Page 54 of Lost in Love

“Talk it over with her please.”

Katherine shook her head. “I can’t make her be the one to end our relationship, but she will if I tell her, and quite rightly so. What if she ends up resenting Harry for coming between us? Even if she did choose me over him, which she wouldn’t, then she’d be risking my licence to practice and throwing her father at another doctor, and she will never rest easy with that. We just can’t be together, and I need to find a way to tell her that makes it a clean break. There’s only one way to do that: I’ll tell her I took on too much too soon; that I wasn’t yet ready for another relationship.”

“Any ideas who reported you?”

Katherine genuinely couldn’t think of anyone. “Most likely a homophobic gossip.”

“I imagine there are a lot of them in a village like this.”

A new thought crossed Katherine’s mind and soured her stomach. “Shit, her father has his medication review in a few days.”

“Better get it done before then. If you’re sure, I would strongly urge you to talk to her.”

“You don’t know her like I do; she’s not as strong as she makes out. I’m going to go back to Adrian straight away and tell him to deny it; then if the GMC do inform Anna about the complaint against us, I would have removed the burden of choice between Harry’s welfare and being with me.”

“Well, I suppose your decision is in some way admirable: you’ll happily give up the best thing that has happened to you in a long while just so you can make sure she’s not stressing about her father’s care.”

Katherine hoped if Anna did ever find out that she would see it made sense. She was hopeful they could at least remain friends, as painful as it would be.