Chapter 1 – Camilla
“Are you okay, Doctor?”
“Huh? Yes, Dylan, I’m fine. Thank you for asking. We’re talking about you, though. You were telling me about a woman that you’ve started seeing? This is a big step for you.”
“I can tell that you’re thinking of something else. We don’t have to do this today if you’re sidetracked.”
He was ever so sweet, and I kind of nodded my head that I was fine. I was letting everything get to me, and I shouldn’t. My clients shouldn’t know that I was bothered. They paid for my undivided attention, but that was hard to give at the moment. When I was thinking about Zane, it was hard to concentrate. We had a meeting later in the afternoon and I was afraid of what was going to happen. I’d always known that he was delicate with his emotions, and now that I’d found out that he was taking things too far, I didn’t know how I was supposed to bring it up to him.
“You go ahead. I’m listening. Really, I am. I want to hear about this woman who’s changed your mind about love.”
Dylan smiled and sat back in the seat. Like many of the men who came to see me, Dylan hardly ever relaxed enough to really lie back, and I was happy to see that he was feeling comfortable with me now. It was what I strived for, and even if my mind was mush, I was glad that I could offer some comfort to another.
“Well, I told you that I was on that dating site.”
I nodded my head, trying to encourage him to say more. He had told me quite a bit about his love life since he started seeing me. In almost two years, it was only rather recently that he was even thinking about getting a girlfriend. Dylan had decided that he was feeling alone and he was ready to get back out there. It was a huge step that he had finally gone out on a date. I felt remiss that I didn’t know that he was falling for someone. It felt like something that I should have known.
“So tell me about her?”
“She’s perfect! Well, not perfect, but she’s perfect for me. I’ve never met anyone quite like Maya, but it isn’t all that it’s supposed to be.”
“It never is, is it?”
“No, it isn’t. She’s not really single.”
That had me sitting up in my chair. I wondered what he meant by that. The name sounded familiar to me, but I pushed those thoughts away and asked him what he meant about her not being completely single.
I could tell by his face that it wasn’t something that he wanted to talk about. I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to talk about it either, but it felt like the time to press. If he couldn’t say it out loud, that most likely meant that he hadn’t explained it to himself yet either. He needed to come to grips with loving a woman that it sounded like he couldn’t have.
“Well, she’s married.”
I stopped writing notes and met his dark gaze. “Oh.” I didn’t see that one coming. Dylan had lost his wife a couple of years back, and I knew how he felt about the sanctity of marriage. The idea that he would disregard it was hard to fathom. Who had changed his mind so completely?
“I can tell that you don’t approve.”
He was right, but when I thought about it, I wasn’t one to say anything about who was with whom. When it came down to it, I was doing something morally wrong as well. While Zane wasn’t married, he was a patient, and I knew better.
“There is no judgment here, Dylan. I’m just surprised, is all. I know how you feel about marriage.”
Dylan put his hand up to his forehead and sighed loudly. “Yeah, I know. It isn’t a position that I thought I would ever find myself in, but I love Maya and I know that we were meant to be together. It sounds cliché, I know, but it’s honestly the way I feel about it. I don’t want to go back to how it was before I found her. Everything is brighter now.”
He sounded like he was head over heels in love. The woman’s name kept bugging me, and I was trying hard to remember where I’d heard it from. The connection was gone from my mind, but I was sure that I would figure it out eventually.
“So tell me more about Maya. What makes her the one?”
The smile was back on his face, and while there may not have been any judgment, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret. I’d never had a man look at me in the way that Dylan did when he thought of Maya. Whoever she was, she was a very special woman to him, and I wished for once that I’d found the one as well. It sounded like it was a childish thing, but there was still the hopeless romantic side of me that wanted that kind of love.
“I don’t know how to describe her. She just… makes me feel alive.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Yes, she has the blondest hair that I’ve ever seen, bright eyes and this laugh that melts me inside.”
He looked to me to see if I was paying attention and whether he had gone too far. I wouldn’t have thought so, but it was clear that he was in love with this married woman. As his doctor, though, I worried about what would happen if it didn’t work out the way he wanted. Would he be able to deal with losing her? Dylan was doing well, but after the death of his wife, he had many obstacles to go through just to make it through the day. It was the wrong time to be getting his heart broken, and I worried for him.
“She’s married, though. Does that worry you?”
Dylan shrugged, but I could tell that he was worried about it. How could he not be? If he was so in love with this woman, the idea of her taking off must be at the forefront of his mind. I’d dated a married man before, and I would never do it again. It was not the moral aspects, although that did bother me – it was the practical ones.
When a married man was with another person, it was because he was unhappy. But it wasn’t to say that the new love would be enough. If one person wasn’t enough, I didn’t see how adding another person into the mix was going to help anything. It just didn’t make any sense to me, and I hoped that Dylan could see the truth and reality of what was most likely going to happen.
“I know that she’s married, but it’s different. She loves me and I love her. That’s more than enough. I know that Maya and me are going to be together. She’s going to leave her rich husband and marry me.”
I nodded my head like I agreed, but I think we both knew that it was most likely not going to happen. He was in love with a woman who was already taken. I knew the feeling well, and my heart went out to him. I wished there was a way to cushion the blow when it came. Dylan had been through enough.