She touched his sleeve again. “Will you give me a day? If I find out what I still have to offer you, would you be willing to consider me again?”
He let several seconds of silence tick by before he spoke. “Will I consider what you have to offer? That’s one hell of a question, coming from my former fiancée.”
Whatever answer she’d expected, it hadn’t been that. Not that personal. They’d kept everything strictly professional to this point. It felt as though he’d violated some invisible boundary by bringing up their intimate past so bluntly.
The elevator stopped to let an elderly couple on. The man was in a wheelchair; the woman was pushing him with the ease of long experience. He made a gesture to his right, and she picked up the paperwork that was tucked under his right side and placed it in his hand. Effortless communication.
Had anything been as easy between her and Braden?
Yes—making love.
And they’d conceived a baby. Too easily. Without trying. Without wanting to.
She’d miscarried that pregnancy the same way.
The memory threatened to completely breach any wall she’d maintained to this point. Before it could overwhelm her, she spoke quickly and quietly to Braden.
“You know perfectly well that West Central has excellent resources to conduct research. You need facilities and patient bases and sites. Just give me a day to get my bearings, and we can meet again to find out how we can help one another’s companies.”
The elevator reached the lobby level. Braden maintained his silence.
She didn’t. “You know I need to replace the funds you just withdrew. I’ll be offering West Central to other biotechs and pharmas.”
She had seconds to convince him as he courteously waited for the wheelchair couple to exit. “If you don’t want what I have to offer, someone else will. I’m giving you the right of first refusal.”
Braden cut his gaze to her. She stayed where she was, silently demanding an answer.
He walked out of the elevator instead.
“Braden,” she called after him. Damn it all, she was losing him. Losing PLI’s funding.
Braden turned around and looked her up and down, just once, as she stayed in the elevator.
“I’m returning to New York. Now. The PLI representative for the state of Texas is Cheryl Gassett. I’m sure your assistant knows her and has her contact information. If you find that you can make PLI an offer, call Cheryl.”
The elevator doors slid closed, separating them with finality.
Alone, Lana knew she could cry without embarrassment. She could punch the door with impunity. She could collapse in a heap of exhaustion.
None of it would change the past. She pushed the button that reopened the doors, exited the elevator and walked in the opposite direction that Braden had taken, toward her office. Toward her future.
Braden’s rejection had changed the course of her life once. She couldn’t let him derail her again.
Chapter Four
Braden needed to leave the hospital. He was done here. Done. There were too many emotions. Too many bad memories.
Too much Lana. Here, in the flesh. Not a memory of her, which he’d come ready to bury. No, the woman herself was here. Vibrant. Passionate. Real.
He was too old to be blinded by sexual attraction. Chemistry had never been their problem, so it shouldn’t surprise him now that it still existed at some level.
A level a little too dammed close to the surface...
He walked past the chapel without slowing, without stopping, without so much as throwing a glance at its doors. The entire reason he’d bothered himself with flying to West Central personally had been to stop in that chapel. He’d proposed to Lana there, and he’d had some idiotic notion that by saying goodbye to the memory of that promise, he’d be free to propose to another woman, elsewhere.
God, he was a fool. What an idiotic, sappy idea for a man of science and business to entertain, let alone act upon. If he was ready for a permanent relationship, then he’d make a commitment to the woman of his choice, and damn his youthful college engagement to hell. Lana certainly had. She’d dumped him over the phone and mailed his engagement ring to his Harvard address in an empty tongue depressor box.
Six years ago. He was over it. He was dating Claudia St. James now, a woman who could make a perfect wife for a professional man like himself, but damn it, seeing Lana in person had been a shock. Braden, don’t go, she’d practically shouted, and the plea in her voice had kept him from stepping on the elevator. His response had probably been an old reflex, a bad habit ingrained long ago. Still, it had been damned disconcerting.
He stopped abruptly at the corner of a garden fountain, disoriented for a fraction of a second. There was a fountain in the lobby now? Yes, and he’d nearly walked into it, distracted by thoughts of Lana.
He should not be distracted by his past. He’d come here to begin his future, and he’d already picked out the right woman to spend the rest of his life with. Claudia never caused him to walk into fountains, thank God.
Braden kept walking, past the paintings of his father and the other founders, not breaking his stride as he threw a glance at the modern domed ceiling. The renovated lobby looked more like it belonged to an elegant hotel than a hospital. It was a far cry from the single-story construction his father had begun. Would his father have approved of the changes if he’d lived to see them?
Braden imagined that patients who were sick and worried would appreciate the welcome this new lobby extended. It had an air of grace and authority that could be reassuring when patients arrived with serious health concerns. They’d probably feel hope, as though they’d come to the right place. His father, Braden decided, would have approved of the modern West Central. He would have approved of the job his son was doing.
That son being Quinn, of course. Quinn was the only MacDowell on the hospital board.
Dad had not approved of the job I was doing.
His father had always expected him to follow in his footsteps. Braden had tried. He’d tried for his father’s sake, and then he’d kept trying after he’d met Lana, but by his last year of residency, he’d known the life of a family-practice physician was not for him.
He’d wanted to show his father and his fiancée that his life could be a different kind of success. He had shown them, really. He’d graduated magna cum laude from arguably the best graduate school in the country, perhaps in the world. He’d gone on to be a key player in the biotech industry, working to contribute valuable medicines and devices not just to the city of Austin but to all people, all around the globe. But his dad had died before that first patent had made it to the marketplace, before he’d been able to prescribe any of the drugs his son had chosen to develop.
And Lana? Hell, she’d mailed his ring back before he’d even graduated.
Still, Braden was one of the most successful men in America, if only someone besides his accountant appreciated it.
Claudia St. James appreciates success.
Exactly. He needed to keep his thoughts in the present. Braden realized his steps had taken him to the former main entrance of the emergency department. An involuntary smirk lifted one corner of his mouth despite his bitter feelings. Not even the resurrected emotions of a broken engagement and a disapproving father could disengage his mind completely. His day’s agenda had included a quick visit to his younger brother, another physician, of course. Jamie worked here in the emergency department. Without trying, Braden had stayed on schedule.
This entrance to the E.R. was now a shortcut for staff only, and the heavy double doors