Page 80 of Theirs to Desire (Club M: Boxed Set)

KAI

I lay awake in bed for a long time. My thoughts keep returning to Avery, to what she’d said in today’s stress management workshop. I find it helpful to isolate what it is I’m worrying about.

I’m worried that I’m never going to be able to operate again.

Follow that thought through to its worst-case scenario, Avery’s voice urges. What’s your fear?

That my life won’t have any purpose. For ten years, ever since Avery left us in Dublin, I’ve poured myself into work. I don’t have much of a life apart from surgery. No real hobbies. Maddox and I are close friends, but he’s almost never in town. I don’t date. I’ve avoided commitment.

Without work, there’s nothing. My future stretches out in front of me, empty and barren. A cold wasteland.

There’s a tight knot in my chest. I take a deep breath and force myself to face my fears. Okay, I tell myself, if you can’t operate, what can you do?

I could teach.

I consider that idea, intrigued by the potential of that option. Georgetown is a teaching hospital, and I like the idea of passing on everything I’ve learned to the next generation of doctors.

Am I really okay with never cutting again?

I exhale and admit the truth. I’m not ready to give it up. I want the tremors to go away, and I want to get back to the OR. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.

Face your fear.

What if the next patient dies on the operating table?

The logical part of me knows that’s not very likely to happen. Melody Simon’s death was horrible, but it hadn’t been my fault. After days of avoiding the autopsy report, I’d finally broken down and read it. The patient had had a stroke during the surgery.

Life is random. Unpredictable. And as much as I’d like to control everything, I cannot. Sometimes, even seemingly healthy patients die.

From today’s turnout at my party, it’s clear that while I’ve been blaming myself for Melody’s death, none of my peers do. Rajesh Sharma, had, in fact, come up to me during a quiet moment and asked for my help with an upcoming surgery. “It’s tricky,” he’d said. “I could use your insight.”

My throat is still tight. My heart still races and a sense of inexplicable anxiety fills me. If it’s not my hand tremors, what is it?

Dig deeper.

I could lose Avery all over again.

I sit up, a shock of clarity jolting through my mind. My fear has twisted on itself, mutated, gained strength.

I don’t ever let myself think about that dark time, but the year after she’d left had been the worst year of my life.

I still had a year of my residency, and I’d been forced to stay in the city. I had to find a new route to work so I wouldn’t walk past the King’s Arms every day. Every bartender in London reminded me of Avery. Everywhere I looked, I was faced with the magnitude of my loss.

Maddox had had the luxury of leaving London and running away from the memories, but I couldn’t. I had to stay. Endure.

When I wasn’t at the hospital, I was drinking myself into a stupor. Fucking any woman who would have me. I was trying to drown my sorrows in a combination of cheap booze and easy pussy.

I’d become more disciplined when I returned home.

I’d put Avery out of my mind with ruthless determination, and I’d been determined to pull myself out of the self-destructive spiral I’d fallen into.

Xavier Leforte was opening a sex club, and he’d been looking for seed money.

I’d given him some, and I’d sought refuge at Club M.

In the tightly controlled atmosphere of the club, I’d allowed myself brief, transient pleasure.

But never anything lasting. Never anything that mattered.

Now Avery’s back. I thought I’d be able to keep her at arm’s length, but that’s a joke. I introduced her to my co-workers today. I brought her to my house.

It was never about sex with Avery. It was always more.

I should have left the instant she walked into Club M. I hadn’t. Now Avery’s in my heart again, and I’m terrified. I remember only too well how anchor-less I’d felt when she left us. I remember only too vividly the pain, the heartache, the blinding, gaping sense of loss.

Face your fear, Avery had said earlier today. The worst-case scenario might not be as bad as you think.

She’s wrong in this. Losing her would ruin me.