managed to ignore her own attraction for three whole days before she’d asked him out.
London Lia did those things. London Lia was fearless. At least on the outside. Because it was what everyone expected of her.
Lifting her chin, Lia held his gaze now, struggling to ignore the burst of other memories. All the church aisles they’d tried on looking for the perfect church for their wedding. When he’d looked at her with the promise of a long future dancing in his eyes, the future he delighted in planning and dreaming into existence with her.
Time sped back up. Her heart squeezed hard once, then began stomping a chula around her sternum, fast enough she’d have been silencing alarms on her fitness monitor if the battery hadn’t died on the trip down. And her stomach, which had been lurching and freefalling for the duration of the trip, went hollow, and cold. Then the nausea hit.
He didn’t speak or look away, just stared. There was an intensity in his gaze, but nothing loving. She’d call it a glare were it not for the pallor she could see when she got closer.
Was this it? The burning in her eyes said so. All happening before she’d even dropped off her luggage?
She wasn’t ready.
What could she say? What had she even practiced? She was supposed to say something. She’d come all this way to say things. Learn things. Remove the weight of betrayal and loss that glittered on her left ring finger.
The ring that symbolized that future they’d planned weighted her finger and something like relief weighted her tongue. Relief. Regret. Betrayal.
If she’d slept at all on the way there, she would’ve been able to think. She’d be able to look away from his eyes, and her ears wouldn’t be ringing in a way that made her worry about a stroke. She’d hear something other than her own loud, labored breathing in the dead space in her chest.
The Lia he knew would say the words. Slap him, maybe. Shake answers out of him. Something. But whoever she was now didn’t have that in her.
As the seconds stretched out his shock turned to something else, something harder, and she gave up the mental scramble for words to wait him out, watching anger flare in his eyes, bitterness turn the mouth she’d lived to kiss into a slash amid the facial hair she’d never before seen him wear.
But he didn’t say anything, either. No words from either of them. The only acknowledgment that she had any more meaning to him than a stranger came in the form of gritted teeth.
As if he had any right to be angry with her. She hadn’t left him practically at the altar.
She opened her mouth, but before she’d even mustered a word, he stepped past her and silently stormed down the hallway, rigid and straight. Angry. So angry, with her.
He was nearly to the bend, with his rigid posture and determination to yet again get away from her. She’d gone around the world to find him, but in that moment, she had no energy left to chase.
She closed her eyes and breathed slowly out.
In her memories, it seemed she was always walking toward him—down hallways, church aisles, even on staircases in the hospital where they’d meet for a quick kiss between patients or rounds. She didn’t have it in her to watch him walking away. That was the only kindness afforded her by the manner of his leaving—she hadn’t even seen it coming, let alone had to watch him going.
God, she was so stupid.
There were other Antarctic research stations she could’ve gone to. A whole world where no one knew her and she could sort herself out without pressure, get ready for the new life waiting for her outside of medicine. This wasn’t going to be productive enough to endure the pain that went with it.
Bending her head, she pinched her eyes harder shut, so the pressure swirled colors and shadow to light behind her eyelids, blocking out the mental replay of things she’d obviously never have again with him.
And none of this should surprise her. Of course he didn’t want to talk to her. She was the personification of the past, and West had always avoided talking about the past. Only the future. And she was no longer part of his future. Or she was only part of his immediate future, for the next ten days, until he could escape.
He would talk to her. She’d figure out what to say to him, what she really wanted to say, not just what her broken heart wanted to shout. They’d be working together, seeing each other every day. He’d talk, or he’d listen. After she’d gotten some sleep, she’d conjure the words.
That was the one good thing about becoming Lia again. She’d been Ophelia while at home in Portugal, and that had taken time to adjust to, too. She’d remember how to be Lia. Lia, who always had opinions and wasn’t afraid to share them. And maybe by the time she left Antarctica, she’d figure out who she really was, outside the judging eyes of people who had expectations of her.
Sleep would help. Being around her best friend again would help her remember Lia, the version of herself she preferred to the sober, sad child she’d been.
“Lia?”
She hadn’t heard anyone approach, but the sound of her name in her best friend’s voice pulled her eyes open again. Once again, she saw anger in the eyes of someone she loved, but this time, it wasn’t directed at her.
“What did he say?” Jordan demanded, grabbing her in a quick, hard hug that grounded her enough to banish church aisles and promises of forever from cluttering up her ability to speak.
What had he said?
“Nothing,” Lia muttered, making her arms contract, giving an underachieving hug in return. “He said nothing.”
When Jordan leaned back, her scowl had grown deeper, firmer. “What did you say to him? Did you tell him he’s the world’s smallest man and you hoped global warming would eventually thaw out his glacial heart? Would be the only good thing to come from it.”
Jordan with the better zingers than Lia, despite the months of practice and mental composing she’d done.
Lia just shook her head, no heart for it. “I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t expecting to see him yet.”
“I was going to tell you. I arranged it so he couldn’t get too far away if he wanted to sleep at all while he’s here.”
“That’s his cabin?”
Jordan nodded, but one glance over her shoulder to the door showed her hesitation. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. Or maybe I shouldn’t have even told you he was here.”
The worry in Jordan’s voice and eyes helped her get some clarity.
“Nonsense. I want to be here. It’s cold, but I’ll get used to it. I just need to think of what to say before—”
“You have some time.”
Ten days. Something she’d reminded herself at least ten thousand times on the trip down. “I was just about to drop my bags off and go to the clinic, as directed.”
“And he was just standing there?” Jordan took the bags and the keys, and opened the door to lead Lia into what she would’ve called a closet under any other circumstances. A small closet. With a small bed.
“With the expression of someone who’d be packing as soon as possible and taking the first transport out.”
Something she could appreciate as she mentally inventoried the tiny room. Two windows wrapping around the corner, as the cabin sat at the end of the pod. Twin bed. Bedside table. And a built-in wardrobe that might have actually been a cupboard. Half a meter area to walk from door to window and everything else to the right against the wall.
Cozy.
That’s what she decided right then to call it. Yep. Cozy. A small space that would be easier to keep warm. There, some optimism.
“He