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It was unspoken between us—she’d beenthere when my grandmother had passed away. She’d stayed up late with me after each tortured appointment, and she’d been there to let me cry or rant. She’d picked me up from the hospital where they had poked, assessed, drugged, and ultimately couldn’t save the only parental figure who had truly loved me. Gemma had been there with me while I watched my petite grandmother fade away, her soft face going skeletal and her precious hands curling in and shaking with the effort to stay on this earth with me. Gemma knew why I didn’t do hospitals. She knew why I didn’t do routine doctor’s visits.

It wasn’t logical. I knew that much. But I couldn’t seem to get around the hurdle that had built itself in my brain. The logic was on the other side, but I couldn’t reach it. So, as Gemma had astutely pointed out, I avoided it. Because unlike carbon dating calculations or silverpoint painting facts, trauma didn’t make sense. It didn’t have rhyme or reason. It didn’t have something I could see or grasp. But it did make me feel things, and I didn’t want to feel them. So, I ignored them instead.

We reached our building finally, and Gemma disappeared into the double glass doors and into the main foyer, giving me another useless directive to find a doctor “or else,” and I waved her off, hobbling to the car that I had parked along the curb in front of a meter. At the very least, I reasoned, I needed to accept my reality instead of hoping it would go away. Gemma was right—I practically had a PhD in Pain Avoidance at this point.

As I got in the car and headed for the pharmacy, I took stockof my situation. As far as the texts from Vaughn went, I was fairly certain that ignoring them was still the way to go. It was tempting to give in and find out what he wanted. A bizarre little part of me, a dancing, internal imp, wanted to know what he would say and what could have possibly brought him back from Italy early. The more reasonable, logical part of me knew that would be a mistake. Whatever it was, it would only dredge up pain.

As far as my knee went, I simply had to take better care of it. If I could get the damn splinter out, and possibly clean the area thoroughly, then the infection would subside and I might avoid a hospital stay. I could do this. I was absolutely, one hundred percent in control.

My mind wandered over to Cal. Alright, so maybe I wasn’t one hundred percent in control. A small percentage of me still whirled around like a runaway top about to skid off the table because that small part of my brain remembered how it had felt to be around Cal. The problem was, I liked Cal, and I’d liked that kiss in the hotel room even more…

I shook my head. No, that was one thing I would simply have to continue avoiding. I could only force myself to grow so much at a time. My psyche couldn’t take looking him in the face right now. His handsome, chiseled, green-eyed face.

I made it back to my apartment complex with a grocery bag full of supplies that would hopefully fix my knee. After hobbling across the expanse of grass and sidewalks, and nearly collapsing in the process, I managed to make it to my building.As I rounded the corner with a heavy limp, I drew up short.

A male figure leaned against the siding next to my door, and I recognized his distinctive, square build. Vaughn. He looked up as I approached slowly, doing my best to hide my limp. He wore his brown hair the way he always had, parted to the side and gelled away from his rectangular, age-lined face. Vaughn was fifteen years older than I was, but I didn’t remember it being quite as obvious as it was now. He still had rimless glasses that hadn’t changed, and he wore a button-down, short-sleeved shirt with a tropical print on the fabric.

Honestly, I had no idea what I’d seen in him.

“Hey, Ruth,” he smiled.

I gave him an incredulous frown when I reached him. “How did you know where I live?”

“You left it with the school registrar,” he said, hooking a thumb behind him like he was pointing even remotely in the right direction of Denver, Colorado.

“Yes, but how didyouget it?” I glared. I folded my arms over my ribbed tank top, waiting for his answer.

He scratched his arm. “Well, I’m technically still your PI.”

“The fuck you are.” I tightened my arms, but it did little to hold together the wounded pieces of me that were clamoring to escape and shatter to the pavement at his feet.You left me!They shouted.You abandoned me. You tricked me.

“Ruth, listen,” Vaughn said, holding out his hands for me. I tried to back away from him, but my knee buckled, and he reached out to catch me. His sweaty palms made contact withmy elbows, and to my horror, he managed to pull me close to his body. His brown eyes studied mine with worried intensity. “I know what I did was wrong. Hurtful, even. But you have to understand, I needed to protect our funding.”

“‘Our’ funding?” I hissed through a bubble of angry tears.

He ignored that, which was kind of his best talent. “I didn’t know how long the research would take, but it’s going better than I expected. So well, that I really do need research assistants. Real ones.”

“Right, because all the work I did for you was fake,” I replied icily.

Vaughn’s thin lips pressed into a hard line. He gave me a look over his glasses. “Don’t be unreasonable. You know what I’m saying.”

God, that patronizinglook. How had I endured that for so many years? What had I hoped to gain from him? “Let me go,” I bit out.

He complied but didn’t move far. “I need you, Ruth.”

My heart squeezed painfully, and I put my hand to the base of my throat. “Well, I don’t need you. Please leave me alone. I don’t care what the opportunity is—I pass. Goodbye.”

“Ruth,” he repeated, and this time his faded eyebrows met in an angry line. I tried to move past him to my door, but he took hold of my arm and pulled me back to him. “If I don’t get enough assistants, they will pull my funding. I need you,” he repeated.

“You are unbelievable.” I struggled to free myself from hisgrip, but he was surprisingly strong. “You should have thought that through in November.”

“It’s a five-year contract,” he gritted out. “A real one. I have it in my car and you can sign it right now.”

“Absolutely not,” I nearly shouted. My leg was on fire and my brain reeled, overcome with the impossibility of Vaughn even being here, let alone trying to coerce me into working with him again. “Get your hand off me. I’m not interested.”

“How many humanities doctorates who specialize in medieval art history do you think I’m going to be able to find?” Vaughn insisted, his voice rising and his grip tightening. The lines around his eyes had deepened, and his pale skin mottled with angry red splotches. “I’ve looked. You areit, which is why I asked you to get your degree in the first place.”

Of course. He hadn’t asked me to get the degree because he’d wantedmeat his side. He needed a warm body with the right piece of paper. “Then you should have respected me,” I shot back.