Return of the Rebel Surgeon. Connie Cox

had gotten over the immediate pain, he had been grateful to David’s mother for sending him that engagement notice. Just when had Bella intended to tell him about David? Would Bella have continued to play him the whole time she’d been planning her nuptials with the Beautemps heir?

      Thinking of Bella made his stomach churn. Even the delicious sandwich lost its appeal.

      “Filling, isn’t it?” the radiologist asked as he took his last bite.

      Cole stared at the half-eaten meal before him. “Yes, it’s certainly a full plate. Much more than I want.”

      What an analogy for all the emotional trauma seeing Bella was causing him. All the stirring up of old hurt was much more than he wanted, much more than he had expected.

      “So how did a New Orleans boy end up going to college in New York? We’ve got so many great medical schools here.”

      “I got a scholarship.” But he’d had local scholarships, too. “I wanted to get away.”

      He’d never been further north than the Louisiana state line. Going to the big city of New York had seemed like a grand adventure. He had taken it for granted that Bella would wait for him.

      The engagement announcement had come at the worst possible time. He’d been having a tough time adjusting to the rapid pace of New York after the slower pace of New Orleans. The accelerated undergraduate program he had thrown himself into required keen focus to stay caught up, let alone to excel.

      “I’d like to see New York, but the wife always wants to go the beach on our vacations.”

      “Hmm.” Cole gave a noncommittal grunt.

      The radiologist took the hint and ate the rest of his meal in silence.

      Cole turned his attention back to his meal but couldn’t turn his thoughts away from Bella.

      Bella had always seemed content to Cole. That was one of the qualities he’d liked best about her, always willing to go along with whatever he’d wanted to do. But, then, he hadn’t been that special after all. She had gone along with whatever anyone had wanted her to do.

      He had been at school a few short weeks when he’d received the newspaper clipping with Bella’s beautiful smile in black and white along with the announcement of her marriage to David. The notice had included details of both their pedigrees and social standings, and it had been the only answer Cole had needed as to why she had chosen David over him.

      The thick French bread of his sandwich sat too heavily in his stomach and the highly seasoned Cajun fries tasted flat and cold.

      He’d made the official break-up as quick and painless as possible, a fast call that had gone directly to her voicemail—the fact that he hadn’t had to speak to her in person had been his only break. That should have been the end of it.

      But then she had started in. Call after call. Letter after letter. How many times had she called him? Hundreds?

      They had all finally stopped after he’d written his own letter, making it perfectly clear there could be nothing between them anymore.

      He took a sip of his sweet tea, trying to rinse the bitterness from his attitude.

      He had deliberately got drunk on Bella’s wedding day—for the first and only time in his life. For his own sanity as much as for the sake of his grades, he’d exerted great willpower and erased each call, destroyed each letter, before reliving the betrayal over and over again.

      Instead, he’d thrown himself into his studies, the one thing he could always count on in his life to distract him from his grief.

      Cole gathered up the remains of his meal and threw it in the trash.

      Nothing about Bella should matter to him. How could he make himself stop wanting her? Why, after fifteen years, was he still asking himself that question? It was about time he found an answer.

      Cole stretched, trying to stop the dull throbbing in his left shoulder that traveled down his arm to his fingertips—the results of tensing during surgery.

      “Long surgeries will cramp you up, won’t they?”

      “Yes, they will. Occupational hazard.” Only the surgery hadn’t taken that long, a mere hour and a half compared to the five and six hours of reconstructive surgery Cole was used to performing. And he’d been a consultant while Dr. Wong had done most of the work.

      He flexed his numb fingers.

      Strained shoulder muscles took a while to right themselves. He’d give it a few more weeks before he had it checked out. Of course, that was what he’d told himself a few weeks ago. Maybe he should schedule a therapeutic massage soon.

      Some pain-management specialists studied massage, didn’t they? He reined in that runaway thought. It didn’t really matter what Bella had studied, did it?

      The natural high Cole felt after that morning’s successful surgery was starting to fade, replaced by a need he wanted to deny.

      Bella.

      After only a few short days he had become addicted to that jolt of energy the sight of her gave him.

      Neither of them fit with his old memories of a more pubescent, hormonal time. She had changed even more than he had. Why did it matter to him? How could he make it stop mattering?