Regrets are wishes unfulfilled. After thirty years on this earth, I have more regrets than fingers and toes, and most of them are connected to one man. The one I pushed away. And now I’m alone. No man, no children, no hope for more.

They say loneliness is a choice, and I guess that’s true. People flit in and out of my life like buzzing bees sipping the nectar from my sweet spot, leaving emptiness behind. He used to fill that space with joy, laughter, and what I thought was love. Believed in it, even. Until it was gone. Now, there’s nothing left but an empty husk, a shell of the woman I used to be. A woman I wish I could be again.

My therapist says I have PTSD from the fire and resulting injury, and maybe he’s right. Everyone else seems to have the answers to my problems, but I’m the one stuck in hell. I’m the one who wakes to pain shooting up my side, down my right arm, and out my fingertips each and every night. And that’s when I realize, once again, how alone I truly am. There’s no man to wake up and hold me close, murmuring sweet nothings in my ear until I relax and fall back into a peaceful slumber.

The days I could count on a man to hold me within the warmth of his embrace are over. One of my many regrets. Still, I wouldn’t change my decision. He’s better off without me. Or at least the broken, hollow shell I’ve become.

Not that it matters. He didn’t love me when I was physically and mentally perfect. He definitely wouldn’t be able love me now. So why can’t I let go? Free him from my mind, my heart, and my life. Why does my happiness hinge on the one that got away?

Three years is a long time to pine for someone you purposely forced out of your life. Three long years of burn treatments, grafting, rehabilitation, and therapy. Therapy. Such a joke. Dr. Madison can’t fix me. Nothing can. Every new procedure gives me hope I will look and feel like I did before the night my entire life changed. They never do. Sometimes I get patches of smoother skin. A little less scarring here, a little more there. The grafts leave their own scars, but those are better hidden. Still, I’m not me.

Kathleen Bennett, the real Kat, was figuratively burned to a crisp in the fire. Everything that made me the woman I was, the person I was proud to be—happy-go-lucky, in love with life, in love with Carson Davis… That woman died. In her place is a bitter, scarred woman with a chip on her shoulder and an unquenchable desire to disappear.

Maybe my answer is to leave, become someone else. But I could never leave them. My soul sisters are my lifeblood. They are the roots that grew this tree into something I was once proud of. Now, this tree of life feels like a shriveled-up mess of dead leaves and scrawny, unattractive branches. Still, the roots binding me to those three women go deep, far deeper than an outsider could imagine. Our connection was born of love, laughter, sacrifice, hardship, pain, and rebirth. They understand me, even the screwed-up version I am today. And they won’t stop trying to bring back the person I used to be—the one hiding under the abraded flesh.

Three years and I haven’t been able to find her. I worry I never will.

“Kathleen, are you ready?” rumbles the voice I’ve come to count on. The one person I’ve been able to be completely honest with, Chase Davis, my soul sister Gillian’s husband, knocks on my bedroom door. “Are you decent? We’re going to be late if you aren’t ready.”

“Hold your horses. And yes, I’m decent. Come in.” I sigh and fluff my bangs. Not that it matters. Nobody will be looking at me. And if they do, all they will see is a disfigured monster.

He enters just the threshold of my bedroom, pushing open the door. His navy suit is tailored to fit his frame perfectly. I made sure of that. My new men’s line is coming together nicely. The only thing in my life actually going well, considering I’m unable to use my right hand for more than squeezing a stress ball in therapy. I will concede the hand is getting stronger, but I’ll never be able to do the detailed work I was known for in my past life as a costume designer. That ship has long sailed, never to return again.

“Kathleen, you try my patience.” Chase lifts his arm and taps his Rolex silently.

I smile and grab my purse from the nightstand with my left hand. “And your wife and children don’t?”

His brow furrows, but his lips tip up at the edges. Speaking of Gillian always makes Chase smile. He can’t help it. My feisty redheaded bestie and their adorable twins rule his world, and he loves every second of it.

He puckers his lips, a small smirk still present. “Be that as it may, we have to go, or we’ll be late for the test results. I’m eager to hear what this new technology has to offer.”

Chase Davis, my optimist. Ever since the fire, he’s made it his personal responsibility and goal to fix me. Well, not just me, but all of his wife’s soul sisters. He helped Bree with her yoga studio and Maria with her apartment for the first year, until she hooked up with Eli. But for me he’s been more. My own personal hero, though I’ve never said those words to him. For the most part, I pretend what he’s doing is putting me out. Then I don’t have to cop to what I really feel.

Relief.

He’s there in ways I can’t accept from my girlfriends. I don’t know why. Chase has wormed his way into my broken side, and for him I allow the invasion. With the girls, no way. I need them to see me as the strong woman they think I am. The illusion of strength is one of the only things I have left.

In the beginning, when I was first released from the burn center, I refused Chase’s assistance, wanting to do it all on my own. Until I realized I couldn’t. He stopped in to visit me at my ramshackle apartment across town after my second set of treatments. Thank God he did. He found me on the floor, unable to move. The pain in my arm and side was excruciating. I had been fading in and out of consciousness. Turned out one of my grafts was infected. He pulled me off the floor, took me to the hospital, and stayed with me until I was discharged. Upon release, I found out Chase had pulled a fast one. He’d moved me into the building across the street, where he had planned to move Maria after her apartment was trashed by her ex. The apartment she ended up not needing because she moved in with her new husband, Elijah Redding.

Chase Davis, billionaire, alpha, and ferociously protective of those he considers “family,” had put the smackdown on my life. He was not leaving me to fend for myself. The new place came with a shiny new set of in-home nurses who stopped in several times a day to dress and redress my wounds, masseuses for muscle therapy, and weekly appointments with Dr. Madison, my shrink. The same psychiatrist Gillian and Chase had gone to during their own ordeal with the madman who put me in the position I’m in today.

“Really, Chase, they aren’t going to say anything we haven’t heard before. The tissue is too damaged. You’ve had too many surgeries. There’s not much left to work with. Blah, blah, blah. More tests, more trials…” I mimic a person talking using my good hand.

Chase grips my elbow and leads me out of my apartment, down the elevator, and into the waiting limo with a firm, unrelenting hold. He’s irritated. Big whoop. Nothing new here.

“Hey, Austin, how goes it?” I ask the bodyguard holding open the door of the pristine black stretch limousine.

“Perfect as a peach, Ms. Bennett,” he says in his kind southern drawl, tipping his head formally.

I chuckle and slip into the car, sliding over to the side so Chase can get in.

“Where’s Jack?” I ask.

Chase adjusts his cuff links and tugs the cuffs of his dress shirt. “With my wife. Playdate.”

I snort-cough. “You sent your wife and toddler children with the linebacker to a playdate?” I can barely hold back the bubble of laughter forcing its way up my throat.

He turns his head, a dark-cappuccino-colored lock of hair falling handsomely over his forehead. Reminds me of the blond ones I used to brush off Carson’s brow. Chase’s blue eyes sear mine with a dose of sincerity. “This surprises you? Even after all these years?”

I shake my head. “Not really. It’s just, there hasn’t been a threat to any of us in years, and yet you act like we’re always under siege.”

He lifts a long leg and crosses it over his knee. His Salvatore Ferragamo black leather shoes are polished to perfection. Even his socks are lush.

Socks. Hmm. Maybe I should pair socks with suits so that men can have a perfect match? I pull out my voice recorder and click it on. “Match socks to suits. Look into fabric and colors for the current line.”

Chase’s lips twitch as he focuses on his phone.

“You know, you don’t have to go to these appointments with me. It’s not your job, nor am I your charity case anymore. I’m making top dollar on my clothing designs, and being in business with Chloe has changed my career for the better. You’ve really done enough.” This is the same argument we’ve had at least ten times before.

He pockets his phone, inhales loudly, and cocks his body to the side. He stretches one of his long arms over the back of my seat. “Kathleen, you are not my charity case. You are my friend. Aside from Carson, my best friend.”

Carson. Even the mention of my former boyfriend and love of my life makes me wince.

“Besides, I made a promise I intend to keep,” he adds solemnly.

I frown. “A promise? That’s the first you’ve ever mentioned any promise.”

His lips shift into a flat line, and he turns back, facing the front of the car. “No matter. We are moving forward and seeing this through.”

I grab his biceps. Hard as steel. Damn, the dude works out. He’s not huge like my soul sister Maria’s Eli, but he’s definitely built to please a woman aesthetically and physically. And since he’s knocked up my best friend once again, she obviously appreciates those attributes regularly. Lucky girl.

“Tell me about the promise.”

He quirks his head toward me. “Maybe one day I will. For now, let’s just hope for the best—”

“And expect the worst. Yeah, yeah. I know. You’ve said it a hundred times over the past three years. Still, it never gets any easier to hear that I’m going to be deformed for the rest of my life.”

Chase grips my right hand softly and closes his eyes. It’s comforting that he’s not afraid to touch me, even in the platonic way a brother would. Like the girls, he’s not afraid of my scars, nor does he see me any differently. Nevertheless, he knows I see me differently, and that’s what he’s committed himself to setting right.

“You know, one day you’re going to have to accept what happened to us. To Bree, Phillip, Maria, your wife, your mom, you. None of it was your fault. Danny McBride was a sick and twisted individual who hurt all of us in ways we can’t ever change. But he’s dead, Chase. Dead.”

Chase sighs. “Along with Thomas, the yoga intern, and a host of others from the bombing. I know I didn’t make him obsessed with my wife and her friends, but I understand why he was. I have the same obsession with Gillian. I’d do anything for her and our children.”

I smile, knowing his brand of adoration runs deep. “Love is the healthy form of obsession, and you have it in spades. But you can’t blame yourself for the actions of another.”

“Had I been able to stop him sooner…” he starts, but this time I cut him off by squeezing his hand.

He looks down at our clasped hands and smiles huge.

“Chase, stop it…”

“I felt that,” he gushes, cutting me off. “You just squeezed the hell out of my hand!” His blue eyes twinkle with excitement.

I glance down and realize I’m still holding his hand. My scarred one is gripping his golden, flawlessly manicured one.

This time, I grin. “I did, didn’t I?”

He nods. “You sure did. See, the day is already getting better. Gillian is going to be thrilled.”

I let his hand go, lift my arm up, and squeeze my hand into a fist. The skin stretches unnaturally tight over the sunken-in holes and bumpy grafts, but I’ve made a complete fist. First time in three years I’ve been able to do that.

“My mobility has improved.”

“Looks like the oral treatment that rebuilds tissue, joint mobility, and muscle strength is working. Good news indeed.”

---

The good news kept coming too. The doctor told me I’d improved mobility by twenty percent in the past six months on the new medication. I may never have the fine motor skills I once had with the limb, but things like holding a glass of water, being able to grip a plate and put it into the dishwasher, and holding a baby are all on the horizon—things I wasn’t able to do before, things the average person takes for granted. Every time I had to shoo away Gillian or Bree passing me their children, I was reminded of what I’d lost. And now, now I may have that chance back.

“Amazing. We need to celebrate.” Chase opens his phone. “Baby, Kathleen’s got some great news to share. Tell Bentley to set dinner for the crew.”

I place my hand to his shoulder and shake my head. “Just us tonight. Okay? I don’t want to get the girls’ hopes up.” I pat his forearm.

Chase’s shoulders drop down. “Make that an extra plate for one. Yes, Kathleen will explain when we arrive. No, she doesn’t want Maria and Bree called. Not at this time. I know they’d enjoy hearing good news too, but we’re going to let her handle this news as she deems appropriate…” He glances at me, squinting.

I know he’s unhappy that I don’t want to celebrate. This is good news. It is. But we don’t know enough about it to truly spread the word. Bree and Maria would be more than ecstatic, and I can’t handle another letdown. Not now. Not when Maria just got married and is blissfully enjoying the honeymoon phase of her marriage, and Bree and Phillip are focusing on their home design.

“Gigi for now, the rest later. Okay?” I whisper.

Chase nods curtly at me and then speaks into his phone. “We’ll be there momentarily.”

When Chase hangs up, he presses his thumb and forefinger into his temples. “Kathleen, I do not understand this need to distance yourself from everyone. It’s not only hurting you, it’s putting undo pressure on my wife. In her condition…”

“Her condition? She’s pregnant, not dying.” I remind him, “This is my life, Chase. Mine. Not yours. How you handle a situation may differ from how I do, but this news is mine to tell or not.”

He sighs. “You have spent the better part of three years pushing everyone you love away. I’ve been there, done that. Not only is it unhealthy, it just makes you miserable. And you are miserable. I can see it every time I look into your eyes. You miss him. You miss them.” His words are rough and grating, hitting right on their mark.

I tighten my mouth and clench my teeth. “You have no right to bring him up. You promised you wouldn’t.”

“Well, like you, he’s fucking up his life.” He lets out a long breath of air.

“What do you mean? What’s going on with Carson?”

My heart starts to pound a mile a minute. The mere thought of something being wrong with the man who owns my soul is enough to send me straight into a fully loaded panic attack. I inhale and exhale, pushing down the pressure building in my chest that’s slowly squeezing my heart one centimeter at a time.

Chase doesn’t realize my distress because he’s looking out the window, scowling.

“If you hadn’t left him, pushed him away repeatedly, he would have never put himself in this situation. I blame you.”

I blame you.

“Excuse me?” My ire fires right alongside the panic, squashing it down.

“Something’s off about the woman he’s seeing now. Really off.” Chase shakes his head.

I roll my eyes. “He’s had women before. He’ll get past it like he always does.”

Chase huffs and clenches his jaw so hard a muscle in his jaw ticks. “I’m not so sure you’re right.”

“What could be so bad about a woman Carson is fucking? He’s a virile man. Believe me, I used to be the recipient of all that virility.”

He tightens both hands into fists on top of his knees. “I’m telling you, Kathleen, I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“So talk to him about it.” I groan and flick my hand. This topic is killing me one word at a time. Imagining Carson with any woman is like deliberately driving a stake through my own heart.

“I have,” he says between clenched teeth. “He’s avoiding me. Avoiding everyone. Pulling a you, actually.”

I sigh long and loud, letting my own frustration out. “There’s nothing I can do.”

He scoffs. “Sure there is. You can stop this shit you have going and take back your man. And don’t pretend he’s not the man for you, because I call bullshit. Before the fire, you two were the happiest any of us had ever seen you.”

“Chase…” I warn. “Bringing up the past does not help the future.”

“That’s asinine, and you and I both know it. Tell me you don’t love him still.”

“I don’t love him,” I state instantly. I’ve gotten so good at this lie, it comes out fast with absolutely no hint of emotion.

“Liar,” he growls. “You’re going to regret not winning him back.”

“I already do,” I admit with a drawn-out sigh.

“Then do something about it.”

With a heavy heart, I focus on the destroyed flesh of my hand, the same destruction that goes all the way up my arm, over my shoulder, and down my ribcage. I’ll always be severely scarred. The grafting options and skin-smoothing surgeries are complete. They’ve done what they can. Now it’s all about physical therapy. Getting back additional mobility in the arm and hand. Applying copious amounts of lotion across the rippled flesh to keep it soft and pliant. Staying out of the sun helps but won’t make the scars go away. My body is no longer one a man wants to touch, to run his hands over in the throes of passion.

I shake my head. No, he doesn’t deserve to have his eyes accosted by the reflection I have to face in the mirror every day. It’s disgusting, and I’d rather him remember me the way I was. Beautiful, unmarred, pristine in mind and body.

“No. He’s better off without me. I can’t be what I was. I’m not the woman he cared for.”

“That’s not true. You are the same woman you’ve always been. A beautiful, talented, kindhearted woman with so much to offer a man. I am a man. I’m also Carson’s cousin and best friend. I know what he wants and needs—it’s you. The you then, now, and what you’ll be in the future. Trust me on this. Your scars do not matter. When love is involved, those flaws become a part of what your man loves about you. Gillian’s stretch marks from our children? I love them. I kiss them all the time. They prove my children were there. My son and daughter are alive because of those scars. I encourage her to wear them proudly.”

“You’re not a woman. You don’t get it.”

“No. I’m a man who loves his wife. Every part of her is mine. Scars and all. And Kathleen, she has many from before me I’d love to erase, but they show the path she’s taken to get to me and our life together. To her they are precious, and to me they are proof that sometimes you have to go through hell to get to heaven. She taught me that.”

“The love you have with my best friend is beautiful, but Carson and I never had that.” I swallow down the lump forming in my throat.

“You did once.”

I blink, close my eyes, and flatten myself against the back of the limo seat. “You see, Chase, that’s where you’re wrong. Carson never loved me. He never once said it. Even though I said it all the time.” I laugh dryly. “He even requested I say it to him over and over. Adored hearing it from my lips. Would ravish me with kisses and more every time. But not even once did he say it to me. And when I asked why, all he could muster was ‘I can’t. Please don’t ask me to.’ So there you go.”

“So, you gave up?” The accusation is thick in his tone.

“Yeah, after everything, what I had to offer, repeated treatments, painful surgeries, and long recovery times… If he didn’t love me before, he could never love me after. I took a calculated risk and it failed. Every single time I pushed him away, he never once uttered those three little words. I begged him to say them. All he did was cry, break down, and shake his head no. I can’t be with a man who refuses to tell me he loves me.”

“I know he does though,” he says softly and with intention.

“Words, Chase. I needed the words. He didn’t have them. I no longer have them for him. I have to move on. Obviously he has.”

He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “What can I do?”

I cover his other hand with mine. “Move on. I have.”

“Have you?”

“Yes.” A bald-faced lie to one of the kindest, most loving men I know.

“You really need to talk to Dr. Madison about this lying trait you picked up. I’m not buying it and neither are your friends. Regardless, I’ll let you have your play…for now. We got great news today, and it’s time to celebrate.”

The limo pulls up to the curb in front of the Chase Industries building, where he and Gillian live on the top floor.

“Bring on the bubbly.” I plaster a fake smile on my face, knowing I need to put it on for Gigi. She’ll worry if I don’t.

Chase helps me out of the car and leads me through the building and up the elevator.

Gillian is waiting at the entrance with Carter on her hip. Claire bolts into her father’s arms the second he steps off the elevator.

“Daddy! Daddy! We have news too!” She grabs Chase’s face and forces him to look directly at her.

“Oh yeah? What’s that, baby?” He looks into Claire’s crystal-blue eyes, her red curls so like her mother’s auburn locks bouncing around her shoulders. “Auntie Ria says I’m going to get a bruh-ver! You hafta to take him back!”

Chase laughs. “You didn’t go to the doctor without me, did you, babe?” He poses the question to Gillian.

“Nope. But I did have lunch with Maria, and she did her voodoo hand trick and says it’s a boy. She was right last time, so anything is possible.” Gigi shrugs.

“Another boy, eh?” He grins, his chest puffing out in pride.

“Auntie Kitty!” Claire realizes I’m standing next to her father. “I’m getting a bruh-ver. Do you want it?” She crinkles her sweet little nose.

I pet her cheek with my good hand. Under no circumstances do I touch the children with the disfigured one. If they were scared of me, for any reason…

A shiver slinks up my spine. I’d never survive that. My pseudo-nieces and one nephew are my main sources of joy nowadays. “Honey, I can’t have your new brother.”

She frowns. “But I ask-ted for a sister. This is not fair.” Her little pink lips shift into the cutest pout.

“Honey, life isn’t fair. It really isn’t.”

In more ways than one.