"Dr. Karras." She stood, extending her hand. "Nadia Patel. I've been looking forward to meeting you in person."
I obliged and shook her hand. She looked at me warmly, her grip firm but polite. The assessing stare was pretty much obvious. And I appreciated directness. It meant fewer wasted words.
She gestured to the chair across from her desk. "Sit. Let's talk."
The next hour passed in a discussion of expectations and departmental politics. Dr. Patel was straightforward without being cold and thorough without being tedious. She explained the hierarchy, the scheduling rotation, and the research opportunities available to attending physicians.
She did not mention Cassian by name. I did not ask.
"Any questions?" she asked finally, closing the folder in front of her.
"No. Everything’s good.”
She studied me for a moment, and I held her gaze without flinching. I had questions. Dozens of them to be honest. But none that mattered for this conversation.
"If you say so." She removed her reading glasses, studying me with an expression I couldn't quite read. "Dr. Karras, I'll be honest with you. I recruited you because your trauma surgery outcomes were exceptional. Your research on emergency thoracotomy procedures could reshape how we approach penetrating cardiac injuries. You're exactly the kind of surgeon this department needs."
"But I also know you're walking into a complicated situation." Her voice softened. "I want you to know that your personal life is your own business. Whatever history exists between you and other members of this department stays outside these walls, as far as I'm concerned. All I care about is whether you can do the job."
I swallowed. "My private life has nothing to do with my professional life,thatI can assure you."
"I believe you." She stood, signaling the end of our meeting. “We’ll have a department meeting the day after tomorrow at seven sharp. I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team then. For today, familiarize yourself with the place. The cafeteria has decent coffee if you need it.”
"I’ll see you tomorrow then." I rose, smoothing my white coat out of habit. I gave her another polite nod before leaving her office with my orientation folder tucked under my arm.
I headed to the cafeteria as suggested. It sprawled across the entire east wing of the first floor, filled with circular tables. Doctors, nurses, and technicians moved through the space, chatting and buzzing busily.
It was a mistake to go there during peak lunch hours. But I was there to familiarize myself with my new working place.
So I made my way toward the coffee station that sat against the far wall, keeping my gaze fixed forward, refusing to scan the crowd for a face I'd spent five years trying to forget.
Dr. Patel lied. The coffee was bad. Not remotelydecent. But I poured it anyway, needing something to justify my presence in this room.
That's when I heard his voice.
It was low and warm, carrying across the noise of the cafeteria like a frequency my body had never stopped being tuned to. I knew that sound. I'd fallen asleep to it during late night study sessions in medical school. I'd heard it echo through our apartment on Sunday mornings when he'd burn sausages and pretend it was intentional. I'd missed it so much it had become a phantom sound, something I could still hear even though it was gone.
Instinctively, I turned and found him before I could stop myself. He sat at a table near the windows, surrounded by residents who listened to his every word. His posture was relaxed, elbows on the table, leaning forward as he explained something with animated hand gestures. He'd cut his hair shorter than he used to wear it, the dirty blonde strands no longer falling across his forehead. He wore navy scrubs instead of the faded green ones he'd preferred during our marriage.
He looked older. Different.
One of the residents said something, and Cassian's whole face brightened as he grinned, the sound that followed threading through me like a needle pulling through fabric I thought I'd long since discarded.
I set my coffee down on the nearest counter and walked out at the same measured pace I used when leaving the operating room after a case that went sideways. Or when a patient coded and we couldn't bring them back.
Professional. Controlled. Fine.
When I reached the stairwell, I pressed my back against cool concrete.
I counted from one to ten in my head, forcing myself to breathe, following the technique my therapist had taught me during those first brutal months after the divorce.
I'd had five years to prepare for this moment. I'd built a career overseas and published research that earned recognition, having nothing to do with him. I'd learned to sleep alone without reaching across cold sheets. I'd convinced myself that I had moved on.
But thirty seconds of seeing him just proved how spectacularly wrong I was.
Tomorrow, in a room full of colleagues, I would meet the man I once promised to love until death parted us.
Death hadn't parted us. Life had—careers and ambition and a thousand small silences that calcified into walls neither of us knew how to climb.
