused and cleared her throat again. “…That could change the world. It pays more of course, and comes with prestige. But,” She swallowed and took a long breath. “I think it is the right thing to do. For me. Right now.”
Ty nodded his head slowly. His heart was plummeting and he could hardly feel his body beneath him.
“Were you going to discuss this with me?”
“That’s what I’m doing now.” She licked her lips and looked down at the table.
“But, then you haven’t taken the job?”
“No, not yet. I talked to them today though.”
Ty looked around then up at Léonie, “They called you or you called them?”
Léonie stared at Ty, “I called them.”
Ty pushed back in his chair letting his chair fall to the ground, “Is this because of the Leslie thing? Because of this weekend?”
“No, it isn’t about Leslie,” She stood too.
“Then about this weekend? What?”
Léonie walked behind the counter and set both her hands flat on top of it, her shoulders where lifting to her ears and her arms were bracing.
“I just,” She pushed back from the counter with force, her voice was growing with every word,” feel like this is the right thing to do.” Her eyes were beginning to fill and Ty could tell that she was struggling to keep a handle on her emotions. “Can we, let’s just talk about this tomorrow ok? I… this is all too much for me today.” She looked Ty in the eyes but he couldn’t read what was going on there.
There was a distance, a new distance, something that hadn’t existed until just this moment. Unless it was something he’d overlooked.
Léonie broke eye contact, walked around the counter, grabbed her purse and ran up the stairs.
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Ty stood leaning against the counter listening to Léonie’s footsteps as she walked around above him. He looked at the uneaten meal sitting out on the table. For a long time he thought about moving, but his body was no longer listening.
Chapter Twenty One
The next day was terrible for Léonie. She was losing Ty, perhaps she’d already lost him to another woman, and she was trying to make heads or tails of her decision to take the job in Paris. She’d called the hospital the other day trying to determine what opportunities still stood open to her. She hadn’t really thought they would still take her on after she’d turned down the position two years before. Everything had suddenly become very complicated.
Portia and Leslie were both inquisitive at work but there was hardly time to chat. Léonie was thankful for her work, thankful for something bigger then herself to take her mind away from her petty problems. Working in such dramatic atmospheres was a continual reminder of the importance of various events in her life. Things were never so intense that she could not focus her energy on a child who needed her more then she needed to whine or feel bad for herself.
Going to Paris would be the perfect next step. She would be able to lose herself in her work. A new job, new people, it would be more difficult and would require even more of her then she was already giving. Her contributions could make a lasting change in the world of children’s medicine. Right now she was filling an immediate need, there she might be filling a need that in ten years could save thousands of lives.
In fact, when she really thought about it, it was selfish of her to stay in the US.
“Qu'est ce que je vais faire?” She asked herself with a light wrap of her knuckles on the locker behind her.
Had she really been willing to abandon medicine, her best career for a man? A fallible man who would turn and cheat on her, break her heart?
Léonie felt her front pocket. The small piece of paper was there reminding her of why it was she really need to go. She needed to move on. The fact was that love just wasn’t enough. It didn’t matter how much you loved someone and Léonie had been naïve. She hadn’t understood this. She hadn’t realized what she could be in for. She’d walked right into it.
A tear dripped down her face and she wiped it away.
“Hey,” Leslie was at the door. “What’s going on?” He moved into the back room where she’d gone for some quiet. Leslie reached out his arms and Léonie fell into them.
~
That night Léonie came home to an empty house. She turned on one of the lamps and poured herself a big drink. She didn’t even have the energy to go change her clothes. She just pushed off her shoes and sank into the sofa. Her throat was tight, her eyes sore, her face was cramping because of all the muscles she couldn’t seem to release.
She thought briefly about turning on the television but didn’t even have the energy for that. She drank her glass of wine and stared into the darker part of the room.
When the door opened Léonie could smell the alcohol wafting off Ty before she could even see him.
“Having a good night?” She said as she stared into her drink.
Ty took off his jacket, dumped it on the floor and shook his head. She only had to take one look at him to know he was smashed. She looked at her own drink and wished she’d downed it right away, if only she had a buzz right now she could handle all this better.
“It’s snowing outside,” Ty moved into the room. “First snow of the winter.”
“That must have been lovely for you to walk home through.” She leaned back deeper into the sofa.
“Oh yeah, lovely,” He flitted his hand about sarcastically. “So, I’ve been thinking about it—and the only thing I can think about is that you are leaving me. You didn’t even talk about it with me, but you called your…” He flitted his hand again, “…people, in Paris and that is that.” He moved into the room and sat with a thud into the thick chair that sat across from the sofa.
“So, have you decided?” He asked with an insolence that made Léonie’s skin prickle.
“Is there anything that you’d like to tell me?” She turned her head a few inches in his direction.
“I don’t know. Is there anything you would like to tell me?”
Léonie put her drink on the table and reached in her pocket, “Ok. Yes, there is something I would like to tell you.” She pulled the paper out and threw it toward him on the table. “This fell out of your jacket pocket.”
Ty looked at the paper then leaned forward and picked it up. He squinted at the words then put it back on the table.
“The phone number belongs to Melissa Swaneski,” Léonie watched his reactions. His face was changing and she could feel something in the room move. “She’s a lawyer, you went to school together… Now is there something you would like to tell me?”
“We went for a drink after work, she’s an old school mate, that’s it,” Ty snapped his hand into the air.
“If that was it then why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that Leslie was a man?” Ty stood and Léonie stood up even faster.
“I did tell you, about a hundred times. I had no idea that you weren’t listening to me and that I had to sit you down to make sure I had your attention.” Léonie stared at Ty, her nostrils flaring. She could feel all the anger she’d been repressing bubbling to the surface. “Is that why you slept with Melissa? Because I have a male friend who happens to be handsome?”
“I didn’t sleep with Melissa, I could have. She wanted to, coming on to me all night but I didn’t.” Ty wobbled.
“You shit, you let a woman come onto you all night? So you were thinking about going to bed with her?”
Ty was silent.
“Did you think about fucking her?” Léonie leaned forward.
“What matters is that I didn’t do anything,” Ty tripped over the leg of the chair he was standing in front of and almost fell to the floor.
“I’m going to Paris,” Léonie spat at him. “I’ve decided, right now. I am taking the job.”
Her chest was heaving.
“Good, I was hoping you would. Too much of a perfectionist for me aren’t you? I’m not clean enough for you, don’t sit at the kitchen table, I watch too much TV, I drink too much beer.”
“Yes you do,” Léonie walked around the sofa.
“I always knew you would be a let down,” He said to her back. “Such a disappointment. You’re too selfish to be in a real relationship. Too difficult. Has anyone ever told you that? That you’re a difficult woman. You’re hard to deal with?”
Ty knew that she’d been told that before because she’d told him. He was using her trust and vulnerability to hurt her.
Léonie closed her eyes and took a breath, when she opened them she ran up the stairs to their bedroom. She pulled out her bag and began stuffing things inside. She would go to a hotel, or to Portia’s, or Leslie’s, she would go wherever she could go. She would put her two weeks notice in tomorrow and call Hôpital Necker to tell them she would be coming.
Tears dripped onto the clothes in her suitcase. She pulled out another handful of clothes then sealed up her bag. She could come back later, right now she just had to get out of the house. She ran with her bag back down the stairs.
“Where are you going? Running off with Leslie?”
“Yes, I’m running off with Leslie,” Léonie turned and yelled at Ty through her tears.
Ty stood very still with his brow furrowed.
“You have no idea…what you’ve done. You have broken my heart and I will never forgive you for it.” She turned and unlocked the door then slammed it behind her. She kept thinking she would hear Ty’s voice. That he would finally apologize, that he would do something, anything, to make her stop. There was no sound, there was no yell, there was nothing but her own shoes on pavement and the snow falling down around her.
Léonie pushed tears away as she cried. She would head toward the hospital and she could figure
out to do when she was close. She got on 295 and the snow came down harder, her windshield wipers were going and her mind just kept moving back to Ty.
Had he really not slept with that woman? …But he’d thought about it even if he hadn’t done it. He’d thought about it just because he was jealous of another man.
She brushed more tears off her cheek with the back of her hand.
Léonie looked in her rearview mirror just as her back tires began to fishtail. The car was gliding on its own and Léonie quickly pulled her steering wheel trying to correct it. The movement of the wheel made the entire car begin to turn counter clockwise and suddenly Léonie’s car was spinning on 295. She saw lights coming toward her. Her car had turned sideways to the oncoming traffic and one set of lights hit her car from the nose.
Just as her nose was swung into a terrifying swing in the opposite direction another car hit her from the back.
Her car spun fast as it moved straight across the highway. Other cars, screeched and tried to move around her. Then, with a loud smashing sound, Léonie slammed hard into the side of the highway.
Chapter Twenty Two
Ty had been sitting on the chair, unmoving since Léonie had left. She would never forgive him, she had said. He had broken her heart.
He tapped his fingers against his thigh and struggled to keep his thoughts in a linear formation. What had just happened?
Regardless of everything or anything that had just happened Ty did not think they would separate. He’d never considered that they would ever actually leave each other for any reason. If Rachel had been sand, Léonie was air. He couldn’t live without her. He’d never thought that he’d have to. How had he said those things? How had he even gone to dinner with Melissa? Why hadn’t he trusted Léonie when she’d always told him the truth?
Romancing the SEAL: The Complete Box Set (SEAL Military Romance Series Book 4) Page 13