Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 62056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
"E-Excuse me?"
"You heard me."
"I don't understand. What's wrong?" She tried reaching for him, but Adam swiftly stepped back, and her face paled.
"Just fucking leave," Adam said tonelessly, "before I call security on you."
Her eyes started to tear, but he hardened his heart against it and forced himself to walk away.
Damn her.
Damn her.
Damn her.
"Where have you been?" Joelle asked as he entered his clinic. "Someone came by looking for you—-"
"Forget about her," he said curtly.
His cousin blinked at him in surprise. "Really? I rather thought you'd want to talk to her, since her sister is a friend of Nik Alexandropoulos."
Adam's gaze whipped back to his cousin. "What the hell does Nik have to do with her?"
Joelle checked her files to make sure she got the names right. "The patient's name is Iolanthe Raptis, and the one who came by is her sister Leah."
Adam suddenly remembered his last conversation with Nik.
It will be her younger sister who's scheduled to meet with you...
Leah, that's Io's sister, seems under stress lately...
Adam ran out of his clinic, but he was too late.
She was gone.
Twenty-Three
Agrim-faced Nik and worried-looking Daria are already waiting for me on the main deck when I come aboard their yacht with tears still running down my cheeks.
Oh, Lou.
I should've known there was a reason Nik's driver didn't ask me any questions when he heard me bawling in the backseat.
"What happened?"
My heart sinks upon hearing the billionaire's dangerously soft tone. It would have been so much better if he was shouting, since that means I still have a shot at defusing his temper.
But now?
I look at Daria in silent appeal. Help?
Nik's wife gently touches his arm. "Leah will tell us if she's ready."
His jaw clenches. "Just tell me one thing."
My heart threatens to stop beating. Oh God. Is it possible he already knows about Adam and me?
"Does this have anything to do with your headaches?"
Daria looks at him in shock. "What headaches are you talking about?"
But Nik still hasn't taken his gaze off me. "Tell me the truth, Leah. Are you sick? Did Adam tell you—-"
I'm horrified all at once, and I quickly shake my head when I realize where his words are leading. "No, it's nothing like that."
But now I'm also crying harder because I realize too late how wrong I've been all this time, to think I was the only one with fears and worries.
The truth is in Nik's eyes, and a sob rushes out of my throat when I look at Daria, and I see the same thing as well.
Karen was right.
Again.
She told me again and again not to keep things to myself, and if I had just listened to her, then I would have never ended in this mess.
"Nik, Daria, I'm sorry," I choke out. "I'm so, so sorry." I can't believe how blind I've been. All this time, I was so busy trying to hide my own fears, so busy thinking I wasn't normal, that I failed to realize Nik and Daria have been struggling with the same things as well.
They're just as worried as I am about Io's cancer returning, but the difference between us is that Nik and Daria have learned to live with their worries, which is how it should be, while I...
I'm such an idiot that I literally gave myself headaches trying to stop myself from worrying.
Just the biggest idiot ever that I actually thought a fantasy about a conscienceless doctor fucking me would cure me, just so much of an idiot that when it did happen in real life, I even convinced myself it could end well, and that we'd fall in love and—-
"Are you fucking dying?" Nik's tightly voiced question makes his wife pale.
"Why are we t-talking about dying all of a sudden?" Daria stammers. "Isn't this just about Leah having a wild affair with a doctor she doesn't know?"
"What the fuck?" That's Nik.
"Daria!" I cry out at the same time.
"Leah?"
That voice.
Daria, Nik, and I turn towards it, and I almost feel like collapsing in shock when my gaze once again collides with a pair of green eyes.
"What the hell, Adam?" That's Nik again.
"Doctor?" That's also me again, crying out at the same time—-
Wait.
Did Nik just call Dr. Somebody...Adam?
As in...Dr. Adam Al-Masri, my sister's doctor?
The story he told me about his ex flashes in my mind.
She never understood...what my work means to me.
She bribed my assistant...and someone fucking died.
Everything suddenly becomes crystal clear, and even though I've been an idiot for so many times in the past, this is the one time my brain cells actually work to my advantage, and I start crying again because I can already feel the pieces of my heart stitching themselves back together.
"Please."
So that's why he's said all of those hurtful things.
"Will you let me explain?"
He broke my heart...because I had broken his first.
"I thought you were lying to me," he says rawly. "I thought it was the past repeating itself again. I'm so fucking sorry I hurt you—-"