Page 23 of Finally Yours
I have many regrets, but she’s definitely the greatest of them. -Asher
Asher
A hand darts out from the supply closet and latches onto my jacket. I chuckle lightly. I guess Lyla is finally in a better mood. She’s been very moody ever since the care comment. I wince, thinking of it. I’m still embarrassed about that. I’ll make it up to her though. I promise.
“Someone is in a good mood,” I say jokingly while turning on the light.
A hand grasps my tie and pulls me closer. “I certainly am,” Madeline whispers seductively.
Shit. Shit and double shit. Why this woman? Why now?
Madeline’s brown eyes look up at me with their usual manipulative light in them. “You’re looking good Asher, very good.” Her long red fingernail rakes up and down my chest. I suck in a breath and try not to curse out loud.
I push her hand away carefully. “You look very nice too, Madeline. What are you doing here?”
She sends me a coy smile. “I’m here on a consult, but I’m mostly here to see you. To tell you that I’m still available and I’m ready for you to apologize and come back with me.”
I try very hard not to laugh.She’s ready for me to apologize?
“I caught you in bed with an intern, Madeline, and I have nothing to apologize for. I don’t even blame you for it. We weren’t serious about each other and we never going to be.” Madeline was a diversion for a while, someone to take to events and to take to bed. At first, she seemed like a good match, at least for mutual use of each other, until I realized what a cold-blooded snake she was. She was the kind of doctor who reveled in making their residents cry and had no gentleness to her. She cared very little about her patients except what data they could get her for the papers she wrote. She wanted prestige and recognition. Whereas most of us got into medicine to help people, I truly believe Madeline got into her field because she wanted the attention of being the best neurosurgeon ever. Accolades came well before patients.
She runs a hand over my cheek and this time I don’t hide my distaste. I turn my cheek away and take a step back, feeling my back touch the shelves behind me. “That was a mistake. One I regret very much. But it was a silly reason for you to break up with me and I shouldn’t have left here without you. We’re good together, so good together.” She lowers her voice to that seductive tone again. Where once that tone of voice would have made me hard as a rock, now it makes me want to run as far and as fast from her as I can.
“Madeline, I don’t want to rehash this with you. Neither of us were in love with each other. We were together for convenience sake, and convenience sake only. I’ve actually…” I pause and take a deep breath. I’m not sure if I want to involve my new life in the shit show that was my old life, but since Madeline is so persistent, I decide to go ahead. “I’ve actually met someone that I care about a lot. I’m in a stable relationship with her.”
Care? There goes that shitty word again.
Her grin is so menacing that I find myself taking another step back, but instead ram up against the shelves behind me,stuck between her and the stacks of supplies. “Care about her?” She flicks her hand to the side. “That means nothing. You’re probably just hard up for a good time in bed, but no one will ever be as good as me…remember? Remember how good we were?”
She presses her lips against my collarbone, and I immediately push her away. The truth is, there was a time we were good in bed together, but I mostly remember the cold feeling I got after. And then towards the end, everything was simply…clinical.
I’ve never felt more alive than when I’m making love to Lyla. Her body and mine move in perfect rhythm and when I look into her blue eyes…there’s no other feeling like it. There’s nothing cold about it. It’s the warmest feeling possible, like she’s everything in my whole world wrapped into one person.
My head snaps back so fast I hit the shelf behind me. “I’m in love with her.” I practically shout the words.
Madeline’s eyes widen. “No, you’re not. You just said you care about her. Those are two very different things. You never said it, but you were in love with me. You were always in love with me.”
I shake my head and then feel a moment of sympathy when I see a sheen of tears in her eyes. “No, Madeline, I wasn’t. I’m sorry, but I never was. I never said those words to you, but I’m sorry if you even thought that was a possibility.”
The sneer that crosses her face makes her look almost ugly. She’s always been so elegant, so distant, but now sparks fly from her eyes. “You’re an idiot, Asher. What you feel is infatuation, not love.” She cocks her head to the side. “It’s that idiot nurse, isn’t it, the one who is so Pollyanna, little miss Lilly or something?”
“Lyla,” I say softly. “Her name is Lyla.”
“You’re not in love with her!”” she shrieks. “She’s barelyout of high school. She could never have with you what we have. She could never love you the way I do.”
Her fingernails dig against my skin as she presses her hand on my chest. “You know you love me, Asher. You know you do. What we have is special.”
I almost snort, but I catch myself. Madeline has obviously become a little unhinged and obsessed. “I’m sorry, Madeline, but that’s just not true. You’re a very lovely woman, but just not the woman for me.”
I step to the side, eyeing the door. Now that I’ve said the words, I want to shout them from the rooftops. Most importantly, I want to let Lyla know how much I love her and how wrong I was not to just say the words before.
Madeline tugs at my arm and then pushes me up against the shelf again. She catches me off guard as she pulls at my neck. “You’ve forgotten how good we can be. How good we will be. Let me remind you.”
Before I realize it, she’s smashing her lips against mine in crude fashion. I struggle to push her away, but not before I hear a gasp form the doorway.
When I finally am able to wrench free from her claws, I look to my left. Lyla stands there in shock with her hand covering her mouth. Her eyes are full of tears.
“I…I’m sorry. I just came to…never mind,” Lyla blurts out and then quickly turns to run away.
