had become less and less enamored with their marriage no matter what she’d done to try to keep things smooth. She’d not expected a lot of his attention. He’d been in the midst of his fellowship, after all. But she had expected him to occasionally make time for his young wife, who’d loved him so much. Near the end, she’d barely seen him, had wondered if he’d even noticed she’d moved out of the apartment as he’d asked her to.
He must have. He’d immediately filed for divorce. For irreconcilable differences and abandonment.
Who’d abandoned whom?
She’d given him her heart, had put all she’d had into making her marriage a success, and he’d discarded her like yesterday’s trash.
She’d sunk into a deeper and deeper depression, but nothing had ever hurt the way the demise of her marriage had, the way he had pierced her heart and bled it dry. Now that she’d carefully nurtured herself back into some semblance of a living, breathing person, had he come back to take shots at her a second time?
She wouldn’t let him.
Her insides seethed with bitterness.
He couldn’t steal her happiness or her peace of mind.
Only, from the moment she’d found out who had accepted the department position, her peace of mind had become a war zone. But it was a battle she would fight and win. She wouldn’t give him so much power over her. Not ever again.
She’d planned to avoid him, to not interact any more than absolutely necessary to effectively perform her job duties.
Apparently, Lucas had other ideas. Like a date he’d very publicly paid too much money to beat Richard to secure.
While the current bid came to a close, Emily glared at her ex-husband, wondering if you could hate someone you used to love more than life itself.
He was no doubt considered quite the catch. She knew better. She knew his flaws, knew that behind that handsome exterior beat the heart of a man incapable of loving another human being, of a man incapable of being there when his wife had needed him.
A man who hadn’t been there on the worst night of her life.
Had he been at the hospital working, at his parents’ or out partying with his buddies when her world had crumbled? Either way, he hadn’t been at her side in that emergency room.
“Lucky you, girl!” Emily’s best friend, Meghan, whispered. “I can’t believe Dr. Cain just bought your basket. And for that price? You must be giving off some major pheromones or something because for a few minutes I thought he and Richard were going to come to blows.”
Emily had never thought that. Lucas had never fought for her. He’d never fought for anything in his whole life. He wanted something and it just fell perfectly into place in his perfect life. She was probably the only mar on his stellar record.
And Richard, well, he was a nonconfrontational beta kind of guy, so she hadn’t been too surprised when he’d let Lucas win the bid. Disappointed, but not really shocked. He would find paying such an exorbitant amount for something he did several times a week for free as a total waste.
Emily would have been highly impressed had Richard stepped up and rescued her from Lucas’s bidding clutches. A knight in shining armor to her damsel in distress. Too bad. She’d have enjoyed Richard putting Lucas in his place.
To be fair, Lucas had raised the bid a stupid amount and Richard didn’t have a deep trust fund to line his pockets, but the bid hadn’t been out of his financial reach. Not by a long shot. Still, he worked hard for his money, was someone whom Emily could relate to. Richard was the same as her, an ordinary person living an ordinary life. She liked it that way.
“You can have him,” she muttered under her breath to her fellow pediatric neuro nurse.
“Are you blind?” Meghan’s expression was incredulous as they exited the stage to make room for the bachelors to be auctioned off. “He’s the hottest thing to hit Manhattan since the term Big Apple was first coined.”
Stepping a few feet away from the stage, Emily wrinkled her nose. Looks could be so deceiving. “He’s not my type.”
“Girl, he is every red-blooded female’s type.” Meghan waggled her perfectly drawn brows. “Tall, dark and handsome.”
“To each her own, because he isn’t mine. I prefer Richard.”
This time it was Meghan’s nose that wrinkled. “Richard is boring.”
Emily frowned. “Richard is loyal, handsome, intelligent, kind—”
“You deserve so much better than the likes of Richard,” her best friend assured her. Meghan had never understood her attraction to Richard, always claiming that she felt he stifled Emily.
“Not to me, he isn’t.” She’d had excitement and the fast lane while married to Lucas. She didn’t need parties and a revolving-door social life. She liked going home to her apartment after her shift ended, cooking a light dinner for two, discussing their day and occasionally going for a walk or perhaps to a show.
Richard was calm, predictable, stable. Totally to her taste in men.
Totally and completely the opposite of Lucas.
“You can’t tell me Richard is even in the same league as Lucas Cain.”
“You’re right, he’s not. Richard is way above it.”
Meghan gave her an odd look. “You been drinking?”
Emily laughed. “Because I find the man I’m dating more attractive than some new doctor at the hospital, you think I’m inebriated? Richard is my boyfriend. Why wouldn’t I find him more attractive than Dr. Cain?”
“Do you?” a familiar male voice asked from behind her.
Every cell in Emily’s body did a nervous jump to attention, making her legs weak, making her hands tremble, making her heart race. Not wanting to look at him, not wanting to have a conversation with him, she turned to face her ex-husband.
Up close he looked even better than he had from across the room. Why, oh, why couldn’t time have taken its toll and marred the physical beauty of his face?
He told you to leave. He filed for divorce. He’s a cold, heartless jerk who means nothing to you.
Even so, her hands shook and her stomach threatened to hurl the appetizers she’d consumed earlier. “Do I what?”
“Find the man who bid against me more attractive?” His blue eyes twinkled with the same old arrogant mischief. He knew that he was handsome as sin, that women fell to their knees when he so much as bestowed a smile upon them. He couldn’t fathom her finding any man more attractive. The jerk.
“Of course I find Richard more attractive, Dr. Cain.” She put great emphasis on her formal use of his name. “He and I have been dating for almost ten months.”
“Ten months?” He raised a brow as if impressed as his gaze took in everything about her. “Some marriages don’t last that long.”
Her breath lodged in her throat and she dug her fingernails harder into her palms. Mentally, she called him every rotten name she could think of.
“You’re right,” she agreed. “Too many people get married who shouldn’t. Probably because they’re too young to know any better or one of them wasn’t committed to the relationship to begin with. My guess is that when those people become involved in their next serious relationship, they are a lot choosier.”
The arrogant look in his eyes flickered just a little, as if she’d delivered a damaging blow and won that round. Good. He needed taking down a peg or two.
“I bet you’re right.” He turned to Meghan and gave her a smile so charming that it was a wonder she didn’t swoon. “Hi, I’m Dr. Lucas Cain. I work at Children’s with Emily.”
Ugh.