straightened my back. “June needs you.”
No matter what, I had to get to Tracorox. I needed a plan—one that wouldn’t put Soren in harm’s way.
Dylan’s father could do more than just hurt me physically, I knew that much, and I would never be able to live with myself if something happened to Soren. That left me with only one option. For both our sakes, it was time I distanced myself from him. I needed to save my sister, and if that meant I had to sacrifice my future…
Then so be it.
15
Soren
“Doctor?”
“I’m sorry.” I sat up in the chair and looked at Tamir, suddenly aware that I hadn’t heard a word of what she said. “I was distracted. What were you saying?”
“The results you were waiting for have arrived.” She stepped closer to my desk and placed the stack of documents on the tabletop. “Nothing major in those from what I’ve seen.”
“Thank you,” I replied, thumbing my way through the documents. Most of them were tests I had requested for some patients in intensive care units that were about to be discharged and, thankfully, it was just like Tamir had said. There was nothing of significance in them.
“I’ll get them into the system, so you can tell the admin guys to start preparing the paperwork for the discharges.” With an absent-minded gesture, I booted up my terminal. Usually it would have been Tamir uploading the results to the system, but I figured that it would keep my mind occupied, which was exactly what I needed.
“Are you okay, doctor?” She stood next to the door, eyes slightly narrowed. Her feet faced the exit, but her whole body remained turned to me. “I’m sorry for asking, but you’ve been distracted these last few days.”
Leaning back in my chair, I smiled.
“I haven’t been sleeping that well,” I said. “Other than that, I’m perfectly fine.” I kept that fake smile plastered on my face until Tamir had left. The moment the door closed behind her, my shoulders sagged just as fast as my smile vanished.
It’s not that I had lied to Tamir—sleep hadn’t come easy these last few days—but I hadn’t been completely honest either. Lack of sleep wasn’t what was keeping me distracted.
Drumming my fingers against the edge of the table, I gave myself an encouraging nod and started uploading the test results into the hospital’s database.
I did it in less than ten minutes, my actions automatic and mindless, but flagged everything on the system for a double-check. As distracted as I was, it was better to have Tamir confirm I hadn’t mangled the records. Now that would surely raise some eyebrows.
Pursing my lips, I glanced at my Holopad, hoping to see a message blinking on the screen. There was nothing there. Ever since that morning at the palace, Maya had gone radio silent. She’d returned home with Dylan, using her headache as an excuse, and then…
Nothing.
To be fair, she hadn’t completely cut me off. She responded to my messages, and she always picked up when I called her. But that warmth I had come to expect from her had disappeared. Instead of seeing desire in her eyes, I saw nothing but an icy haze.
I fought against it, but I couldn’t stop my unconscious fears from bubbling up. I had gone through this before, after all.
First came that electric connection, then the promises of love, and all that would be inevitably followed by a cold silence. A silence pregnant with betrayal. I was pretty sure that Maya wouldn’t go down that path but, at the same time, I could feel that something wasn’t right. I didn’t know what it was, but she was definitely pulling away from me.
Maybe she didn’t feel as strongly for me as I’d thought. Or maybe I was wrong about the mating gene entirely. Whatever it was, I could tell that she had started putting up walls around her. After what I could only describe as the best days of my life, Maya was now trying to keep me at bay.
And to think that I was going to ask her to stay. Maybe even ask her to marry me. It was a bit early for that, I knew, but I simply couldn’t help it—I was crazy about her, and I needed her in my life.
Of course, it didn’t help that her contract was about to be up. Could that be part of the problem? When I first met Maya, she hadn’t been sure of her plans for the future. In