“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Maybe once,” I admitted, backing up against the sofa. “Now I don’t think of you at all, honestly.”
He winced. After several awkward seconds he said, “Isla, you’re . . . I don’t know, different now. I can’t put my finger on it.”
It’s confidence,I thought.I’m no longer the little shadow of a woman who settled for scraps of affection.But he didn’t deserve the energy it would take to speak the words aloud, so I just sighed and said, “I think you should leave.”
“It’s about Macabe—”
My gut squeezed. “What about him?”
“Look.” Hands on his hips, he puffed out a sigh, like what was to come would be as painful for him as it was for me. “I didn’t want to put it quite so bluntly, but he’s not who you think he is.”
I laughed, a part of me refusing to believe he was doing this right now. “If it’s the sleeper-spy thing, don’t worry, he already told me everything.”
“You know I hate sarcasm.”
“And I don’t care anymore.” I had better things to be doing. I turned for the door.
“Wait! Wait, please.” He grabbed my arm. “That came out wrong. But tell me what he’s said about Glasgow? Why he’s here?”
“His dad got sick. He inherited the surgery.” I extracted my arm with a sharp tug. “Not that it’s any of your business.” No way would I tell him the rest. The details were Alistair’s business.
“Of course that’s what he told you.” He chuckled, a bitter sound I’d never thought him capable of. “Playing the white knight, right?”
“Cameron—”
“He was forced out, Lala.”
A mini cyclone swept through the room. Nothing but tumbleweeds.How did he know about that?
He took my silence for ignorance, pouncing quickly. “It’s true, he got lazy at work, fucked up and misdiagnosed a young woman. A heart condition they could have caught, but she almost died,” he explained eagerly. “He tried to pin it on a senior doctor, attacked him right in the middle of the surgery. Then he went AWOL for two weeks. They nearly fired him, Isla, but settled on a mandatory sabbatical. That’s why he’s really here. Don’t you see?” he pleaded. “He ruined his career, now he’ll use his experience from running his dead dad’s practice to negotiate himself a better job back in Glasgow.” My ears felt like they were ringing. “His plan is actually pretty clever: use you to warm his bed at night, then he’ll go back to his old life like nothing ever happened. He’s searching for his replacement, you know, got some fancy head-hunter in the city working for him. I heard he’s already interviewing.”
I ignored the final jab, though it felt like he’d slapped me.
Just like that, it all made sense. How Alistair had acted like a bear with a thorn in his paw those first months. His insistence he wasn’t a good man. The guilt he carried. The belief he needed to prove himself, to his dad, to . . . everyone. “How could you possibly know all this?”
“I have a friend who’s a journalist. I asked him to poke around.” He almost smiled as he said it.
“You had someone investigate him?” That was . . . sickening.
Even if Alistair had lied to me – which he hadn’t – the violation from Cameron was so much worse.
He looked like a proud little boy who’d won a game, while I felt like he’d torn my rib cage open. Shredded it right down the middle until my heart was exposed.
“I had no other choice. Don’t you get it?” He came closer. “Whatever promises he made you, it’s just a game to him.”
“He hasn’t lied to me.” Alistair had given me the bare bones of the story. He hadn’t lied . . . yet I felt like my blood had frozen in my veins, then started pumping around my body in the wrong direction.
A disagreement over a patient, he’d said. Not that it had been his patient . . .hismistake.
Oh god.
“Yes, he has. He’s a liar, Lala. I don’t know how you can’t see it.” Cameron ran a hand through his perfect hair. “What about the money for Teddy’s school trip, did he tell you he paid that?”
“What? Cameron—”
“It’s true. I was so confused when you thanked me for it the other day, that’s why I started digging around. The school confirmed the account details. It was him, Isla.”
