“My mother just died.” I stop and start to shake, feeling triggered. “Grief affects people in different ways.”
“You were crying uncontrollably in the shower every morning, Scarlett.”
My ribs tighten around my lungs. The pain and griefcome rushing back to me. Was I really expected to suck it up? I had a lot to live up to. A boyfriend from a medical legacy that goes back decades, and my own father, who’s no medical slouch. As the Dean of Hamilton Medical College, the best medical school on the East Coast, my father is just as respected.
“I watched her die, Pierce,” I remind him of those last weeks with my mom.
How she withered away in hospice. And no matter how much morphine they pumped her with, she was in so much pain. I can hear the wailing. My father couldn’t handle those nights and left me with her. It was torture, watching her suffer, but I stayed, of course. All that my mother went through to have me. I owed it to her to be there.
It just wrecked me.
Pierce sneers, recognizing the mess he took in a year ago. “I don’t want a wife who’s a doctor working crazy hours like me. I want someone to be here when I come home. Someone to take care of me and raise our family.”
Jaw dropped, I say, “I had no idea you felt this way. I’m sorry. Find someone else to plan your parties and have your babies.” My eyes fly around the closet.
Not having the energy to lift a suitcase, I grab a weekend bag and start packing it with whatever I can get my hands on.
“You needed space and clarity.” Pierce laughs, bitter and sharp. “I gave it to you. You’re the one who needed a break. I took care of you. You owe me, Scarlett.”
He did, but evidently, he also kept score. That’s not love. That’s control.
“Do you hear yourself?” I zip the bag, straighten, and push past him.
My heart hammers when he grabs my arm, and I think for a minute, he won’t let me leave. That he’ll keep mehere.
“I will cut off my share to fund that radiation wing being named for your mother, and all those other cancer charities you coerced me into supporting,” he says quietly.
Heat floods my face with anger.
My brain quickly calculates what his monthly donations have been doing for cancer patients without insurance.
“That’s pretty disgusting.” I pull back. “That will keep your head held high?”
“Then I’ll…”
“There’s a headline I can’t wait for your father to read,” I huff. “Prominentcheatingsurgeon sabotages cancer treatment fund to get even with the girlfriend who won’t marry him. A woman he assaulted.”
More than being accused of assault, the mention of his father, Ramses Langston, sends a visible shiver through Pierce.
“Shame on you for belittling my efforts to help people,” I add.
“You’re just a Ford. I don’t think my rep will take a hit,” he says, blocking the doorway, looking unhinged. “Don’t you dare twist this. I’m not throwing you out.Yourejected my proposal.You’rethe one leaving.”
“After you fucked someone in our bed. Andhitme.”
“You are so naïve, not to mention ungrateful,” he hisses. “No one else will tolerate you like me.”
“You’re disgusting,” I mutter.
“This is how the world works,” he keeps taunting me. “You wanted to be with a man at this level of wealth and power. This is what you should expect, Scarlett.”
“Iwantto be a doctor. Not some medical idol who only wants to be worshipped,” I say, wrenching out of his hold to leave the bedroom.
I grip the banister to get down the stairs in one piece. On the main level, I spare a glance around the cold, lifeless rooms. There’s nothing in this apartment that is mine. I went from student housing with just some shabby clothes on my back to this palace.
Every step closer I get to the door, my future sharpens. I’m going to be a doctor. But I have a long road ahead of me. Two more years of medical school and then residency.
Yet I’m more energized than I have been in a really long time.