Saved By The Greek Doctor (Greek Gods #3) - Holly Rayner Page 0,51

back together by myself, I’d put myself back together with Nikos’ help. No, he might not have known it at the time, but he was there through every step of the thing. He was there handing me coffee and croissants, teaching me how to snorkel, pelting me with olives, showing me the ruins on his island, while I patched myself up.

And in the process, he’d become a part of that patch.

“Oh, God,” I moaned, seeing it all so clearly now.

And not actually regretting it. Not regretting for one moment that Nikos was part of the patch. But knowing now what I was so worried about. It wasn’t Nikos. It wasn’t that my patch job was faulty or even that I wasn’t fully patched up.

It was a fear that Bryan was going to come around and cause me to drop all of my glass globes again. Or rather… take up some sort of sledgehammer and bust right through the patch I’d worked so hard to put up. I was afraid that he was going to ruin everything again, the way he’d done a few weeks ago when he broke my heart the first time.

God, I thought, what if he came back? What if Nikos left to go home, and Bryan immediately returned? What if I didn’t have the strength to tell him no? What if I slipped right back into my old habits?

What if he found a way to force me to let him back in?

What if, what if, what if?

The thoughts rolled right through my head, causing more and more panic with every passing moment. Yes, I thought I was stronger than I had been. No, that didn’t mean I wanted to face Bryan again. Not when I was just starting to feel like I fit into my own skin once more.

And suddenly I sat right up in bed and stared at the door. I was worried that he’d come back, because that was who he was. He thought he deserved a second chance, and though I couldn’t imagine why he’d want one with me—after all, he’d been cheating on me for who knew how long—I knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t give up.

Even after his run-in with Nikos; maybe specifically because of his run-in with Nikos. Because Bryan hated to lose. He always had. He might not have really been committed to fighting for me, but that didn’t mean he was going to go willingly into the night if it meant letting someone else win.

He’d be back. It was only a matter of time.

The question was whether I’d be here waiting for him or not. And I knew for a fact that I couldn’t be. The old Trish might have been. The old Trish might have talked herself into thinking that she should just hope for the best. Give him another chance, count on him to have learned his lesson.

But the new Trish, the one who rode quads and snorkeled and raced across the plains on horseback, who got into olive fights and had accidentally started giving her opinion on things like winemaking? The woman who had done those things with a man who truly appreciated her and had laughed with her at every step of the road?

No, this new Trish wasn’t going to sit around and wait for Bryan to ruin everything. She’d made that mistake once. She wasn’t going to make it again. The only question was what she was going to do about it.

How, exactly, was I going to make sure that when he returned, I wasn’t here waiting for him?

Because I knew in my heart that doing that would be the only way to not only get rid of him once and for all, but to guarantee that I got on with my life, minus Bryan, and started figuring out who I wanted to be in the future.

By the next morning at breakfast, I thought I had an answer.

“I’m going to have to go home,” I told Nikos calmly. “I don’t want to be here if Bryan comes back. And he’s clearly going to look for me all over Greece when he does. I just don’t think he’s going to give up that easily. He might not want me, not really, but he hates losing. Maybe it’s best if I just cut my trip short.”

Nikos looked at me like I’d actually just cut him and shook his head sharply. “No,” he said shortly. “I don’t think you should travel at all. We