“Are we talking about the same Matt? The Matt I met yesterday? The lawyer who was meeting with Tate to discuss the case?”
“Same Matt. As luck would have it, the hospital hired my old ex to defend my new ex and me. Horrible, isn’t it? The only two men I have ever been with in my entire life in a room together. I never told Tate about Matt. I didn’t want to hurt him any more than I already was, and I couldn’t explain how and why I still had feelings for the man who broke my heart.”
“Does Matt know about your relationship with Tate?”
“Yes, but how much I don’t know. He keeps making comments about Tate that I don’t understand.”
“Is he jealous?”
“No, of course not, he has no reason to be jealous. If he wanted me he could have had me, but he didn’t. He told me to my face that he didn’t love me and then walked away, back to his girlfriend, and never looked back. Jealousy implies wanting something someone else has, and Matt made it perfectly clear he didn’t want me.”
“If he doesn’t want you, how do you explain his marks on your body?”
“I can’t. Maybe he’s lonely and I’m convenient, again,” she sighed.
“That sounds really harsh, Kate.”
“No, what’s harsh is walking out on someone who maybe you didn’t love but at least should have cared about enough not to obliterate her existence from your life.”
“When did all that happen?”
“Right before medical school started. As you recall, I wasn’t exactly coping well with life when we first met.”
“Makes sense now. I wish you had told me then, though.”
“Talking about it would have made it worse. As it was, it took me a long time to realize that he wasn’t who I’d thought he was and we weren’t what I’d thought we were.”
“I’m sorry, Kate.”
“Me too.”
“Are you going to tell Tate about your past with Matt?” Chloe asked.
“No, it’s in the past and I refuse to give Matt any more importance in my life and humiliate myself again by explaining it all to Tate.”
“You’re being pretty hard on yourself over this, Kate,” Chloe said sympathetically.
Kate shook her head and stood from the couch. “I made a huge mistake with Matt and I refuse to risk ever repeating it.”
“So if you don’t have any feelings for this guy then what the hell happened last night?”
“Insanity and fatigue happened. I woke up and it was like how it used to be and for a moment it was the old Matt and the old Katie. But I guarantee you that will never happen again. I know too much about Matt. I’m not the naïve girl I once was. I have my own life now and I know that I don’t need him. Even better, seeing him again has helped cure me of any lingering images I had of the guy I once loved. I know for sure that he doesn’t exist and I can move on with my life.”
“Kate, I hate to point out the obvious, but you do need Matt. He’s your only hope for settling this lawsuit and getting your fellowship and career back on track.”
“I know. I guess that is one small bright side to this situation. I know Matt and some things never change. If there’s a way to win this case, he will. Matt is driven to succeed at all costs.”
“That doesn’t sound like the type of man you would fall for.”
“It’s not. The Matt I fell in love with was giving and kind. It just happens that that part of him wasn’t as important to him as it was to me.”
Matt walked back into the hospital the following day for his meeting with Kate, and for the first time in his career he felt completely unprepared. It was not a feeling he enjoyed. He didn’t know how he would react to her, or her to him, if she would even show up after their night together.
He walked into the boardroom five minutes before their scheduled meeting and was surprised to see her already seated at the table. She was reading from a large textbook, her hands tangled up in her long brown hair. She stopped reading the moment he entered the room, her eyes rising to stare up at him.
It reminded him of their past. She had been sitting exactly the same way the first time he’d seen her. She had easily been the most beautiful woman in the café but, compared to almost all the other women he’d known, she hadn’t seemed to notice or try to use it to her advantage. He had seen her in the same spot every time he’d gone to the café, until one afternoon he could no longer resist the temptation she’d presented.
Within a few hours of talking to Kate he’d known that his instincts had been dead on. She had not been like any other woman he had ever met. Matt had never been without a woman from a young age. His appearance, confidence and social status had been enough to ensure a willing and ready woman on his arm and in his bed. The fact that he’d had such a woman already in his life had not been enough to keep him from exploring Kate.
Soon she had become his favorite person, his best friend, and Matt had liked himself most when he’d been around her. He would sometimes stand back across the coffeehouse and just watch her. The intense look of concentration on her face, the way she would abstractedly run her fingers through her hair, and then she would look up and see him and smile. She had made him feel welcome and like he belonged. But that had been then, and today Kate was not smiling.
He took the seat opposite her across the table. He needed to remind himself that his purpose was the lawsuit and sitting too close to her was a distraction from that purpose.
“My firm has acquired and reviewed all the documents related to the case. There are a few depositions we need to talk about.”
“Your firm?” she asked, the question holding more censure that he’d expected from her. She was still angry and he needed to do his best to calm her down if they were ever going to be able to discuss the case in a constructive manner.
“I’m a partner at my grandfather’s law firm. I started and head up the medical defense division.”
The McKayne family was rich and powerful and known for their prominent presence in the New York legal community. His grandfather had founded a law firm decades earlier that had grown to be one of the best, making his family very wealthy. Matt’s father had been in line to succeed his grandfather until he’d died suddenly of a heart attack when Matt had been four, leaving the family’s dynasty and future firmly on Matt’s shoulders. Matt often wondered how different his life would have been if his father had lived.
The medical defense division was his creation and he was involved in every aspect of its operation. He represented clients but also oversaw the operations of all the firm’s satellite offices, which was how he’d ended up back in Kate’s life.
He had been reading the monthly client reports at home one evening when he’d seen her name. A combination of fear and desire had broken through his whole body. He’d called the Boston lawyer assigned to the case and confirmed it was his Katie being described. Without hesitation he’d released the other lawyer from the case and arranged to handle it personally. He had never once considered the ramifications of their reunion.
“Did you pick this case because of me?” she asked, her shrewd intelligence piecing together what he wasn’t saying.
“Yes.” He knew better than to lie to her but also wasn’t willing to offer her any more of an explanation for his actions.
Matt had been raised to be responsible, with the high expectations and demands of his family behind his every decision and action. He hadn’t realized he resented