He yanked her into his arms, kissed her hard, then pulled back. “You came for Hannah’s birthday. God, she’s going to be so happy, and I’m going to love you even more than I already do if you say you’ll stay long enough to go out to eat with nine thirteen-year-olds.”
“I’ll stay longer than that. I’m coming back, Nick. I’m coming home.”
Chapter 10
Present day…
NICK’S EYES WERE LOCKED on Mia’s before her receptionist closed the office door behind him. He hadn’t known what to say to her earlier at the hospital. He still didn’t. What did you say to someone who’d owned your heart?
She faced him, her wide brown desk between them. They stood there a long minute, just staring at each other, several feet separating them. Maybe she wanted to look at him as much as he wanted to look at her. He wondered what she was remembering. He remembered everything.
Mia and her big brown eyes that seemed to take up her whole face. The feathered brow he’d traced all the times he watched her sleep, the full lips he always had to kiss once more before they parted.
But those dark, sultry eyes had taken his breath away the first time he’d seen her. The same way they did now. For a second, his gut twisted over what had been. What was gone. Her once-long black hair that had also captured him barely touched her shoulders now and contrasted with the white blouse she wore. The classic black pencil skirt showcased her slim legs he knew well. She looked… not really older, but more mature. Just as beautiful, her face more sculpted, cheekbones even more pronounced.
No other woman had ever meant anything, couldn’t even remember another woman’s a face. Because he’d never even considered moving on, never considered having a future with someone else.
“You cut your hair,” he said. An idiotic thing to say when he wanted to tell her that, how beautiful she was and how even though things had gone wrong between them, it was still good to see her. That he still cared. But he didn’t say any of that.
“Yes.” She touched the ends absently like she’d forgotten it was there.
“It looks good.”
“Thanks.” She lifted her chin slightly, her shoulders stiff as if bracing for a hit. “You look good, too. The same.”
He could barely breathe past the lump in his throat and the knot in his belly. This day had been his perfect storm, an emotional tidal wave. His fragile sister spending time with a man he couldn’t control, seeing her back in the hospital, and then Mia…
For a man who survived by being in control, he was drowning. Even with everything swirling around him, he couldn’t take his eyes off the woman looking at him like he’d broken her heart and had now come to finish her off.
His gaze fell to a photo on her desk—a baby with a toothless smile. “You have a child?” The pain that sliced through him was sharp and swift. They’d talked a lot about the children they would have together.
“No.” She flicked a glance up at him, then away, her long lashes shielding her eyes. “I don’t.” She angled the picture away from him, not willing to share something so obviously painful and personal. That hurt, even after all this time.
It was the defeat in her voice that softened him. The pain in her eyes was like ice water on his anger, and he had to fight the urge to soothe her.
He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, glancing around her office. A photo of her parents sat on a shelf next to her framed medical board certification. “How are your parents?”
She followed his gaze to another photo. “They died a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “My mom died first, a sudden heart attack. My father followed soon after.”
An only child to older parents, that meant Mia was alone. And he hadn’t been there for her like she had been for him. Or maybe she wasn’t alone. Even though he’d automatically looked for a ring and not seen one. “You’re not married.”
She clasped her hands together, right over left. “No.” Her dark eyes met his, and the force of it almost knocked him back a step. “No. I never married.”
Never married. He wondered if Hannah had told her he’d never married either. His sister, which is why he was here. “I wanted to talk about Hannah.”
“I didn’t think you’d come to talk about my hair.” Her shoulders dropped, and she sank into the leather chair behind her desk as if a chance had just been lost.
She made him ache for her, making him crazy, and he couldn’t even explain to himself the anger that she could still do both. Mia would have been expecting him at the hospital. He was the one who’d been blindsided.