Adley

I see her as soon as she walks through the door of Premier Pet Care. She looks out of place in her tailored white suit, her red-bottomed heels and the small hat perched on the top of her head. Damaris looks like royalty. I look like I rolled in a pool of blood.

Another day, another blood sample from a dog who is scared of needles.

"Adley." She waves to me like we're old friends. "It's good to see you."

I can't say the same. I'm still trying to calm down after my encounter with the man who recognized me from Club Skyn.

When Donovan came to check on me in the lunchroom, he assumed it was low blood sugar that caused all the color to drain from my face and my limbs to shake.

I didn't correct him because I can't. I can't tell anyone here about what happened to me in that club or that I was even there.

"Damaris." I approach her knowing that Tilly's eyes are glued to the side of my head. "What a surprise."

I don’t attach a smile to the words because I'm not happy to see her. I can only imagine that she's here to rub some sordid detail about her relationship with Crew in my face. She picked the worst possible day to drop by.

"Can we talk in private?" She bends at the knees to look me square in the face like I'm a child.

"I'm very busy." I point at the waiting room. "We're booked up solid today, so maybe another time?"

I can pencil her in at noon on the day hell freezes over.

"I have something that belongs to you." She pats her oversized purse. "If we step outside I can give it to you. You can spare two minutes for a friend of Crew's, can't you?"

"You're due for a break, Ad," Tilly calls from where she's standing. "I'll cover for you."

I shoot her a look because wasting my break with Damaris is a crime. I covet those fifteen minutes twice a day and the hour at lunch. I use them to study my cardiology books. Now I have to waste a quarter of an hour on someone who I know is here to cause me heartache.

I brush past Damaris and push open the glass door of the clinic. I point to a spot on the sidewalk close to the building next door that is tucked away from the pedestrian traffic that is clipping past us at a steady pace.

She follows me in silence, her heels clicking a steady beat over the concrete.

"What is it, Damaris?" The question leaves my lips as soon I turn toward her.

"You're sleeping with him, aren't you?" She manages a small smile. "You're not just friends. It's already more."

I'm not surprised by her words. Anyone who walked in on Crew and me the other day would have jumped to the same conclusion. Even Kade, who seemed oblivious to what we were doing, knows now after seeing the two of us together at the hospital. I kissed Crew in front of his family, and he embraced me. I have nothing to hide when it comes to how I feel about him.

"How is that your business?" I wipe my palm over a large red spot on my thigh. "Did you come here to interrogate me about Crew? If you did, you're wasting my time and yours."

She ponders that for a minute with pursed lips before her hand with its perfectly manicured red fingernails dives into her bag. "You left something in the master suite at the house in Westhampton."

I scrunch my nose as I watch her hand squirm under the expensive leather. "What is it?"

She yanks out the weathered paperback novel that my mom loaned to me for the drive up. "This. I knew it didn't belong to Pauline, so I assumed it was yours."

I snatch it from her hand and cradle it to my chest. My mom never expected me to return it. She breezes through at least four books a month and then loans them to me. It's her way of clearing out the small bookshelf in her dining room so she can add more of her temporary favorites to it.

"Thank you," I say because it's expected and I'm not an ungrateful person. "You could have just given it to Kade."

"I found it in my luggage this morning. I had to repack. I'm moving to Rome."

Okay. Sure and I don't care.

"I stopped by Crew's office to say goodbye."

I narrow my eyes, a sense of regret already on me for asking the question poised on the edge of my tongue. "How did that go?"

Her eyes brighten. "It was good. We talked about our past, not all of it, of course. He doesn't like to talk about certain things."

I won't push for more because she's baiting me with a hook that she thinks is irresistible to me. It's not. I've been holding tightly to a painful secret from my past. I can't expect that Crew doesn’t have his own burdens to carry.

"I need to get back in there. I hope things go your way in Rome."

"Wait." Her hand reaches for mine. "I'm sorry about that night, Adley."

I brush her touch away. "It was miscommunication. Kade didn’t realize that we'd still be in the Hamptons."

"No." She steps closer, her voice lowering. "Not that night."

I study her expression. It's shifted. The smug satisfaction that was in her eyes is gone. It's been replaced with sadness or maybe it's regret. I don't know her well enough to venture a guess.

"You looked so familiar to me." Her gaze skims over my face. "I thought about you since I saw you at the Hamptons and now I remember."

"Remembered what?" I lift my hand to stop her words, even though I want to hear them.

She sucks in a deep breath. "The night at the club when Crew saved you."

I stumble back from her words. The book falls from my hands as I claw at the brick wall next to me trying to find something to hold onto.

She takes a step toward me, closing in on me, taking away all the air that I need to breathe. "Does he not know? Why on earth wouldn't you tell him who you are?"

Because he'll see who I was then, and not who I am now and the pity will overshadow the love.

"Ad?" Tilly calls from the open door of the clinic behind me. "Your break is over. It's all hands on deck in exam room one."

I don't look at Damaris again. I pick up the book, straighten my scrubs and walk back to my life; the life I've worked so hard to build for myself.