Saved By The Greek Doctor (Greek Gods #3) - Holly Rayner Page 0,49

it came to putting down some roots, or building a foundation, or whatever, she might like tradition, too. No, we weren’t talking about forever. We weren’t talking about us. It seemed a bit too early for that sort of talk.

But yeah, I was thinking about it. In the sheer excitement of having her back, mere hours after I thought I’d lost her for good, how could I not?

I understood instinctively why she’d done that, why she’d slipped away like a thief in the night. It was because of me. Because I’d told her only half the truth, and had let her think that I didn’t care about her enough to give her all of it. And then she’d found Lia’s room. My daughter had never slept in there, of course, but it was where I kept her things; where I went to remember her. And I knew that Trish had been in there because I could remember having left the door ajar, trying to get some air in there, and the door had been closed when I passed it again.

So she’d known that I was pushing her away. And she’d known that I was lying about why I was doing it. And that combination, I was guessing, had caused her to run.

I hadn’t delved too deeply into the complexities of her reasoning. I hadn’t known whether she’d thought she was too fragile to deal with it, or I was too fragile to deal with it, or even if she’d just thought that I’d lied so many times that it wasn’t really worth continuing to try.

It hadn’t mattered. I’d known one thing, and one thing only: that I had to find her. Had to give this thing the chance I should have given it the first time around.

Now that I’d found her, I planned to fix the whole thing. But we had some other drama to handle first, evidently.

“I still can’t believe the hostess let him in,” Trish said, her wine glass already half empty in her hand.

I glanced at the bottle of wine on the table—also already half empty—and motioned to the waitress that we were going to need another.

Trish scoffed. “And the worst part is, I can’t even be mad at her. When she said Bryan had told her he was my husband, and that he wanted to surprise me, it all made perfect sense. He’d lied, and she’d believed him. I knew because he did it to me for years, and I believed him every—”

Her voice cracked and she looked away, but I didn’t miss the fact that her eyes were shining with tears.

I reached out and took her hand, running my thumb along her palm to try to calm her. I’d seen this girl nearly drowned, and she hadn’t been this upset. Clearly, the altercation with her ex had set her off, and the only thing I could think about was how I was going to fix it. How I was going to make her feel safe again.

“Did he make any convincing arguments for taking him back?” I asked gently.

She snorted, and I saw the Trish I knew start to come back. The one that saw sunshine and rainbows more often than she saw shadows. The one who had been lighting up my life for the last week.

She shrugged. “Don’t know. I didn’t let him finish the statement. Didn’t want to hear his opinion on the matter, if you want to know the truth.” She grinned at that, and my Trish was suddenly back in all her glory, the sunshine and bravery shining right out of her into that tiny room.

I gave her the most encouraging smile I could muster up and leaned toward her. “I’m glad. Now, it’s too late for me to go back to the island—I avoid going out on the water when it’s dark, and I’ve had too much wine anyway—so I’ll be staying the night at your hotel.”

“What?” she asked, looking surprised. “Wait a minute, you’ve taken us home before when it was dark. The last time we were here. What’s with the change?”

I reached out and ran one finger down her cheek. “Didn’t I tell you I was going to be your safety net, there to catch you if anything went wrong?”

“Yes, but—”

“Did you think that was going to end just because you left without telling me you were going, or saying goodbye?”

Yes, it was a bit of a guilt trip, a bit of a dig at how she’d done it—though