Page 70 of Worth the Fight

“Mmm, I ditched it in the effort. Used it as a weapon to fight off wild animals.”

“Ahhh, yes. The wild animals that roam the streets of Paris.”

A cab pulls to the side of the road, and Lukas reaches to open the door for me. I climb in and slide across the seat, giggling as Lukas tries to bend and fit his six-and-a-half-foot frame in the small car.

That’s one of the things that surprised the both of us when I first moved to France. In America, it seems like everyone has a big vehicle. An SUV that seats eight, a pickup truck with an obnoxiously loud engine, an eighteen-passenger van. Around Europe, it’s the opposite. Small two-seater cars, or maybe a car that has a small back seat. If someone drives a truck, it’s a single cab, lower to the ground, used for hauling items back and forth as opposed to showing off.

I hadn’t noticed how hard I was squeezing Lukas’s hand until he brushes his shoulder against mine. “Nervous?”

I nod. Nervous that the x-ray won’t show that I’ve healed. Nervous that an injury like this will keep happening again. I’m pushing thirty, which is young, except in the ballerina world where I’m considered middle-aged. Most ballerinas with my company retire in their mid-thirties. Hell, the agency has a mandatory retirement age of forty-two. Since I’ve been with this organization, only a few have made it that far.

“Distract me,” I whisper, leaning my head on his shoulder. “Tell me what our plans are for the rest of the day.” Lukas arrived yesterday, and he gets to spend all day today and tomorrow with me before taking his flight back home. I’m already dreading the goodbye, wanting to hold on and savor every second we have together, knowing it’ll likely be months again before we see one another.

He presses his cheek against mine. “I was thinking about a lot of things. Mostly things that our driver probably doesn’t want to hear.” Even though he whispers it, lips brushing against my ear as he speaks, my eyes flick to the rearview mirror, and I can see the driver try to hide his smile.

“But we should definitely pick up some chocolate mousse. Or maybe one of those tartes we had before.”

I bring my head up, lips pressed against his ear as I whisper, “I can think of a few creative ways to use that mousse.”

He immediately groans, a loud, satisfying groan, and I bite down my smile as soon as the cabbie pulls the car to the curb.

Lukas climbs out first, and he reaches his hand toward me, ready to help me out as soon as I slide across the seat. Once I’m standing, he pulls me to him, his grip taught, and my chest slams against his. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Banks.”

I press a quick kiss to his lips. “Since when am I one to back down from a challenge?” I cock a brow in his direction and turn toward the clinic, leaving him standing on the side of the street with a boyish grin spreading across his face.

“What did the x-ray look like?”

I shrug. “All x-rays look like a black and gray mess to me. I couldn’t see the fracture the first time until the doctor pointed it out to me.”

“Are we seeing the same doctor you had before? Is that who you’ve seen each time?”

“No.” My answer is quick, immediate, and it has Lukas spinning from where he was standing against the wall, flipping through a magazine that I know he doesn’t understand a lick of.

We’ve talked about our dating lives outside of each other. Lukas knows I tried to be intimate with one other man, my boyfriend at the time. The only part I left out is that my boyfriend was a doctor that I had met while Lukas and I were still together.

I hadn’t meant to withhold that. I doubt Lukas would even be upset. Absolutely nothing happened between Keith—Dr. Armstrong—and me while I was with Lukas or the few months that followed our breakup. After my relationship with Keith ended, I had hoped I’d never see him again in a professional setting, as seeing him would mean that I injured myself somehow.

“What’s going on, Mags?” Lukas tucks the magazine back in a holder that hangs off the wall and is about to take another stride toward me when the door swings open.

Dr. Armstrong enters the room with a smile on his face when he sees me, that smile dimming slightly when he sees Lukas standing at my side.

“Magnolia. Hi, I—” He pauses, looking from me, to Lukas, and back again. “Ms. Banks.” He nods. “Dr. Dubois got pulled into an emergency surgery. I offered to cover some of his patients, so I hope it’s okay that we’ll be going over your x-ray together.”

I nod my response, the tension thickening the room nearly overpowering.

Lukas stares at the side of my face, and I know I don’t have any reason to feel guilty. Anything Dr. Armstrong and I had was after Lukas and I ended. I try to shake it off, and I turn to Lukas, offering my best genuine smile. “Lukas, this is Dr. Armstrong. He was the orthopedic I worked with through my first injury, and we got to know each other after. Dr. Armstrong, Keith, this is Lukas Hart.”

Keith flinches at the sound of Lukas’s name, as he should. When we tried to take our intimacy to the next level, and when I had a full-blown panic attack over it, I cowered into myself, spilling out all my anxieties and thoughts, and eventually said Lukas’s name out loud. I told him a little of what we went through, and once I had stopped crying, Keith very calmly got dressed and suggested that we would be better off as friends.

Keith reaches a hand out to Lukas, and Lukas grabs it, shaking once. “Nice to meet you,” Lukas says, and Keith nods.

“Likewise. Let’s pull up that x-ray.”

He reaches for the rolling chair, taking a seat and firing up the computer. Lukas looks over at me, his head tilting in a “is that the guy” expression toward Keith.

I purse my lips together, nodding once, and to my utmost surprise, Lukas raises his brows in almost a “nice” gesture.

I twist mine together, a silent conversation passing between us that we will absolutely be discussing later.