A chorus of excited giggles floated across the air to her as a group of girls horsed around with two attractive males. You aren’t fun anymore. Coburn’s words echoed through her head from that last night. What happened to you?
She thought about it. Had she ever been fun? Being a resident was not meant to be a joyride. It had been the most grueling five years of her life, meant to separate the weak from the strong. Why couldn’t her husband have accepted the early years were going to be like that? That it would change.
He joined her on the terrace then, as if she’d conjured him up to ask just that question. But of course she hadn’t. Not now when they were about to make their relationship history.
She eyed the bottle of champagne in his hands. “What are we celebrating?”
His sensuous mouth curved in a humorless smile. “How about our incredibly civilized divorce?”
Her mouth twisted. “Because the lawyers hashed out every clause for us.”
“Your decision.” His electric blue eyes lanced through her. “I was willing to sit down and act like two reasonable human beings for an hour. You for some reason were not. I’m very curious as to why that might be.”
She hadn’t let herself wonder that. Perhaps because she didn’t want to know the answer.
She watched the play of muscles in his forearms as he worked the cork out of the bottle. Exposed by his rolled-up sleeves, they were one of her favorite parts of him. Lean and muscular, he was all sinewy power without an excess centimeter of flesh on him. Potently strong enough to brace himself with as he flipped her from one sexual position to the next...
The cork flew into the air with a decisive pop. It jerked her back to reality. She couldn’t be thinking things like that. Thoughts like that had always gotten her into trouble when it came to Coburn. Because they inevitably led to sex and their erotic, spectacular love life that had become a crutch for their utterly dismal relationship skills.
Coburn filled two glasses and handed one to her, his gaze resting on her heated cheeks. “Disconcerting, isn’t it, probing at the real reasons why we do the things we do? Maybe you were scared that one hour in a boardroom would end up the way it always does with us... You would call me a selfish son of a bitch and I would make you eat your words, one orgasm at a time.”
The heat in her cheeks darkened into a full-out fire. “Perhaps my choice was the wiser one, then?”
“Or the coward’s way out.”
Her chin lifted. “There’s nothing wrong with a bit of self-realization. In not repeating the same mistakes we’ve made in the past...”
“If you call that part of our relationship a mistake, yes.” The glitter in his gaze made her shift her weight to the other foot. Damn but this had been a colossal mistake.
He lifted his glass, his gaze holding hers. “To self-realization, then. And the dissolution of our hasty, ill-thought-out vows.”
A throb dug itself deep into her flesh, somewhere in the region of her heart. To hear him sum up their union like that without acknowledging the intense highs only they had offered each other didn’t seem right. “To greater self-realization,” she echoed, lifting the glass to her lips.
“What?” he murmured after he’d taken a sip. “You don’t agree we were a hasty, ill-thought-out union ?”
She turned her head to look at the revelers. “I think we were much more than that.”
A silence fell between them. She felt his eyes on her, coolly assessing. When she thought he might say something, she cut him off at the pass. “I’m happy for Harrison. He’ll make a fine president if he wins.”
“The country couldn’t do any better.”
“And Frankie. She’s very beautiful.” A cynical note entered her voice as she referenced her husband’s PA, who was married to his older brother. “How did you let that one get away? She is so your type, Coburn. Young and impressionable.”
“And about to give up her career for her and Harrison’s new addition to the family.” His mouth curled with a sardonic twist. “What a lucky man he is... He married a woman who doesn’t need to prove herself to the world.”
The dagger cut through her as cleanly as her own surgeon’s scalpel. “You never seemed to want babies, Coburn. If that was high on your list, you should have mentioned it when you were cataloging my potential as your wife. You knew with my residency it would be years.”
A frown furrowed his brow. “There was no cataloging. We married before we had any idea who the other one was.”
Her stomach knotted. “And you found me sorely lacking in any capacity other than the bedroom.”
His gaze narrowed. “You liked to think that was the reason. Because then you didn’t have to work at it at all. You could just run off like the spoiled little rich girl you were and cry to Daddy. There were no repercussions.”
No repercussions? She’d spent the past year trying to bury herself in her work because it was too painful to go home to an apartment that didn’t have Coburn in it. He really had no clue.
“You think I’m the only one who’s unknowable?” she offered quietly. “I could do an entire emotional autopsy on you, Coburn, and I would still never get to the bottom of you. You play like you’re so open and there, but none of it is the real you.”
His eyes glittered. “You have to give some to get some, Di.”
Right. Here they were at the same old discussion. A waste of time.
“Why didn’t you file for divorce? You were certainly anxious to move on and avail yourself of other female company.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t plan to marry again so there was so rush. And as for my sexual partners? My prerogative when you ended our marriage. You know I have a high level of need.”
A need that had apparently overwhelmed him within months of their marriage ending...
She lifted her gaze and watched the midnight blue sky streaked with a swath of purple swallow up a lone star. Her insides hurt, like the delicate, shaky aftermath of a horrible flu.
“How long will you be gone?”
Coburn was watching her with that all-seeing gaze of his. “Three months, maybe more. The need for surgeons is critical.”
“What happened to your dream of working with Moritz?”
“I couldn’t handle the politics.” Swiss surgeon Frank Moritz was one of the most revered pediatric surgeons in the world, a specialty she wanted to make her own, but as Diana had found out, he was also one of the biggest egos in the profession. She had impressed him enough to put herself in line for the fellowship he was offering, but she hadn’t been able to force herself to do the schmoozing being Moritz’s choice entailed. It went against every belief she had that talent should prevail.
He lifted a brow. “You knew that was going to be part of it.”
“I didn’t know it was going to color every aspect of it. The man is a megalomaniac.”
“So you’re just giving up your career?”
“No. I’m going to Africa to practice.”
He waved his glass at her. “You know what I mean. You will be out of the loop. You’ll have to start all over again.”
“So be it.” A wry smile curved her lips. “It’s done, Coburn. I’ve sold my apartment and my car. I need to find my way.”
He studied her as if she was a creature from a different species he’d come into contact with. And maybe she was. She wasn’t the same Diana who’d walked away from him, that was for sure. She’d done far too much soul-searching to be that.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit drastic to put yourself in the middle of a war-torn country to find yourself? If it’s me you’re trying to avoid, then move to another state. Move to another country, for God’s sake. Not a war zone.”
She straightened her shoulders, her lips flattening into a stubborn line. “This isn’t about you, Coburn. Things aren’t always about you, although you like to think they are. This is about me and my need to help other people with the skills I have.”
His gaze narrowed on her. “You forget you admitted to me earlier part of this is you thumbing your nose at me.”
Damn her loose mouth. She sunk her teeth into her lower lip. “That was a knee-jerk reaction to an old wound. Nothing you say or do affects me anymore.”
“Then, why do you avoid me? You’ve been systematically ensuring our paths don’t cross for the past year.” He lifted a brow. “How do I know this? Because every time I’m unable to make something, I hear afterward you were miraculously able to attend. That’s a lot of trouble to go to to avoid someone whose presence doesn’t affect you.”
She swallowed hard, studying the play of light over his achingly familiar face. She had been avoiding him, of course, but it wasn’t something she was ever going to admit.
“So I ask again,” he demanded roughly, “why show up tonight? What purpose did this serve?”
Standing this close to him, inhaling his spicy aftershave mixed with a fresh citrus lime that had always made her weak in the knees, she suffered the horrifying realization that maybe it was closure she had wanted. One more chance to see him before she signed those papers. One more chance to put this demon to rest before she put her life behind her for a future that was a complete unknown. To convince herself she was doing the right thing by walking away from him. Instead, all she could think about was his horrible, hurtful comment to Rory.