Page 75 of Crash

“This is not your fight.”

He said nothing for a minute. Was too busy inspecting his knuckles, theoretically with hisdoctorlens. “The guy assaultedyou. Now he’s threatening you. You honestly think I’ll let that go?”

“How have you made it this far in medicine with that temper? Last I checked, doctors weren’t supposed to moonlight as vigilantes.”

“Studying medicine never changed who I am, Tess.” The way he said my name, low and rough, sent an avalanche of ice down my body.

That’s when I realized how toxic I was being for him. I was his illness, infecting his world and his rational thinking, drawing him back to his teenage fighting days.

“I won’t let you torch your career over me,” I insisted.

Blake shook his head. “I need air.”

He tried to walk away from me, but unlike two years ago, this time, I didn’t let him. I followed him up a stairwell that led to a door, which led to, of all things, a rooftop terrace.

Seriously? Before me stretched a scene straight out of a movie: twinkling string lights draped between poles, ivory-wrapped railings framing the glittering Chicago skyline, and plush loungers arranged intimately around a stone fireplace. In another life, this would be the backdrop for something beautiful, like a proposal. Instead, the elegant setting was now the stage for what was shaping up to be the worst fight Blake and I had ever had.

“I don’t understand why you turned back into this alpha, vendetta guy, stealing that letter and beating something until your knuckles are bloody. Is that all this is? Saving me? Because I don’t need to be saved, Blake.”

Here I’d been, thinking about our almost kiss, wondering what it meant, wondering what-if. Again. Just like I’d done so many freaking times before, and he wasn’t thinking about any of that or me. He was thinking of victim Tessa, sick Tessa, who needed big bad Blake to put his cape on and rescue me.

Our feelings were on different frequencies, and it hurt.

“I don’t understand why you’re so upset?”

“You mean, aside from me being bad for you?” I snarled, cutting him off before he could come back with a retort. “This is what we’ve always done, Blake.” I gestured between us, my laugh bitter. “One minute, you make me feel like I’m the most important person in your world, moving me into your penthouse, vowing to solve my medical mystery. But I know what comes next.”

“And what’s that?”

“Every other time I’ve let my guard down, you blow me off and make it clear how you really feel about me.”

The moment the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I watched them hit like land mines, his shoulders tensing. Seconds later, his fists clenched, and he crossed the space between us in three long strides.

“You think I don’t care about you?”

I said nothing.

“You’re important to me, Tessa. How do you not know that by now?”

“Intellectually? Sure. But my heart has never been able to figure you out. Your constant push and pull, making me feel special one moment and invisible the next.”

“You matter more to me than anyone else in my life.”

“Really?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism from my voice. “Then why wouldn’t you return my calls? You made me feel humiliated!”

“Youstopped returningmycalls. I’d tried calling you, repeatedly, but after a while, I got the message loud and clear that you never wanted to talk to me again.”

I laughed, the sound harsh in the night air. “I didn’t answer your calls because before that, I’d sent youdozensof texts after that night I embarrassed myself.”

“Is that how you see it? You embarrassed yourself?”

“Two months,” I shot back. “For two months, you ignored me.”

“What was I supposed to say?”

“How about accepting my apology?”

“You had nothing to apologize for.”