Unforgiven (2 page)

“I’d heard. . .” He trailed off as he shook his head again.

Bailey was struggling to even breathe as she stared at his chest. The emotion boiling up inside her guts threatened to make her puke. She could feel the bile trying to get into her mouth, and the tears threatening her were owed as much to the panic she felt as the long-buried memories this man incited. This could not be happening. Luck was a bitch named Darren Cory with his dark, neatly trimmed hair and his equally dark eyes that said he hated her guts even though his words had been few.

“I didn’t realize you worked in the ER.” She could barely hear her own voice.

“Why would you? You’ve been gone for how long now?”

“Almost six years, but I’ve been back—”

“That was rhetorical. You can’t possibly think I care.”

She said nothing as he watched her. Of course she didn’t think he cared, but he had once.

He held his dark, harsh glare on her for an uncomfortable length of time. She was nearly ready to flee until the door was suddenly pushed open, and sweet Nurse Marie peaked in, “Doctor Cory, Doctor Sheehan says he’s caught up now. If you need him to take over here so you can leave for the evening, he can.” She waited patiently as Darren said nothing.

He looked back to Bailey for a moment, but she couldn’t seem to lift her gaze up from his chest. She didn’t need to see his eyes to know he was still glaring. When he turned back to Marie, his voice was far lighter than it had been when he’d spoken to Bailey, but then, he likely didn’t find Marie reprehensible. “Oh, that’s not necessary. I think I’ll enjoy torturing Ms. Trent.”

Marie’s sudden easy laughter said Darren was selling his comment as nothing more than a good-natured joke, and he was selling it well, but while Bailey couldn’t see his face, she was certainly not buying his brand of humor. This man would absolutely enjoy her pain. But did she blame him? Of course she didn’t.

Marie’s attention moved to Bailey, and she offered her a sweet, encouraging smile once again. “Bailey, you’re in good hands. Doctor Cory, I’ll get a suture tray set up for you.” And then she was gone, and Bailey’s gaze chased after her as though she wasn’t ready to be alone with him again. But she was gone, and Bailey
was
alone with him.

He turned around toward her again in an agonizingly slow rotation. Whatever calm and relaxed expression he may have given to Marie, it was lost by the time he was facing Bailey again, and in her nervousness, her gaze found his chest. He moved to the sink, washing his hands as she took in the sight of him. It was the only way she could possibly be comfortable studying him so closely, and she took advantage of it.

He was as perfectly put together as he’d always been, and she wasn’t sure she could say he’d aged a day since she’d last seen him. That was not to say he’d not changed. He was almost unrecognizable from the man she’d known so many years ago in his approach to her, but then, there was little question whose fault that was. She couldn’t imagine the man standing in the room now ever smiling at her, but she didn’t need to see that smile to know it was straight, white, and could make the coldest of her sex melt like an ice cube under a blowtorch. She’d been on the receiving end of that smile plenty, but that was a different lifetime.

He snapped his gloves on as he turned toward her, and he sauntered across the room casually before taking his place on the stool facing her. His expression remained coldly impassive, and she started trembling as he reached for her hand. He was entirely too close for comfort.

This was her hell. Being trapped in a room with a reminder of who she used to be, a reminder of everything she lost, a reminder of everything she’d destroyed. She’d been back in Savoy for nearly two months, and this was hands down the biggest challenge she’d thus far encountered. It couldn’t get much worse than this. She’d dreaded such a meeting, and as her past swam closer to the forefront of her mind than she’d allowed it to get for a long time, the trembles intensified, her breath became panicked, and she had to fight hard against the tears that were stabbing the backs of her eyes. She could not cry in front of this man. Not because he didn’t deserve her tears, but because this version of the Darren she’d known for more years than she could recall wouldn’t let her off so easy with that emotion.

She bit her tongue as he took her hand, still wrapped tightly in bandages. She flinched and pulled away from his touch as though she expected him to hurt her. Hadn’t he already said he wanted to? His eyes followed her withdrawn hand calmly, and then they shifted up to hold her gaze easily, though his head remained motionless. She couldn’t fathom how he could act so easy around her. She could barely breathe around him.

He waited, he watched, and he remained still as a statue until she eventually stretched her hand back out to him. He slowly unwrapped the bandages. He was silent, and she kept her tongue clamped between her teeth to still her nerves. It wasn’t really effective, and as she watched his hands work to unpeel the layers of bandaging, she could easily see the tremble in her own hand. She had no doubt he could see the shaking, and even if he couldn’t see it, he could certainly feel it as his left hand held hers while his right hand worked.

When her hand was again exposed, she saw that the bleeding had nearly stopped, but her skin was tinged pink. He palpated her thumb joint as she winced. The movement opened the laceration, and the cool air hitting the fresh open flesh left her hissing in pain. He stilled, but when he glanced at her eyes, he started flexing and extending her thumb joint again, disregarding her pain completely. He pressed on the tissue around the laceration, and then he asked her to go through a number of range-of-motion tests. Every last move she made hurt like hell, and not a single reaction he gave her suggested he cared at all, but regardless of the lack of reaction he was giving her, he was apparently satisfied that her hand wasn’t going to fall off.

When Marie reentered with a tray of horrifying instruments and a curved needle, Bailey’s trembling turned violent. “She’s going to need a tetanus booster, Doctor. I can take care of it when you’re finished.”

“It’s okay. I’ll administer it.” Marie stalled for a moment as her eyes flashed to him, but he met her gaze calmly, and she let go of her initial surprise quickly before excusing herself.

Darren went back to ignoring her while he worked. He washed the gash, patted it dry, and picked up a syringe on the tray. There were two on the tray, and she didn’t like the look of either. “Lidocaine.” He said the word and nothing else, and then he stabbed her hand shallowly and plunged the syringe partially. Bailey yelped and cried out as the pain of the injection burned through her skin. “It’s going to burn like hell too. Suppose I should have mentioned.” There was a cruel smirk on his lips, and Bailey could only whimper in response as he withdrew the syringe and stuck her on the other side of the laceration. She so desperately did not want to give him the reaction he was waiting for. There was no doubt in her mind he wanted her in tears in front of him.

The next time he withdrew the syringe and pricked her skin again, she grunted with her lips closed to stifle the reaction. He was right; Lidocaine burned like hell going in. She’d had stitches before, and she knew full well the pain was inevitable. It was his approach to her that was entirely intentional. He was enjoying the fact he was hurting her, inevitable or not, and she was going to tolerate it. However much he might deserve this small measure of retribution, she wasn’t going to fall apart. Her guilt didn’t mean she wanted to show him any weakness.

“Ah!” she cried out. “Fuck.” The next shallow stab seared her again, but she could feel the blessed numbness starting to take over the side of her hand, and when he pulled the syringe from her again, moved down the line of her laceration a bit farther, and stuck the needle in once more, the pain was finally faded and distant.

She released a deep sigh as she started to calm. Relaxing was impossible with this man sitting close to her with his knee between her legs. His cheek was near to hers too, but far enough away that she could easily see his focus shift to her eyes every time he stuck the needle in her skin. He was waiting for her reaction, wanting to see her pain. She couldn’t blame him for that, but it didn’t mean she appreciated the emotional torture. But it was a lost cause. She could barely feel the side of her hand now, and once he set the syringe down, he picked up the tweezers and started prodding the skin around the cut.

“Any pain?” He couldn’t possibly care, but she shook her head as she met his gaze quickly. She was bleeding again, though the steady seeping had slowed significantly, and once he’d swabbed the area, he picked up the hemostat, used it to grip the arched needle on the tray, and used the tweezers to lift a flap of skin before stabbing it through with the needle and connecting it with the opposite flap of skin with the dark thread.

She stared at his latex-covered hands as he worked. His hands were as masculine as any, long-fingered and incredibly graceful as they moved quickly, pulling, knotting, and tightening the sutures. It was a well-rehearsed talent, and she almost thought he could do it with his eyes closed. For the first time since finding himself face-to-face with her after five years, his focus seemed aimed at something other than her. Or rather, his focus was on her hand and not on the part of her that left her most vulnerable around him.

She listened to his quiet breathing, and she could almost remember the young man she knew so long ago. Darren was three years older than she, he was handsome—incredibly handsome, and he was smart . . . obviously. But he was good and decent in a way people sometimes questioned even existed in the world anymore. Odd that Bailey could still regard him in such a way, but she knew him—really knew him, the him inside the him, not the man who sat beside her, struggling to stifle his hatred and loathing of her.

“I’m sorry.” She’d actually been thinking the words, not necessarily intending to say them, but she listened to her voice whisper out the apology—so pointless now. He froze with the curved needle embedded through both sides of her flesh, and she watched as a pronounced tremble ran through his hands as the rest of his body stayed unmoving.

“Shut up.” His voice was as quiet as hers, and his steely, cool demeanor was lost for a moment. She glanced to his eyes, and they were already on her, glaring. But that control was lost, and his lips trembled for a moment just as much as his hands had before his jaw clenched tight. “I hate you. Do you understand me? Your apology means shit to me.”

Bailey’s own shaking became violent as his words bit into her heart. It was nothing she didn’t already expect—hell, know—but the words were as painful as his needle stabbing her skin. He returned to his task, but he abandoned it quickly with an annoyed huff. “I suggest you hold still. I’d hate to stab you with this needle somewhere the Lidocaine doesn’t reach.” His glare that she only barely managed to hold for half a second said he was lying. He’d love nothing more than to stab her. A needle, a knife. She could go on, and none of it was pretty.

How she managed to hold still long enough for him to finish was a minor miracle. She held her breath the better portion of the time as her eyes watered. She was damn lucky she hadn’t passed out altogether, but she managed it, letting go of a deep breath as he tied the last knot and clipped the thread. He re-wrapped her hand with new bandages, and he wasted no time snatching up the other syringe, pushing the sleeve of her grungy T-shirt up, swabbing her arm, and sticking her with yet another needle. He watched her face again as he slowly pushed the plunger of the syringe.

After he put the Band-Aid over the injection site, he froze, and his hands dropped to his lap. She could see him staring at the side of her face, but she didn’t have the nerve to look at him. He stayed staring at her, and Bailey started trembling again. The tears she’d been fighting started pricking her eyes again, and she fought with every ounce of herself to keep them hidden from him, but it was no use. When he exhaled a deep breath, he opened his mouth, and her tears fell as she listened to him speak. “I never wanted to hate you. Not ever. You did this.”

Bailey didn’t bother apologizing; she didn’t bother trying to say anything at all. It was impossible with her tears streaming, and the breath she held captive in her chest was the only thing keeping her silent tears from turning to sobs of anguish. She would let him stick her with a thousand needles dipped in alcohol before she allowed herself to feel the pain of his words again.

Nurse Marie pushed the door open at just that moment, took one look at Bailey before her eyes flashed to Darren’s slumped figure sitting in the chair in front of her, and Bailey bolted. She snatched up her bag, grabbed her old hoodie that she’d abandoned on the exam table, and she pushed past Marie on her way out the door. Bailey ignored Marie’s concerned voice trailing after her, and she kept her head down until she’d reached the lobby of the hospital. She used the pay phone to call her mother, and she nearly hung up on her after she told her she was ready to be picked up. Bailey found a tree to stand under in the parking lot, and she waited. It wasn’t near the pick-up zone, but Bailey didn’t want to be any closer to the hospital than absolutely necessary.

This was the hell Bailey had been dreading, the hell she deserved. She was in it, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever get back out of it. Could she live like this for the rest of her life? Taunted and haunted, always running into her ghosts? She wanted to run away, but she couldn’t. Her mother needed her here, and there was just nowhere for her to go. She was trapped in this place, doomed to suffer for her sins.

Six Years Before

“Your turn, Bailey.” The look in Darren’s eyes was taunting, challenging. Bailey was very used to that look, though it had admittedly changed to something a bit different than it was when she was a child. He was flirting. He couldn’t possibly be flirting. There was no reason. His girlfriend-of-the-moment was sitting right beside him, and she was that knock-out type that left little room in the world for the likes of Bailey. Not that Bailey was ugly. She wasn’t, and she wasn’t so filled with self-loathing to try to convince herself otherwise, but she was only twenty-one, and this girl, Trinity if she’d remembered correctly, was older than that. Hell, Darren was twenty-four, and Bailey felt little more than a child compared to them.