After One Forbidden Night.... Amber McKenzie

you feeling?”

      She could see the clinician in him assessing her and did her best to reassure him.

      “I’m okay, and Kate assures me that every day is going to be a little better.” She was counting on that in more ways than one. “Did you take care of me the other night?”

      “Yes. I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared.”

      “I’m sorry.”

      “Don’t be. I wanted to stop by and make sure you were okay. I also wanted to make sure you knew that no one in the department other than me saw the results of your beta-HCG that night.”

      She felt a flush of embarrassment pass through her, but also a sense of relief at what Ryan was telling her. No one else had seen the positive pregnancy test, which explained why they all believed she had had a ruptured cyst. Having managed to maintain her privacy was a small relief.

      “Thank you,” she said gratefully.

      “Don’t thank me. I don’t want anything standing between you and your future staff position here at Boston General—which, by the way, will be waiting for you whenever you are ready.”

      “Thank you,” she said again, this time struggling to keep tears from her eyes.

      “You’re worth it, Chloe. Please remember that.”

      She could tell he was holding something back, which was far from normal. “Why do I feel like there is something you are not saying?”

      “Because there is. But I don’t think this is the time or any of my business.”

      “Since when did you hold back your praise or your criticism, Ryan?” she goaded him, not wanting anything to change in her life more than it already had.

      “Tate Reed.”

      Her heart stopped and she briefly looked around to ensure Tate, or anyone else for that matter, had not come into her room. What else did Ryan know? What else had happened that night?

      “What about Tate?”

      “I want you to be careful, Chloe.”

      “It’s a little too late for that, don’t you think?” she responded, understanding that somehow Ryan knew about her involvement with Tate.

      “Just be careful. I don’t know Tate well, but I know his type. And if the hospital administration was ever forced to choose between their prized vascular surgeon and you, you wouldn’t win.”

      “Tate would never …” she started, and then stopped herself. She didn’t know what Tate would or wouldn’t do. “Thank you, Ryan—for everything.”

       CHAPTER THREE

      POST-OPERATIVE DAY THREE was better. She could move around her room and was able, with some assistance, to take a shower, which felt better than any pain medication she had received. Her nausea was still there, but less than what it had been, and she imagined it would be a while before all the hormones of pregnancy were cleared from her system. She used similar reasoning to explain her new-found propensity toward tears. She cried when she was frustrated, she cried when she thought about what she had lost, she even cried when the nurses were kind to her.

      Kate had brought her things and she struggled to keep her eyes open as she read one of her textbooks: another attempt at distraction. A new knock at the door signaled the end of her struggle. Kate peered around the privacy curtain that separated the door from her bed, the smile on her face the first thing visible. Chloe automatically smiled back.

      “I have news,” Kate announced before she could even cross the room.

      Chloe could tell she was barely containing herself and felt her own excitement build. She pushed herself up in bed, happy to have made the effort to put on her own clothes, even it was only her favorite yoga pants and a fitted gray sweater.

      Kate pulled up the visitor’s chair right beside her. “Matt has asked me to marry him and I’ve accepted.”

      “Oh, my God,” Chloe gasped. One look at Kate was all it took for her tears to return. Never had she seen her so joyous. She reached up and Kate met her halfway.

      “He loves me—he always has,” Kate explained.

      Chloe simply hugged her harder. Of course Matt loved Kate. She was perfect. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out a burgeoning feeling of jealousy at all Kate had. She needed to stop this. She was lucky to be alive and she had friends she loved who loved her. She just didn’t have the man she was in love with.

      They broke apart and she was once again rewarded with the look of pure happiness on Kate’s face.

      “I wanted you to be the first to know.”

      “I’m so happy for you. And for Matt.”

      “So you’ll be my maid of honor?”

      “Nothing would make me happier than to stand beside you on your wedding day.”

      “Wedding day?”

      A voice intruded into their moment—a voice she knew by heart.

      Tate, dressed in charcoal tailored pants and a fitted yellow dress shirt, stood in the corner of the room. She hadn’t seen Tate since she had left the intensive care unit, but that hadn’t surprised her. He had said what he needed to say and they had nothing left between them.

      “Matt asked me to marry him and I’ve agreed,” Kate answered elatedly.

      “Congratulations, Kate.”

      Kate rose from her chair and Chloe watched painfully as the two embraced. Was Tate thinking of his proposal to Kate? The one she had rejected? She couldn’t read Tate’s response, and any further conversation was cut short by another knock at the door.

      Erin and Ryan walked in together, and soon her little room was full of people who all loved and cared for her, and she felt ashamed at the self-pity and jealousy she had been indulging in.

      Erin had already been in earlier that morning, on her official morning rounds, but Chloe had gotten used to her checking in before she left for the day.

      “I just came to see if you needed anything,” Erin explained, her eyes fixed only on Chloe. Maybe she too felt the awkwardness of the Chloe-Tate-Kate love triangle.

      “I’m good, thank you.”