That had been overwhelming, intense, too much for a heart to take when things fell apart.
She wasn’t so naive as to think relationships lasted forever. Not anymore. Just look at most of the people she knew. Separated. Divorced. Achingly single.
Give her good old dependable Richard.
Sure, he didn’t light any fires or even smell half as good as Lucas, but he wasn’t a stick of dynamite burning at both ends, either.
“You smell nice, Emily.”
Not something she expected to hear Lucas say. She misstepped and probably scuffed the black Italian leather dress shoes he wore. She didn’t care. If she stomped his toes a dozen times, he deserved each and every smash.
“I don’t know what you expect me to say.” She didn’t look up at him, just kept her eyes focused above his shoulders.
Her gaze collided with Richard’s unhappy one.
Great. Trouble in paradise. Well, not paradise, but...trouble in Just Okay Land?
She inhaled sharply, then frowned at how her senses were overcome by Lucas. How could she have forgotten how good he smelled? Not that he wore cologne. At least, he hadn’t in the past. Did he now? Maybe the light spicy scent was his aftershave? Or maybe his bodywash? Or maybe some expensive and pheromone-filled fragrance that guaranteed to drive women wild?
Not that he was driving her wild. He wasn’t. Crazy did not equate to wild. Just...well, he smelled nice, too. And felt strong and solid next to her. Yes, her heart was beating wildly, but that really was just crazy.
“Honestly, I don’t expect you to say anything. Nor did I mean to say it. The words just slipped out, but they are true. You do smell good. You always did.” His breath brushed against her temple with soft, moist heat that prickled her skin with goose bumps. Why was he holding her so close? Why was she letting him?
She took a step back to put distance between their bodies. She hated that she reacted to him in any way.
If only every nerve cell in her body had quickly bored with Lucas.
“I didn’t ask you for the walk down memory lane.” The last thing she wanted was more memories. “You’re the one who has instigated all this. You have no one to blame but yourself.”
“That’s true.” His palm rested at the curve low on her back and pulled her close to him as they moved gently to the music. “I am the one who instigated our dance.”
Emily’s eyes narrowed. Had he bribed the emcee to announce the date-winner dance? Looking at him, she knew he had requested the dance.
“Why?” Did she even want to know? Probably not, but at least if she knew what he was up to, she could prepare a defense. She needed a defense.
“I could beat around the bush, but that’s never been my style.”
No, he’d always been blunt about whatever was on his mind. Like when he’d told her to move out of their apartment, for instance.
“This job at Children’s is important to me.”
His job. Of course this was about his job.
“I want everything to go as smoothly as possible, for nothing to stand in the way of my accomplishing the greatest good for our patients.”
“You think I’d stand in the way of our patients getting good care because of you? How dare you imply that I’d ever not put my patients’ needs before our petty past.” She quit dancing. Probably because her feet felt heavy as concrete blocks. Her jaw dropped somewhere near the basement floor of the high-rise building. She stared up at him, wishing she could erase the past month, erase his having reentered her life. She’d been fine without him. She’d been good, healthy, content in her Just Okay Land relationship.
Lucas’s gaze didn’t waver from hers. “I don’t think you’d intentionally do anything that would put our patients at risk.”
“You think I might do something unintentionally?” she asked incredulously.
“No. What I think is that how you feel about me influences how you respond in front of our patients and coworkers. That could be problematic. That’s why I bought your date, so we could talk and forge some type of friendship between us.”
“You’re crazy.” He was crazy. Crazy to be at Children’s. Crazy to be at the fund-raiser. Crazy to have bid on her auction. Crazy to be on the dance floor with her in his arms. Divorced people didn’t do this. She was sure of it. “You and I will never be friends.”
“We at least need to forge some type of coexistence. There’s too much tension and you run every time I come near.”
“Perhaps you failed to get the memo, but I don’t like you. Of course I leave when you’re near.”
“You think others haven’t picked up on the tension between us?”
Why would anyone have paid attention to how she reacted to the new doctor? Before tonight. Now, after he’d bid such a stupid high amount, she suspected lots of people would be watching them to see if any sparks developed on their “date.”
“I don’t want you here,” she snapped, wondering if anyone would notice if she stomped her high heel into his toes. His absurdity deserved a little pain. A lot of pain.
“I understand that,” he clarified. “Knowing you were at Children’s was my only hesitation. A mistake from five years ago shouldn’t stand in the way of my dream job. I want to make peace with you.”
She laughed. A louder than it should have been, close to hysteria laugh. “Let me get this straight. You bought my date because you want to make peace with me because of your dream job?”
His jaw worked back and forth. “Something like that.”
Her hands went to her hips. “What if I already had my dream job and you pursuing your dream job is ruining mine? Why should I have to give up my dream job so you can pursue yours?”
“It’s not as if I expect you to give up your job, Emily. Listen to what I am saying. I want us to coexist, maybe become friends.” As if to prove his point, he pulled her back to him and began to sway to the music. She let him for the sole reason that standing in the middle of the dance floor with her hands on her hips squaring up to the man who’d just bought her date was just asking for people to stare. Anyone paying the slightest attention to her and Lucas was the last thing she wanted. Already, Richard couldn’t take his eyes off them.
Obviously, Lucas didn’t see a thing wrong with what he was saying. Or doing. That he was turning her world topsy-turvy. He thought it was okay to slow dance with his ex-wife and suggest they become friends. The nerve.
She closed her eyes, prayed she’d wake up and find the past month had just been a bad dream. “I cannot believe this.”
“Why is it unbelievable that I want us to be friends?”
“We can never be friends,” she hissed.
“Why not?”
“We were never friends to begin with.”
“We were.”
She shook her head. “You were never my friend.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, because once upon a time you were my best friend.”
His words gutted her and every cell in her body weighed down with lead, making movement almost impossible.
“Why couldn’t you have just stayed in the past?”
“Because Children’s offered me the position of medical