“No, you don’t understand. I wasn’t thinking at all. I was acting. I was surviving. And my adrenaline—”

He placed his finger over my lips. “Yes, your adrenaline probably helped. It kept you conscious when you should have been passed out. I’m damned grateful for that, but you found the way out. Your adrenaline didn’t do that. You did. You used what you found and worked the situation to your advantage.” He shook his head again. “I’m not…”

“Not what?”

He swallowed visibly. “I’m not worthy of you, Dr. Carmichael.”

I let my mouth drop open. I wanted him to repeat the words because I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. He didn’t think he was worthy of me? After I had been the one who had left him hanging, sneaking out of his house like a scared teenager? He was so wrong. So, so wrong. I opened my mouth to say so, but he stopped me with a gesture.

“Take a shower, Melanie. I’m going to make you a pot of tea or something. I don’t think I have any of that relaxing herbal stuff, but I’ll find something.” He turned away from me and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Wow. He didn’t think he was good enough for me? The man was obviously delusional. I had been the one who’d let him down, not vice versa.

What was going on?

I let out a sigh and then removed the bandages from my other hand. Of course my right hand had been injured worse. I was right-handed. Not that it mattered, since I was on a three-week leave of absence from work. I wouldn’t need to be writing much in the next couple weeks unless I went back to my work in progress—a book on preventing suicide in teens.

My heart wasn’t in that at the moment. This whole situation had evolved because I hadn’t been able to prevent the suicide of a troubled young woman.

I finished undressing, laid my clothes out on the bed, went to the bathroom, started the shower, and dropped a few drops of the lavender oil onto the shower floor. Soon the relaxing scent wafted around me. I inhaled.

I was lucky to be alive. Damned lucky to be alive.

I got into the shower, the water stinging the cuts on my hand. I washed my hair quickly, and then my body.

Lucky…

Gina hadn’t been so lucky.

Why did I deserve to be so lucky?

And then it hit me with the force of a thousand marching soldiers. What I had gone through. What I had escaped. The true reality of it all.

I could be dead right now.

Dead, and no one would ever have known what had happened to me.

I slowly slid my body down the slick shower wall until I was sitting, my knees clasped in front of me.

And all those tears I’d tried to hold back finally fell.

Chapter Thirteen

Jonah

I found a few tea bags in a cupboard and boiled some water. One was labeled chamomile, the two others Earl Grey. I had no idea which Melanie would prefer, so I chose the chamomile. Funny, how little I knew about her—other than how great she was at driving me insane in the bedroom. She liked Thai takeout. She liked red wine. She liked the scent of lavender. I smiled. She liked to wear beige cotton bras and underwear. God, how amazing she would look in that Midnight Reverie line I’d seen in the lingerie shop near her office. I had shredded a couple pairs of her cotton panties. Perhaps I’d replace them with purple lace. I smiled again, but my lips curved quickly downward.

Unfortunately, there was no future for me with Melanie. Not after I’d failed her in her moment of need.

I would never see her in deep purple lace. I would never see her wearing the diamond choker buried in my top dresser drawer either.

I’d been determined that she would surrender to my darkest, deepest desires, so determined that I had purchased the elegant piece of jewelry to give to her as a collar, to show the world that she was mine and mine alone.

That could never happen now. How could I ask her to let me bind her? To let me handcuff her? Not after what she had just been through.

And definitely not after she found out how I had let her down in her time of greatest need.

After the chamomile had steeped for about ten minutes, I walked back to the bedroom where I had situated Melanie. I knocked on the door, but she didn’t answer. Perhaps she was still in the shower. I opened the door, and sure enough, the shower was running. I set the cup of tea on the night table and turned to leave when I heard a whimpering—a soft whimpering, like a child crying.

Unable to look away, I knocked softly on the bathroom door and opened it. “Melanie?”

Through the glass doors, I could see Melanie huddled on the floor of the shower, the water still pelting her.

My heart began to beat wildly. Was she okay? Quickly I yanked the shower door open, grabbed her, soaking myself, and pulled her out of the wetness, carrying her like a baby.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m here. I’m here.” I set her down gently on the toilet and grabbed a large towel, wrapped it around her, dried her off as best I could, and then brought her out to the bed where I laid her down. “Baby, talk to me. Are you okay?”

She sniffled against me as I held her.

“Please, tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” she whimpered.

It was a silly question, I realized in retrospect. Of course she wasn’t okay. She had been through a major ordeal. She would need some time to heal now.

I was well-versed in needing to heal.

“It’s okay to cry, sweetheart.”

She hiccupped. “I had to hold back the tears for so long. I couldn’t let them get through. I had to keep my brain on, had to figure out how to get out of there. And then in the hospital… Everyone around… I just couldn’t let myself…”

“And you don’t think you’re strong?” I shook my head. “Baby, you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met.”

She burst into tears once more and rubbed her face into my shirt.

“It’s okay to cry. Go ahead and cry. I’m here. I’m here.”

She sobbed for only a few more minutes before she regained her composure. I reached for the box of tissues that sat on the night table, pulled one out, and handed it to her. “Here you go.”

She blew her nose loudly and then reached for another tissue to wipe her eyes. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”