Never again.
She would never throw her heart back into the ring like she had during her time with James. Tyler had known the score and had been willing to wait for her to trust him fully. When she’d realized she’d never be able to give him what he needed, she’d broken it off.
And she missed his friendship. Especially now. Especially when confronted with a man who still had the power to wound her with the tiniest of barbs.
Like his unwillingness to work on those who so desperately needed his skills?
Yes.
But there’d been something behind his words. His relationship with his parents had always been rocky at best. And at the very end, when he’d broken off their engagement, he’d said something about his father. The loathing in his voice would have shocked her under normal circumstances but the agony she’d felt in realizing their relationship was over had drowned any other thoughts for a very long time.
Had the man threatened to cut James from his will for marrying a shy do-gooder who shunned the celebrity scene?
Somehow she couldn’t picture James caring one way or the other. He’d made his own way in the world, his wealthy clientele willing to pay exorbitant prices to be ensconced in the luxury and prestige of his clinic and be catered to by some of the best physicians in the world. From cardiac surgery to face-lifts, from cradle to geriatrics, the medical center gave the finest care available.
She’d never understood what had happened between them, other than she hadn’t been enough to make him happy. And she’d been too angry to ask if his surface explanation—that they weren’t right for each other—was the truth. After discovering what her aunt had done, she’d decided she was never going to try to pry the truth out of anyone ever again. They could either tell her or not, but if they chose the latter, she was done with them.
Forcing herself to swallow, she pasted a smile on her face. “Thank you. You were right, the meal was delicious.” Not that she’d actually tasted much of it beyond the first few bites. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
“Would you like coffee?”
She hesitated. James had always liked to finish his meal with a nice strong java, no matter what the time. Caffeine had never seemed to affect him. Neither had anything else. But she suddenly wanted out of the intimate confines of the restaurant and to finish this back on her own turf, where she knew what to do to protect her mind from stray thoughts...and her heart from stray emotions. She decided to go with escape.
“I have a small apartment above the clinic. I can make us a pot of coffee if you want, and we can go over those pictures.”
He frowned. “You live in the clinic?”
“Not in the clinic, no. Like I said, I have a small studio apartment above it. It saves on transportation costs since I don’t have to drive to work.”
And it also made it easy to take those middle-of-the-night emergency calls, since all she had to do was throw on some scrubs and walk down a flight of stairs to get to her clinic.
“Were you there when that window was broken?”
No, she’d been in the process of breaking things off with Tyler that night. It had taken her almost three weeks to get the window repaired. Something she wasn’t going to tell James, because she had the strange sensation he wouldn’t be happy about that. Why he would even care, though, was beyond her.
“I was out that night. But it turned out to be nothing. No big drama. No one was hiding inside the clinic.”
His frown deepened. “You went in by yourself?”
No. Tyler had gone in and checked the place out, even though she could tell he’d been crushed by their breakup. She’d tried to take a taxi home, but he’d insisted on driving her.
He was a good man, a simple man with simple tastes, and Mila wished with all her heart that she could have fallen in love with him. But you couldn’t control who you loved. She’d found that out the hard way—had mooned after James, even as she’d flown off to the jungles of Brazil to get away from her pain.
And it had worked. She’d come back a changed person. At least she’d thought she had. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“No, I had someone with me.”
James swallowed, if that jerky movement of his throat could be called a swallow.
“I’m glad.” He called for the check and slipped a credit card into the padded folder. “I’ll take you up on that coffee, if the offer is still open. It’ll give us a chance to pick a couple of pictures and get them to the marketing department in time for the opening in a few weeks.”
As soon as the waiter returned with his receipt, James pocketed it and his card and stood. Mila followed, now wondering if it wouldn’t have been better to have their coffee here. She’d wanted to get back to her own territory, but was it really wise to invite the tiger into your sanctuary?
Melodramatic, Mila.
But as she slid into the leather seat of his luxury car, she wondered if she really was being ridiculous. The closer they got to the clinic, the more her nerve endings twitched in dismay. This was a mistake. She knew it was but it was also far too late to change her mind, not without him knowing she was afraid to be alone with him.
They turned onto the road where her clinic was located just as her cell phone sounded with a weird chirp, the one she’d preprogrammed to sound if the silent alarm on her clinic was tripped.
“Oh, no.”
Just as James glanced her way, a question in his eyes, she saw her worst fears were realized. The glass door to her clinic had been smashed wide open.
James saw it too, and screeched to a halt just outside the entry. Before either of them could say a word a figure in dark clothing dashed out through the opening and sprinted down the street.
“STAY HERE!”
James gritted out the command as he threw open the door to his vehicle and dashed after the intruder. He turned the same corner as the man, only to be confronted by a spiderweb of alleys and apartment fronts. There was no sign of anyone. No witnesses. No perpetrator.
If Mila hadn’t still been in the car, he would have ventured farther to make sure the jerk wasn’t hiding in one of the dumpsters or behind one of the parked cars, but what if he had an accomplice? What if, even now, Mila had decided to go inside her clinic on her own?
“Hell.” He should have just called the police and stayed with her, but the instinct to chase down whoever it was had been too strong. And now he was at least five minutes away from the clinic.
Pivoting toward the opening of the alley, he took off the way he’d come, his gaze seeking out his car as soon as he turned the corner. And found the passenger door open, the seat empty.
“Damn it, Mila!”
The muttered words were swallowed by the flow of traffic on the busy street. Why had no one stopped to help when they’d seen someone breaking in? Maybe because this wasn’t the safest area of town.
And Mila lived here...had just gone into that dark clinic all alone.
Reaching the door, he found it still locked, so he stepped through the opening, glass crunching beneath his shoes. His instinct was to call out to her, but if someone else was lurking in the shadows, he was afraid he’d tip him off. Instead, he stopped for a second and listened.
He heard someone talking. Was it just Mila on her phone, reporting the break-in to the police? Or was someone else in there?
Picking