I don’t even remember the kid’s name. He was just one of thousands I operated on.
I blink through tears at the crash of applause and even people standing up. I give a soft nod and wipe a tear to show how moved I am.
“Hang on with that admiration, folks,” Pierce says wryly from the podium. “Thenthishappened.”
Oh no.
The next photo is my fucking mug shot. God, I don’t recognize myself. Gray skin. Sunken eyes. Face gaunt. I was high, starved, and head pounding from the car accident.
I turn and slip a look at Bradley, who stares back, eyes demanding answers. Gasps ripple through the room. Scarlett squeezes my hand and looks at me with worried eyes. I shake my head, letting her know I’m choosing not to make a scene.
Langston blabbers on about me in an unhinged rant usually saved for rage bait on social media. I glance around, and some people are on their phones, probably looking for these photos, which they won’t find. The Langstons must have paid someone to dig them out of cyberspace’s trash can, someone craftier than my brother Balor.
“Cormac…” Scarlett whispers, her head on my shoulder. “Let’s go. You don’t have to take this.”
I watch others get up to leave. Either because they don’t think I deserve the award, or maybe they just can’t watch Pierce make a fool out of himself.
“No. I won’t give him the satisfaction.”
She squeezes my hand. “You’re right.”
Just when I think this montage can’t get worse, it does.
“And for those who want to believe Dr. O’Rourke champions women’s rights and causes, maybe we need to ask this woman.”
My heart slams into my stomach when a photo appears on screen of a very pregnant Ana from our Vegas days. Skin broken out, hair greasy, and wearing cheap clothes I bought at a thrift store with money I had left over from using, she is so unrecognizable, it’s fucking jarring.
Oddly, Pierce doesn’t name her. Does he know she’s Bratva? That he won’t make it to another sunrise if he outs her?
“That baby bump is Dr. Cormac O’Rourke’s illegitimate child.”
More gasps sound off around the room.
“Oh my God,” Scarlett hisses. “His vileness knows no bounds.”
I want to drop my head in my hand, but I stay upright. J.P. is mine, but his birth certificatesayshe’s Darragh’s. And DNA wouldn’t be conclusive. I want to claim James Patrick. But not like this.
It’s best I say nothing.
Pierce is now tossing my plaque back and forth in his hands like a football, further showing his massive disrespect to the foundation that sponsored this event rather than at me, his intended target.
Tucking the plaque under his armpit, Pierce reads from his phone, “Arrest records from Nevada charged Dr. O’Rourke with fraud. Conspiracy. Theft.” He clicks his tongue. “Oddly enough, no charges for human trafficking or abuse. Apparently, his victim was so afraid of him that she didn’t sign a formal complaint against him.”
Scarlett stands so fast that her chair knocks over. “Shut up. You’re a liar,” she yells.
“Scarlett!” Her father grabs her wrist. “Cormac, sit her down. Control your wife.”
I merely lay my hand on her bare back. “Babe, he’s only embarrassing himself.”
“I can’t let him get away with this.” She sits with a huff. “He’s doing this because of me.”
I nod because she’s right. “And I married you, knowing you had a live wire ready to blow up. I can handle it.”
“And now, that soured, brilliant doctor is married to one of his medical students!” Pierce slaps the award. “Are you going to get her pregnant and leave her alone with a child, too?”
This is the only part that gives me a panic attack. That lie. That assumption. I want to shout that I didn’t abandon Ana. She was fucking taken from me. Ana and I were together until the day we got into the accident. I just stopped touching her because I knew by then she hated me.
People like Pierce love nothing more than bending the story for their narrative, a knife in my back that they can twist for the rest of my life.