He guided himself inside me and shoved himself deep with a thrust. “Baby, you know how seriously I take my job.”
20
Dex
After the dinner a couple weeks ago, Derek went MIA.
Every time I asked him to get a beer or grab some nachos, he said he was too busy.
Which wasn’t like him—because he was never busy when I asked him to do stuff. We weren’t just brothers, but friends, so we always made time to see each other. I got so concerned about it that I texted Emerson. Everything alright with Derek?
Yeah. Why?
He’s just been blowing me off lately. Is something going on at work?
I mean, he’s always got a million things to do, so work never sleeps. But nothing in particular.
I was certain he wasn’t mad at me because I hadn’t done anything to provoke his wrath. And even if I did, he would just come at me straight on and tell me off, so that didn’t make sense. Then maybe it’s just in my head.
He’s staying at the office late tonight if you want to stop by. I’m home with the kiddos.
I’d finished work for the day and already asked him to grab a bite, but he hadn’t responded. I don’t want to bother him.
He’s just doing some tests for this new prototype they developed, and he hasn’t had a chance to go through everything himself. Little Deacon got an ear infection, so Derek had to take him to the doctor and stay home with him for a couple days.
I loved that about Derek. That he didn’t push his parenting duties on to his wife, that he left work without looking back and chose to be a father instead of solely an engineer. I knew he got that from our dad. I’ll stop by and bring him dinner, then.
Good idea. He’ll love that.
I knew where his warehouse was because I’d been there a couple times. I helped myself to one of the golf carts outside, drove over there, and then walked through the door. “Hungry?” I held up the bag of burgers and fries.
Derek was standing over his workbench when I walked inside, wearing protective goggles, and he turned around to face me when I stepped inside. His eyebrows furrowed before he pulled off the glasses. “What are you doing here?”
There was definitely something off with him. “Uh, nice to see you too?” I approached his workbench, saw a bunch of wires and gadgets that I couldn’t really make sense of, and then turned back to him. “Thought I’d stop and bring dinner.”
“How’d you get here?”
My eyebrows furrowed as much as his did. “I have a driver now. You know, because I’m a big hotshot heart surgeon now.” I set the bag on the table. “I thought I would stop by and bring some food. Haven’t seen you much lately.” I pulled up a stool and helped myself to a seat before I took out the brown bag of fries.
He continued to stand there, visibly annoyed, his arms crossed over his chest, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“Seriously, what the hell is your problem?”
“I don’t just randomly drop by your office.”
“You think I’d care if you did?” My appetite was gone now, so I pushed the fries away. “You’ve been blowing me off for weeks, so I asked Emerson if everything was okay and she assured me everything is fine, told me to come down here. But this hostile reception tells me everything is not okay. You mad at me?”
His stare lingered for a minute more before he turned away, dragging his fingertips over his beard while he released an annoyed sigh. He took a few steps then circled to the other side of the table, deliberately putting distance between us. “I’ve been blowing you off for weeks because I don’t want to see you.”
“Because…?” My brother had never been angry with me, as far as I knew. “What the hell did I do to piss you off so much?”
“You didn’t piss me off. I never said I was angry with you.” He turned his gaze back on to me, his eyes murky and cloudy like he was the definition of pissed off. “I just don’t want to see you.”
“So, you aren’t mad at me…but you want nothing to do with me? Okay…that totally makes sense.”
His hands moved to the edge of the table, and he braced himself, his chin tilted toward the table, his eyes focused on an invisible spot while his mind worked furiously. “Look.” He pushed off the surface and righted himself again. “I’ve been avoiding you because I’ve been avoiding telling you something. If I’m in the room with you, I’m obligated to tell you. So by not being in the room with you, I’ve managed to put it off as long as possible.”
Emerson hadn’t mentioned this at all, so she probably didn’t know about it. “Dude, you’re freaking me out. Are you okay? You’re not…” I couldn’t even bring myself to ask the question. “You’re not sick, right?” With three doctors in the family and one cancer survivor, that was where our assumptions always went.
“No.” He looked me in the eye and shook his head. “Nothing like that. Don’t even worry about that.”
“Okay…” Then whatever else he had to tell me would be fine. As long as no one in my family was sick, then I could deal with it. “Just tell me, Derek. As long as everything is okay, it’s not a big deal.” I dealt with life and death every single day, so everything else was much simpler to manage.
Derek’s expression didn’t become less strained, so he obviously didn’t agree. He came back around the table and pulled up a stool, sitting right beside me, the food on the table ignored. “I don’t know how to fucking say this…and I really don’t want to be the one to fucking say this.”
“Derek, just rip the bandage off. Saying all this is only giving me more anxiety—”
“Catherine is getting married.” His expression immediately dropped as the self-loathing hit.
I heard what he said, completely understood it, but the other part of my brain moved much slower…and I couldn’t really process the revelation.
He studied my reaction, his eyes shifting back and forth as he looked into my gaze.
His words echoed over and over in my head.
Catherine is getting married.
My Catherine.
Then it hit me like a ton of bricks just dropped on my head.
After a little over a year since our divorce…she was getting married.
A year.
One fucking year.
I dropped my chin and shifted my gaze to the concrete floor underneath his stool, my normally steady heart rate accelerating like I was in a car about to fly over a cliff. Adrenaline dumped into my blood, my fight-or-flight mode kicking in, my physiology doing what it could to protect me.
But nothing could protect me from this.
The pain came next. Deep, throbbing anguish.
It was like getting my heart broken all over again.
“Dex.” His hand moved to my shoulder.
Instinctively, I pushed it off. “How do you know this?”
He didn’t try again. “I was at a conference, and one of my colleagues told me he was engaged…and she was the person he was engaged to. I didn’t see her in the flesh. He showed me a picture of her.”
“And he didn’t know she’s your ex-sister-in-law?”
He shook his head. “No. And I didn’t tell him.”
“Who is this guy?”
“Nuclear physicist.”
That stung. Badly. “Apparently, a heart surgeon wasn’t good enough.”
“Dex, I’m sorry that I had to tell you this. But not telling you felt deceitful.”
“It’s fine. I get it.” I rubbed the back of my neck, my body both scorching hot and freezing cold at the same time. I could feel a headache coming on because my temples were pounding, and my face was probably beginning to turn red. The vein was popping out.
Derek sat there with me in silence, studying me, waiting for a reaction. “I know how it feels to be—”
“You know how it feels when your ex-wife gets remarried a year after she left you?” I lifted my chin and stared him down. “When she blames you for her father’s death and decides the relationship isn’t w
orth salvaging? No offense, Derek, but your fiancée having an affair when you were twenty is not the same thing as being happily married for years and then your wife leaves you because she thinks you’re a goddamn murderer.”
“Dex—”
“A year. A fucking year. And she’s ready to be with someone else for the rest of her life?”
He moved his hand to my arm. “Look—”
“Being in a new relationship after a year?” I shoved his arm down then stood up, just so he wouldn’t touch me again. “Fine. I can see that. But marrying someone?” I started to pace over the concrete, scrubbing my hand into my cheek. “That would mean she’d been with this guy from the second I was gone. She replaced me like that.” I snapped my fingers harshly. “Like she was never married to me, like she never loved me. I’m sorry, but is my memory of our relationship completely different from reality?” I stopped in front of him, screaming at him like he was Catherine himself. “Was she miserable that entire time? Did she ever love me? Am I losing my goddamn mind?”
Derek watched me pace, his eyes carrying a look of defeat. “I shouldn’t have told you—”
“Shouldn’t have told me what? That my ex-wife is a fucking cunt?” Spit flew out of my mouth everywhere because I spoke with such rage, both of my hands tightening into fists, my body shaking with angry tremors. “Fuck her. Man. Fuck. Her.”
“Dex, it’s her loss—”
“Really?” I snapped. “Because from my point of view, it looks like I’m the one who lost everything.” My heart was permanently broken, I’d lost my business, I’d stopped helping people because my entire sense of self had been destroyed. “She lost nothing.”
“Dex, I’m sorry.”
I ignored what he said, staring at the door where I came in, my arms crossed over my chest. Silence fell in the hangar, Derek on his stool, watching me, while I thought of a million things at once. “I’m done.”
“Done with what?”
“Everything.” I turned back around and looked at him. “Maybe we’re good people and we devote our lives to others, but everyone else out there is worthless pieces of shit. All they do is take advantage of people then jump to the next opportunity. All of them.”
Derek gave a subtle shake of his head. “That’s not true, and you know it.”
“No, I do know it. Catherine and I were happily married…well, I thought we were…and then this happens? Never in my life did I imagine I would end up here, some bitter asshole who’s been divorced before he’s even thirty. With an ex-wife who’s already getting remarried. Nothing means anything. Nothing is forever. Promises break. People lie. People will wait for the moment you turn around and stab you in the back—”
“Emerson would never do that to me.” Derek got to his feet then came close to me, looking at me with a hard expression the way Dad did. “Never, ever, ever. She will keep her promises to me, she will be by my side every single day until I’m gone, and when my back is turned, she’ll take any knife that was meant for me.” His eyes shifted back and forth as he stared me down. “I’m sorry this happened to you. It hurts me like hell to see you like this, to know this woman hurt my little brother when he didn’t deserve it, but other women aren’t like Catherine. There are women out who are tougher than men, who would love you until it hurt, who would be loyal to you even if you were disloyal to them, who will love you when your youth fades because they’ve fallen in love with your soul, not just your face.”
I dropped my gaze and stared at the floor.
“Catherine was a mistake. But the next one won’t be.”
I gave a subtle shake of my head.
“Don’t let this affect your happiness with Sicily. Don’t do what I did to Emerson. She loved me enough to forgive me, but I’ll always regret the way I hurt her, the way I hurt my daughter, the way I spat on the unbelievable beauty of our relationship. Don’t be me, brother.”
I stepped away, my gaze never meeting his. “I’ve got to go.”
“Dex—”
“I said, I’ve got to go.”
I canceled everything for the next day.
I was scheduled at the research center and had a couple virtual follow-up appointments, but I axed them all. I told Sicily through a text message, telling her I was sick and too unwell to get to work.
Feel better. I’m happy to bring you anything you might need.
I never responded.
I spent the day on my couch, staring at the ceiling, going over every memory, every conversation, reevaluating every fight we had. Did she ever love me? Was she ever happy? Was I just a trophy and I was blinded by her beauty, so I didn’t notice?
Was I just a fucking idiot?
I rummaged in the fridge and snacked on junk food because I was too unmotivated to cook anything. I walked into my closet a couple times and looked at the box that contained that picture frame and a few other keepsakes. I was too tempted to throw it out the window and right onto the street.
But I couldn’t do it.
A knock sounded on the door.
I returned to the living room and stared at it, knowing I didn’t want to see whoever was on the other side.
Another knock. “Dex, it’s me. I brought you some soup.”
She was the person I wanted to see least. I stayed quiet, hoping she would assume I was sleeping and just leave.
But then she put her key in the door.
I knew she came and went when I was at work, but she’d never just helped herself into my apartment before, my personal space, and it pissed me the fuck off.
The second she opened the door, I came at her. “This is my apartment. This is my space. You can’t just barge in here whenever the fuck you feel like it.”
She was so shocked by what I said that she dropped the bag she’d brought, a container of soup, some ice cream, and a takeout box of food. She immediately bent down to pick it up, glancing at me with a flustered expression. “I’m sorry. I just thought—”
“You have a key for professional reasons, not so you can just barge in here whenever you feel like it. Don’t do it again.”
She had returned everything to the bag, but she was still on the floor, looking up at me with a mixture of hurt and shock. “I…I’m sorry. I assumed you were asleep, and I could just leave this for you in the fridge.” She slowly got to her feet, still holding the bag, her eyes shifting back and forth as she regarded my ice-cold gaze.
I grabbed the bag from her hands and set it on the counter. “Thanks…”
She continued to stand there, like a deer in the headlights. “Dex—”
“You can go. I think I am going to take that nap—”
“But you aren’t sick.”
I didn’t even bother to pretend because it slipped my mind. I stayed in the kitchen and crossed my arms over my chest, looking at the floor for a while because I didn’t want to look at her frightened expression anymore.
“Dex, what’s wrong?”
“Please go.” I looked at her again. “I just want to be alone right now.”
She stepped forward. “You know you can tell me anything—”
“Please get out of my apartment.” The more compassion she showed, the more I hated myself for being a dick, so that made me a bigger dick. “Now. If I wanted to talk to you, I would have called. I don’t.”
She flinched like I’d just stabbed her between the ribs.
I couldn’t stand there and watch her linger in my apartment, so I turned down the hallway and entered my bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for the sound of the door to close.
It was a long time before she did that, several minutes, but eventually, the door clicked to my place.
And then I knew she was gone.
21
Sicily
Something was seriously wrong—and I had no idea what it was.
I wanted to ask Cleo, but taking advantage of that relationship felt wrong and it would just piss him off more. I wanted to go to Daisy because she might kn
ow, but again, that was a violation of his privacy.
But it didn’t seem like he had any intention of confiding in me.
He turned into the biggest dick I’d ever seen, and I didn’t have a clue what could have possibly happened to make him that angry, to lash out at me when the last time we were together, we were in bliss.
He came to the office the next day because he was too dedicated to his patients to blow it off, regardless of the travesty he was experiencing. And when he walked inside, he ignored both Andrea and me.
So, he was still furious…about whatever happened.
After I let him get settled for a couple minutes, I walked into his office, like I always did, to go over the patients coming in and his schedule for the rest of the day.
He sat behind his desk, already looking at the scans for his first patient of the day.
I approached his desk until I stood in front of it, holding my notebook. “I rescheduled those follow-up calls for after our last appointment of the day…if that’s okay.”
He kept his eyes on the screen. “That’s fine.”
“Dr. Frankworth called a couple times. Wants you to give him a call back when you get a chance. I told him you were busy and that phone call probably wouldn’t happen until after hours.”
He shifted his fingers to his keyboard and made some notes on the patient’s chart. “I’ll get to it when I get to it.”
“Alright. And then—”
He turned back to the scans, not once making eye contact.
“Dex?”
He ignored me.
“I’m sorry…did I do something?”
“No.”
I was getting really fed up with his behavior, especially when he didn’t give me the courtesy of an explanation. “Then can you explain to me why you’re being the biggest asshole on the planet?”
That got his attention. He shifted his gaze to me and looked at me for the first time.
I knew I should tread carefully, but my anger was getting the best of me. I’d gone out of my way to care for him yesterday, and he’d chosen to treat me like a fucking dog. He’d never been that cruel to me, not even when we first started to work together.
The Doctor Who Has No Closure (Soulless Book 10) Page 23