Destroy (A Standalone Romance Novel) (31 page)

“You mean with Jeff?”

“Yes. Do you intend to
pursue your relationship with him?”

“May I speak frankly?”

Elizabeth raised both
eyebrows. “What do you think we’ve been doing thus far?”

“Yes. Well, I first met
Jeff in New York. I was on my way to visit my parents for Christmas.”

“Oh, you mean you met
Jeff before coming to this hospital?”

“Yes. But I had no idea
what he was doing for a living. And I didn’t tell him I was a physician either.
We were stuck in New York at the airport and you know…”

“Yeah…”

“He didn’t tell you he
was married? And he let you come up here without you knowing?”

“Exactly. That only
increased my resolve to break away from him. But he’s persistent.” I shook my
head and drank some of my coffee. It tasted fantastic–after a week of green tea
and orange juice, coffee tasted heavenly.

“And what will happen
now?”

“If you and Jeff go
through reconciliation or decide to stay together, I’ll definitely ensure that
he stays as far away from me as possible.”

“You won’t have to,
Heather. I signed the divorce paper this morning.”

“You did?” I was
surprised, although I shouldn’t have been. After all the explanations she had
given me in the past hour, it should have been a foregone conclusion on my
part.
 
 

Chapter
33

My mind was abuzz with
muddled thoughts.

“Yes, I did,” Elizabeth
went on. “You see, until he made it a public display of your affair, such as he
did last Monday, I still had a smidgen of hope he would come back to me since
you were constantly rejecting his advances. But when he kissed you on the dance
floor, I knew our marriage was over. So, I signed the divorce paper this
morning.”

“Have you told him?”

“No. I might be a bit of a
sadist, because I let him stew for a week and didn’t even listen to him when he
wanted to talk to me.”

“That’s probably because
the night of the dance floor episode; I told him that I didn’t want to have
anything to do with him until you two were divorced.” I paused. “And I can
assure you it wasn’t the first time I told him the very same thing.”

“What he did that night
was truly uncalled for,” Elizabeth agreed.

“But could you tell me
why no one is authorized to work with him these days? Has the Board gotten wind
of the incident?”

“I don’t know that they
did or not. Yet, they didn’t seem surprised when I handed in my resignation. I
think that, at first, they wanted Jeff to stew in his own juice for a while,
but now, since they know that we’re parting company, they want him to be left
on his own for now.”

“Is that some sort of
punishment, do you think?”

“Oh no, Heather. You know
as well as I do how much concentration you need during an operation. And
talking about your marital problem to a colleague can be extremely distracting
and very dangerous to the patient’s health. So, a bit of time on his own in the
dungeon will probably be soothing for him.”

“What about going to a
psychiatrist or a psychologist?”

“I tried that. I
suggested it many times. I even went to a friend of ours for the first few
weeks after Daniel died, and it helped me a great deal. But Jeff wouldn’t hear
of it. And I think that’s where our marriage really went down the drain. I was
recovering better and faster than he was, and he couldn’t understand how he
couldn’t do the same by himself.”

“Men are too proud
sometimes, aren’t they?” I noted to Elizabeth’s smile.

“Yes. And perhaps that’s
what he’s trying to do with you. He wants to talk to someone on his terms. He
wants control over everything. He would be the worse patient ever. If he ever
has to go through surgery, I seriously think he would refuse to be sedated.”

“Are you serious?”

“Oh yes. You see,
Heather, Jeff’s self-dominance has no bounds. He literally wills himself out of
the worst situations. Unfortunately, he lost complete control of his feelings
when our son died. And he refused any help anyone could offer him.”

“I don’t know if I will
be able to get him out of the trap he set for himself.”

“Although you’re right
about the trap comparison, I think he’s reaching out to you to throw him a rope.”

“I just hope he doesn’t
hang himself with it.”

As the day drew to a
close, I was tired. I felt as if I was wearing the ills of the world on my
shoulders. Since Tiffany had brought her car to the hospital, I was glad to get
a ride home with her. Once again, I saw Jeff waiting for me in front of the
park. I would have liked to talk to him and tell him that everything was going
to be okay, but I was too tired to contemplate another lengthy discussion with
him. Somehow, I thought I was not over my flu bug yet.

My qualms were
unfortunately confirmed when we got home and Tiffany took my temperature. I had
a slight fever and I had lost my appetite again. She ordered me to go to bed,
which I didn’t mind at all. Bed was all I wanted actually.

I was resting comfortably
after taking a couple of Tylenol tablets when I heard the doorbell. While Jeff
was on his way up, Tiffany came to my room to ask if I wanted to see him. I
nodded. “Might as well,” I said. “Otherwise, he’s going to pester both of us
for the rest of the week.”

I heard him come in and
thank Tiffany briefly. I truly believed he was scared of her. I mean who
wouldn’t be scared of the girl in a pink robe and bunny slippers?

I was smiling when Jeff
came in. He returned the smile and asked, “What gives? I thought Tiffany was
going to slam the door in my face again.”

“No she wasn’t, Jeff. Not
tonight anyway.”

“And what are you doing
in bed? Are you still sick?”

“Yep. I thought I could
just pick up where I left off, but no. I have a bit of a fever again and I
don’t feel like eating.” I patted the side of the bed. “Come and have a seat.
I’ve got something to say to you.”

“Okay, I’m listening,” he
replied, sitting down and taking my hand in his.

“You’ve heard that
Elizabeth is leaving, haven’t you?”

He opened his eyes wide. Obviously,
no one, including Elizabeth, had let the cat out of the bag.

“Okay, I see you haven’t
heard. Well, she’s leaving the hospital in another week–as soon as her replacement
arrives. In the meantime, we’ll be tying some loose ends and getting things
ready for
who ever
comes in.”

“When did she talk to
you?”

“This morning, why?”

“Because, she hasn’t said
a word to me–and I mean that literally–for a week now. Since the bar incident,
she’s completely shut me out.”

“Do you blame her?”

“I don’t know. She asked
for it, didn’t she?”

“No, Jeff, she didn’t.
She asked you to be honest because you have not been honest with her for a long
time. She had no idea we knew each other before I came to this hospital. She
also told me how resentful you had been toward her.”

“Me? How? I don’t resent
her. I resent her actions, but not her. As you said, she was a mother—”

“Yes, Jeff, you resented
the fact that she was getting through her grieving a lot faster than you did,
because she went to see a psychologist, didn’t she?”

He bowed his head. “What
do those guys know about losing a child?”

“You’d be surprised.
Besides, it’s not what they know about losing a child that counts, it’s what
they can do for you and with you to surmount the effects such an ordeal has on
you.”

He smiled. “I told you;
you should be a psychologist. I could listen to you all day. And I am sure that
if we had known each other when Daniel died, I would have conquered my anger a
lot sooner.”

“Be that as it may, Jeff.
But today is another day gone with the water under the bridge. You will never
get it back. So, why don’t you do what I do?”

“What’s that?”

“Consider every day as the
first day of the rest of your life. Go with it. Good or bad, let it carry you.
Don’t try controlling everything around you. You’ll never win.”

“What about now? Can I
control now?”

I had to smile. I knew
what he would have like to do, and it wasn’t happening. “
Not tonight, Josephine
,” I told him. “You’ve got to go home and
leave me to sleep. I have to get rid of this bug. And I promise you at the end
of the week, we can go for that ice-cream, okay?”

He nodded. “It would have
to be, I suppose. But aren’t you going to tell me what else Elizabeth told you?”

I shook my head. “No.
That’s between the two of us. But I can tell you that I would bet my bottom
penny that she’s waiting for you to get home tonight.”

“Has she told you she
would?”

“No. And I didn’t ask
either. Call it women’s intuition if you like.”

That night I slept like
the proverbial log. Jeff looked much appeased when he left. We both needed each
other. I knew it and he knew it. But, we had now jumped over the most important
hurdle. Elizabeth was leaving. She was divorcing him. It was up to Jeff and me
to work it out. I knew I would demand that he go to a psychologist on a regular
basis so that he wouldn’t carry the burden of guilt or resentment for much
longer.

By Thursday, things were
back to normal at the center. Perhaps not quite “normal” but our new surgeon
and department head had arrived. He was an older fellow with compassionate
eyes. Apparently, he had earned his stripes working in South Africa with
students, who later became professors in their own right, of Christian Barnard.
Barnard opened the door to open-heart surgery, and therefore organ transplants.
He had a South African accent, as one would expect, and added another
impressive name to the list of surgeons in this hospital. I was really
enthusiastic about working with him. He had a kind eye for me but when it came
to surgical procedures, he was a demon in disguise in the theater. Ultimately,
we only had to do a minor surgery on Sam Wilson’s eye. The repair was done in a
manner of minutes while the patient was awake. Although no one needed my help,
Dr. Leesburg (our new head) demanded that I attend the surgery.

“You will attend every
surgery with me, Dr. Williams. No question. You need the hours in the cockpit.
That’s all there’s to it. And if I ask you to do something, you do it.
Understood?”

I felt like saluting and
saying, “Yes, sir, of course, sir,” but I didn’t.

By the next day, I was
ready to go out with my new man–Dr. Jeff Aldridge. Elizabeth had managed to sit
him down apparently and to tell him he was free as she handed him the divorce
papers–signed. She told me that she had decided to travel to Paris and the
French Riviera for the rest of the winter, and after that, she would take over
a small practice in Maine. An old friend of the family was retiring and wanted
her to take over.

When I came through the
doors of the hospital, I saw Jeff waiting for me across the street. We were
walking home–to my apartment. Tiffany had decided it was about time for her to
spend the weekend with her family. I knew she had arranged it so that Jeff and
I would be alone for a couple of days.

I was terribly happy to
see him for once. I kissed him feverishly as soon as I nestled in his embrace.

“God,” he said, “It’s so
good to have you back.”

I looked up at him and
grinned. “How about we go somewhere fun?” I asked.

“And where would that
be?”

“To my bedroom.”

“That’s sounds perfect. I
haven’t been there in such a long time, I’m sure I’d lose my way.”

“Come on then!”

When we got home, I
noticed that Tiffany had left a casserole of spaghetti in the oven for us. I
told you: She’d make the perfect wife to some guy someday.

I couldn’t get out of my
clothes fast enough and neither could Jeff. We were hungry for each other. As
soon as we stepped into the shower together and he started to soap me down, I
shivered from head to toe so anxious to have him I was. I returned the favor
and soaped his body down while he squeezed my nipples and rubbed my breasts. As
soon as I went down on my knees to suck his penis, he moaned. He had waited for
me for so long, he was over excited. I knew it would take all of his strength
to hold on. When I came up, he grabbed my clitoris and practically sent me to
seventh heaven. I, too, could hardly wait for him to take me. He did so in the
next few minutes. God, the thrill of his caresses, the teasing of my nipples,
and the feel of his penis inside my vagina were all incredible. I was soon to
have an orgasm as he ejaculated inside of me. I loved every second of it.

We washed ourselves down
and soon got out of the shower all excited again. He dried my body down and
wiped my hair while I wrapped a towel around him. We went to bed and slipped
under the cover in silence. There were no words to express how I felt–I was so
happy.