He was then speechless, a myriad of emotions rushing over his features.
I glared at him, hating him at that moment. “I knew this wasn’t a good idea,” I said, moving past him and grabbing my jacket. I could feel my cell ringing in my pocket again.
Reed’s voice was biting, “How can it not be a good idea? I made you come, didn’t I, something that your fiancé has clearly failed to do.” He prowled closer.
“I’m sorry, Reed. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I didn’t promise you anything last night either.”
Spinning away from the look of distaste on his face, everything inside me was breaking in slow motion. As I got to the hotel door, I wrapped my hand around the handle and pulled, but the door slammed closed again, jarring my wrist. Reed had his hand shoved against the surface, trapping it closed: his fist close to my head as I turned slowly to face him.
“If you do this, you’re only going to make me hate you.”
Reed glared down at me, looking so very tall and brooding. “Do what, Storm? What the fuck am I doing?”
“Drawing this out. It’s painful enough as it is,” I cried.
“Maybe I want you to hate me. Hate is better than fucking nothing,” Reed batted back, raising his voice as he snarled in my face. He kept his hand pinned beside my head.
“Please, Reed. Just let me go.”
I could see he was fighting with himself, but didn’t he get it? We werenevermeant to be. Nothing normal had ever been written on the cards for us.
How could they have been when one of us was a selfish bitch?
Reed’s frame vibrated with unleashed anger, and I knew I hadn’t seen the half of it yet. The tendons on his neck were pulled taut, and that muscle in his jaw jerked, a sign that he was struggling to hold onto his temper. Not the physical side I had seen on the games field, but scary nonetheless.
After a brief stare off, Reed sighed and dropped his hand, his shoulders sagging. “At least let me drive you back to where your car is parked?”
“No, I’ll grab an Uber. You need to get ready for your meeting.” And with that note, I turned back to the door, the handle rattling in my shaky palm.
“Storm?” That pleading tone lanced through me like a knife, but I held my hand up and yanked open the door.
“No, Reed. I’ll see you later.”
I now had the door open, but thankfully, the corridor was empty.
“You’ll see me later, how?”
My hold on the door went lax as I twisted around.
I swallowed, and it felt like there was acid in my throat as my eyes scanned his face. The cold, toneless way he said those words chilled me to the bone. “At your next session. Remember, we changed today to Thursday?” I couldn’t keep the hope out of my voice.
He then looked at me as though he thought I was mad, and I probably was: as if we could go back to that Doctor and client situation. The whole thing was a joke from start to finish. But I had wanted to help him, genuinely, and now I’d done the opposite of that and fucked with his head even more.
Reed met my stare with one of his own; it was intense, drilling beneath my skin. “Under the circumstances, I think I should transfer to another therapist, don’t you think?”
My shoulders slumped in defeat as he was right.
“Of course. I’ll get the papers agreed with the management.”
Reed smirked as he dashed a hand over the scruff on his strong jaw. “Yeah, what rationale are you going to give for the transfer? How you fucked one of your patients? Surely that’s against the code.” He was being unkind on purpose, and I knew I deserved that.
“Irreconcilable differences?” I said with a shrug, pulling the door wider without breaking eye contact.
“Yeah. That sounds about right.”
“Goodbye, Reed.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he said, the words cracking: his voice was so soft I could hardly hear it. It felt like I was in limbo, standing in the doorway between two scenarios, happiness one way, misery the other.
