Saved By The Greek Doctor (Greek Gods #3) - Holly Rayner Page 0,42

its memories behind.

Oh God, I thought, that person he’d lost had been his daughter. And that woman with the red hair was his wife. I’d broken a picture of the three of them together, and I hadn’t even known it. And now they were… Well, where were the daughter and the wife? Why did he keep this memorial to the girl in his house? Surely, she was—

“Oh, no. Oh no, no…” I breathed quietly.

Someone had died on his operating table, he’d said. Someone so precious to him that he’d actually sealed himself away from life directly after. Someone that had meant so much that he’d stopped letting himself feel anything after she was gone.

His daughter. And he’d sealed himself away because he blamed himself for her death. Because he’d been the one doing surgery on her at the time. A surgery he’d been sure he could accomplish successfully.

And instead, she’d died under his hands.

His wife must have left him soon after. It might have been that she blamed him for their little girl’s death… or it might have been that their relationship just didn’t survive the tragedy of it. Many relationships didn’t. No matter how close you were to someone, tragedies had a way of exposing all the cracks. Forcing you to try to support each other… when you didn’t have enough energy to even support yourself anymore.

But her leaving must have cemented for him that he didn’t deserve for anyone to care about him anymore.

And God, that was horrible.

Then I’d come bumbling in here, broken that picture, and then demanded that he not only feel something for me, but also tell me why he was incapable of doing so. I’d basically forced my way into his life, bringing with me the feel of someone else being in the house—which was probably the last thing he needed.

I gasped, put a hand to my mouth, and then turned and ran from the room. The moment I got to my own room, I closed the door and went to sit on the bed, my mind running right through all the things I’d done that must have been hurtful to him, and all the times he’d pulled back, his face full of pain. He hadn’t been hiding himself from me. He’d been trying to protect himself from me.

My God.

I had to get out of here. I had to leave the poor man alone. And I had to do it before I did any further damage to what had to be an incredibly fragile heart.

Chapter 20

Trish

I turned my face toward the rising sun, took a deep breath of the early morning air, and closed my eyes for just a moment, trying not to think about what I was doing. Trying not to think about what it meant.

Or maybe… maybe, trying to get my brain to start moving forward again. Because right now it was lagging behind me, stuck in that house on the cliffs, along with my heart.

And I couldn’t afford for either of them to be dragging me back. Not anymore. Not if I wanted to give Nikos a chance to heal.

“You’re doing what’s best, you’re doing what’s best,” I repeated to myself for the millionth time, opening my eyes and looking forward—and feeling very, very lucky that the boat rental company had dropped my replacement off yesterday. It had been sitting up against the dock when we returned last night, waiting for me, with an envelope with my name on it giving me the details of the new rental.

Nikos had looked long and hard at the boat, his face completely expressionless. And if there had ever been a time for him to tell me that he didn’t want me to go, that had been it. But honestly, I hadn’t been surprised when he didn’t say anything like that.

Because I’d already known that he’d made up his mind. And I didn’t think he was the sort of man who reversed course easily. Once he’d chosen his path, he wasn’t one to stray.

So, as it had happened, that boat had shown up at the perfect time. It had shown up at exactly the right moment for my escape.

Or rather… not escape. But definitely precipitous retreat.

“You’re doing what’s best,” I repeated—again.

I checked my equipment, making sure that everything was functioning as it should be, and set my course toward the mainland, trying hard to believe that statement. Because no matter how many times I said it, it never stopped feeling… forced. Fake. Like I was