“I think it’s the only way to be sure that nothing goes awry.”
“Absolutely not,” I scoff. “I won’t.”
“Aw,” Dennis coos maddeningly. “That’s so sweet.” He throws up his hands. “By all means. Don’t. I’m sure she’ll be fine when the board finds out she lied on a disclosure form. Eventually. She’s, what, a year out of her residency? Your career might bounce back after a scandal like that, I mean, you are a genius, after all. I wonder if Mackenzie would be so lucky?”
Hearing Dennis say her name makes me want to break something, and I grip the arms of my chair to keep me grounded, just to ensure I don’t fly out of it and wrap my hands around his throat.
“She doesn’t deserve that,” I say through gritted teeth.
“I have no doubt. Which is why you’ll do the right thing and end things. Free and clear.”
“There’s no way that she will just accept me ending things out of the blue. She’s too smart for that.”
Dennis throws up his arms in another shrug, still looking pleased with himself. “I guess you’re just going to have to be very convincing then. Aren’t you.”
“I could tell the board about the blackmail,” I say as a last-ditch effort. “Mutually assured destruction is at play here.”
“Hardly,” he snorts. “You think they’ll care more that I found out about your little scheme and urged you to come clean more than they’ll care about your lies? You and I both know you don’t have a leg to stand on.”
I’m vibrating with rage and frustration and even fear at the idea of what he’s asking me to do, knowing he’s put me in an impossible position. Dennis senses my struggle, and possibly even my murderous intent—stepping backward toward the door with his hands outstretched.
“Just think it over,” he says. “I’ll give you tonight to decide.”
“If you hurt Mackenzie,” I warn, “I will rip you apart.”
Dennis flashes me one last smug grin as he opens my door, raising his shoulder in a nonchalant gesture. “That all depends on you, now, doesn’t it?” He gives me a pointed look. “I’ll expect an answer by tomorrow, Dr. Taylor.”
I count to ten in my head as he closes the door, trying to keep myself from chasing after him. Even without ever having felt violent urges like I’m feeling at the moment, I know if I touched him right now it would end with me in prison and him in his own blood. Every cell in my body is concerned only with protecting Mackenzie, the idea of her being in jeopardy sending my senses into overdrive.
I know that Dennis is right, that Mackenzie would certainly have a lot to say about his threats and would most likely kick his ass herself and throw her entire career away for my benefit, because that’s the kind of person she is—just as I know that’s something I can’t allow. Dennis’s taunts about her career being so new are one hundred percent valid; there is a good chance she wouldn’t ever recover from something like this. All her years of school, all her hard work . . . just gone. All because of me.
I don’t know how much time passes before I’m able to sink down into my chair, my rage ebbing and giving way to bone-deep defeat that makes my body feel heavy. It’s unfair that I’ve just opened myself up to another person, especially a person as special as Mackenzie, only to be told I have to give her up. And what’s more—that I have to break her heart in the process.
It’s a bitter reminder of all the reasons why I worked so hard to keep people at arm’s length for the entirety of my life leading up to the last few weeks—having wanted to avoid complications like this. I think I had actually deluded myself into thinking that I could have it all, that things would work out for the better, and I could have someone see me, actually see me, and keep them. I’m realizing now that it was nothing more than a fantasy. That I reached too high and now I’m paying the consequences. Strangely, I don’t care about any of the dangers that are looming over my head, not concerned in the slightest about what might happen to me.
Because all of it pales in comparison to the woman I’m being asked to give up.
23
Mackenzie
“Does it look straight?”
I hold the curtain rod as still as I’m able, my arms starting to burn as I wait for Gran’s approval.
“Mm,” I hear behind me. “Maybe a little more to the left.”
I groan, moving an inch on the step stool. “I’m buying you a level for Christmas.”
“You’re doing a fine job,” she assures me.
I roll my eyes, knowing she can’t see me do it. “Here?”
“Oh, that’s perfect,” she informs me. “Do you need the screws?”
I shake my head, pulling the pencil from my ear and marking on the wall where the rod holders will go. I step down from the stool after, dropping the rod gently against the pile of Gran’s new curtains on the floor.
“You’re gonna have to give me a minute,” I tell her, rolling my shoulder. “You had me holding that curtain rod for half an hour practically.”
Gran clicks her tongue. “You’re still young. You’re fine.”
“Still,” I grumble.
“Well, get your gripey little butt in the kitchen, and I’ll make you some coffee.”
“That sounds more like it.”
I leave the project that she tricked me into taking over at the sliding glass door—following her into the kitchen and plopping down at one of the padded stools at her kitchen island. She busies herself with the coffeepot, warming what’s left from the morning, pulling down two mugs from her cabinet.
I take the spare moment to check my phone, frowning when I notice that Noah still hasn’t replied to my text from this morning. I know he has work today, and that it’s not a big deal that he would be too busy to respond—so why do I keep checking like some twitterpated teenager? His text from last night had been pretty sparse too; he’d said something about being tired from a long day and told me he was going to bed, and that’s completely normal, expected even—it’s just me who’s being weird.
If I’m honest with myself, I’ve been weird for days. Weeks, even. Since we left the lodge and started doing things that felt very much not pretend. Between the date and spending the weekend together and cuddling on couches and the constantly growing desire to see him, to talk to him . . . everything feels unclear. I can’t seem to decide if what we’re doing is something we should keep doing. Not because I don’t want to—on the contrary, because I want it too much. I’ve been happy to hide in the bubble that was a limited agreement that would end the moment Noah left the hospital, but now in the face of that, after everything . . . Well. I’m definitely experiencing several of those complications that Noah had been so worried about.
“You’re going to stare a hole in the screen if you keep up like that,” I hear Gran say from across the counter.
I turn up my head abruptly. “What?”
“What’s got you so absorbed in your phone?”
“Oh.” I frown again, shaking my head. “Nothing. Just checking my texts.”