Fractured Love Read online

  Fractured Love

  An Off Limits Romance

  Ella James

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part 1

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Part 2

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Epilogue

  The Boy Next Door

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Ella James

  Copyright © 2017 by HEA Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This ebook is Amazon-exclusive. If you purchased it in the iBookstore or anywhere else, you have bought a pirated copy and should return it.

  For You.

  Sometimes fractured love is the sweetest.

  Part One

  Prologue

  Landon

  Monday, June 12, 2017

  Denver, Colorado

  She sits alone at a lime green booth, eating an avocado she sliced open with the hard edge of a spoon. I’m in my spot before she slides into her booth, and so I see her press the spoon against the dark green skin and split the avocado open, pull it apart. I know what she’ll do before she does it—or at least, I think I do.

  Yep.

  She goes for the pepper shaker first, taking it from where it stands next to the napkin holder. Pepper first, and then the salt. She stares into space as she chews and swallows, digs into the soft, ripe fruit, and then repeats. I’m some thirty feet away, behind a column painted to look like a tree.

  I didn’t bother with the ruse of food.

  I watch her push aside the finished shell of peel that held the first half of her snack. She scoops the seed out of the second half and sets it in the empty bowl of peel. Then she digs into the fruit with her spoon once again, at one point bringing her hand to her mouth and straightening a finger. I can’t see her clearly enough to know for sure, but I think she licked it. She should know better than that.

  Her flaxen hair is pulled into a ponytail. Sleek, but nothing fancy. Up against the stark white of her coat, her skin looks deeply tanned. I’m too far away to see the freckles strewn across her nose and cheeks, but I assume they’re where they’ve always been.

  Truth be told, she looks exactly like I thought she would, right down to the pink and gray sneakers I see underneath her table, and the small, square, multicolored, canvas purse she wears diagonally across her chest.

  Once she’s finished with the avocado, she appears to lick her lips, and then she’s staring into space—or at the mom and children at a round table ten or fifteen feet in front of her. Her shoulders look relaxed. Her back is straight, her long legs crossed. She gives no clue she is getting up until she does. Rather than gather the fruit peel to her chest and then stand up, she stands first, lingering over the table for a moment before she reaches over to pick up her trash, as if it’s an afterthought. She confirms my hunch—that she’s distracted—a moment later, when she throws her stainless steel spoon away, along with the fruit peel and her napkin.

  Her eyes widen.

  Oops.

  She hesitates a moment before turning, walking past a few restaurant-fronts, and disappearing into the sea of people in the vast lobby.

  I don’t need to hurry after her—I know where she’s going—but I do. I grab my leather briefcase, toss my coat over one arm, and follow her with long strides.

  The bustling lobby is busier than usual, because it’s Wednesday. The outpatient clinics are busiest mid-week. No one wants to come to the hospital Monday or Friday. Not for a planned appointment.

  I pass the wide hallway that snakes around the hospital’s right, front quadrant, and head past benches, sculptures, and a long row of check-in and information desks that form a line down the center of the lobby.

  The elevator banks are straight ahead, but I’m not going there. I hang a right, down a hall that leads toward the admin offices, and then take the first stairwell I see. My loafers rap softly against the cement stairs—quiet enough that I can hear her Nikes bounce against the stairs above.

  I know it’s her.

  I know her gait.

  I look up into the sliver of space at the middle of the stairwell, and I can see her coat flap, see her ponytail fly, as she climbs. I’m still on the first flight when I hear a door open then shut.

  Shortly thereafter, I push through the same third-floor door, coming out beside a water fountain and a large, fake, potted plant. I slip into my coat, pick my briefcase back up, and follow the route I remember from my interview: past the waiting room, the doors to the NCCU, and finally the neurosurgery inpatient check-in desk, using my new ID to get the doors to open.

  Once I’m in the neurosurgery inpatient area, I walk past patient rooms, the nurse station—deserted, because they’re changing shifts in Conference Room 1—a restroom, and several patient rooms.

  As I near the door to Conference Room 2, I see her dark gold hair, her slender shoulders. Then she’s through it, out of sight.

  There’s this moment, as I step into the room behind her, when I feel light and weightless. Like I think a patient must feel during surgery, hovering somewhere near the ceiling. Then I see the face of one of our chief residents, Dr. Dorothy Eilert, and I’m back on solid ground.

  She nods at me.

  I nod back.

  I stand near the back of the small room while a handful of residents from years two through six, plus two chief residents—the seventh years—greet the four of us newbies for orientation. I stand there, still and calm, while Dr. Eilert goes over some logistics, introduces each of us.

  In med school, I learned how to bullshit with the best of them. The art of sounding sure when I don’t know shit. What kind of smile makes me look sincere and empathetic, even when I’ve got a killer headache. How to live off stale bagels and caffeinated gum, while sleeping an hour every other day on a cot sized for a nine-year-old. I can talk to patients with tact, swallow criticism with grace, and keep my ego in a little box I only open when I really need to push myself. Surgeons aren’t supposed to be human. We must be more than.

  So I smile when Eilert introduces me. I stand four feet behind her, and while Eilert and the other chief speak, I keep my jaw relaxed, my face relaxed, so only I know that I want to strip her crisp, white coat off, push her up against the wall, grab her by the ponytail, and fuck her until she cries—for me. I want to hear her moan, whimper, and beg—for me.

  She stands there, playing with her hair as she listens to Eilert, rubbing an itch near her collar, breathing, her heart beating, and the sight of it is so surreal. I can’t stop looking. Even when my gaze is pointed downward, my attention is aimed at her.

  I tell myself my racing pulse is nothing but adrenaline, fired off because of what my senses process. My reaction to her is scientific. Predictable. Meaningless. There’s no such thing as serendipity. There’s no such thing as fate or soul mates. Everything I’ve learned in school—in life—has taught me that.

  Evie is nothing but a memory, dancing out in front of me.

  I can keep focused.

  We four interns—otherwise known as first-year residents
—get our marching orders for the first three months.

  “Kim, inpatient. Prinz, critical care. Rutherford, neurosurgery. Jones, you’ll be our floater. What that really means—” Eilert winks at me, “is neurosurgery six days out of seven and inpatient the seventh. Our second years have us mostly covered in the NCCU.”

  I can see the birthmark on the back of her neck. Will we be in surgery together, ever? Surely so.

  The buzz of people talking ebbs and flows around me. I chat and smile and listen as my body riots from the inside out.

  And then it’s over, people turning toward the door. I smile and shake a few hands. Everyone starts filing out. I turn to follow…but I can’t move.

  I can feel the heat of her behind me, feel the tug of her.

  I step toward the door as the last of our colleagues slips through it.

  I watch it shut.

  Then I turn and look into the past.

  One

  Evie

  September 4, 2006

  Asheville, North Carolina

  “But what if he doesn’t like Empire Strikes Back?” My sister Emmaline tilts her head up, looking at the poster we just hung. In her brand new, silky Princess Leia nightgown, she looks more like four than seven. She’s tiny for her age, and it’s late, so her little voice is wobbly with tiredness.

  “Don’t worry, Em.” I smooth my palm over her blonde hair. “Everybody likes The Empire Strikes Back.”

  “Not me.” She pokes her lower lip out. “I like A New Hope.”

  “That’s just because you love the light sabers.”

  She smiles, nodding, and I sift my fingers through her silky locks.

  “I think he will want a light saber,” she says.

  I smooth the poster down, then stick another push pin in the lower right corner. “Maybe so, but remember what Mom said. We’re going to feel it out before you give it to him. We don’t want him getting here and being overwhelmed the first day. He might be sad.”

  “Like Mommy gets when the hospitalist is on vacation?”

  I laugh at Emmaline’s goofy, wide-eyed look. “Just like that.”

  Both our parents are doctors, so Em’s heard a lot of shop talk at the dinner table, such as last week, when our mom, a pediatric ear, nose, and throat surgeon, expressed frustration that another doctor—the hospitalist—was on vacation.

  “What about Mommy?”

  The bedroom door opens, and our mom’s tired but smiling face appears. I watch as her gaze sweeps the room, moving over the airplane-shaped bookshelf, the Crayola-red dresser, the two twin beds—now outfitted with navy blue spaceship duvets—the leather armchair from my dad’s old home office, and finally the longest wall, where Em and I have hung an Empire Strikes Back poster, a coat rack, and a wall-mounted shelf bearing four fun, electronic kid toys.

  Mom gives us a bright smile. “Nice job, girls.”

  “Evie said I have to wait to give him the light saber,” Em pouts.

  “Just a little while,” my mom tells Emmaline, stepping fully into our new foster brother’s basement digs. “Remember what we talked about,” she says, scooping up Em. “We don’t know how he’ll feel when he gets here. So we want to give him space to settle.”

  Em pokes her lip out again. “Okay.”

  “Don’t be glum, chum.” My mom kisses her cheek. “You two rocked this room out. I can’t believe that three weeks ago it was a storage area.”

  I laugh, wiping a strand of hair off my forehead. “I can.”

  My mom winks at me over Em’s head, then wraps my sister closer to her. “I think it’s bedtime for you, my dear.”

  Emmaline reaches for me. “One big hug, and one big kiss.”

  I give her both, and Mom wiggles her eyebrows. “Come on back up soon, Ev.”

  “I will.”

  I’m a perfectionist, though. We’ve had foster siblings from all walks of life, but never one who’s been in as many homes, or had as many bad experiences, as this little boy has. He’s only 7—he’ll be in Em’s class at school—and he’s spent time in twelve homes, two of which he was removed from because of inappropriate behavior by the foster parents or siblings. His paperwork says he’s exceptionally bright. Bright enough to maybe go to college early. The agency my parents work with picked them out specifically because they both have several degrees.

  I straighten his duvets one more time, and take a final spin back through the bathroom. His papers say that he’s a fan of Harry Potter, so we did the wallpaper in a wand pattern, the shower curtain featuring a scene of Hogwarts.

  I bite my lip, remembering the Polaroid picture Mom and Dad showed us. Wherever he was standing—maybe in a doorway—there was a shadow over half of his face. I couldn’t see his eye color, but his hair looked light brown. His lips were in a straight line, his eyes striking and somber.

  So different than Em.

  The bathroom door creaks, and I jump. “Dad—good Lord! You scared me.”

  For a surgeon who saws bones and re-breaks badly healed fractures, my dad is small and geeky-looking, with freckles on his nose, and round, black glasses. Once when we were at Universal Studios, someone mistook him for Rick Moranis, the dad in that old movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

  Tonight, he’s stripped off his button-down dress shirt and is wearing his white undershirt and pleat-front khakis. Underneath his arm is something round and white: a roll of trash bags, I realize.

  His eyes move around the bathroom. “Y’all did a nice job, Ev. Looks real homey in here.”

  My dad is soft-spoken and ultra nice, maybe a little too nice; that’s what mom says sometimes. He tears a small trash bag off the roll and leans over to put it in the trash can.

  When he straightens up, he gives me a tired smile and ushers me from Landon’s bathroom back into his new room.

  “You girls know how to make a place feel welcoming. You get that from your mama, I guess.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.”

  “Why don’t you come upstairs and head to bed? It’ll be a long day tomorrow, from the time he gets here.”

  I nod, turn out the light, and walk upstairs alongside him.

  “Do you think he’ll like it here?” I ask Dad in the kitchen.

  My dad looks thoughtful. “I don’t know, green bean. Some do, some don’t. It’s more about them than us. You know that.”

  “I know. I just hope he does.”

  “You have a big heart, Evie. And that’s not a bad thing. The world needs more people who do. When you’re in our position, there’s a bigger obligation. Help the helpless, love the poor.” My dad pats me on the shoulder. “I know that you will. You’ve got a lot of goodness in you.”

  I hug my super cheesy dad, then head upstairs, where I lie awake for a few minutes, feeling nervous for no reason I can think of.

  The next morning, Emmaline is over the moon excited to meet her new, same-age “brother.” She wears her favorite Minnie Mouse dress, sparkly Mary Janes, and a pair of sticker earrings for what she expects will be a schoolyard meet-up. When she climbs into the car with mom, she’s bouncing with excitement. She squeals her goodbye to me as I walk out of the garage, where my parents park, and around to the circle driveway where my green Ford Focus waits.

  I’m still smiling as I drop into my seat, adjusting the scented oil fan clipped to one of the vents and dropping my backpack in the passenger’s seat before I buckle up and head toward school.

  The day is balmy and humid. September in North Carolina still brings days with highs of 90-something, so for my much-less-exciting day, I’m wearing white shorts with an eyelet lace look; a soft, lilac top; and my favorite pair of gladiator sandals.

  I listen to the radio as I drive from our green, secluded neighborhood in the hills down toward the western edge of Asheville, where my school, Creekside High, sits—near my sister’s elementary school; a nice, big mall; and several leafy, though more urban, neighborhoods.

  My school is on the newer side, made of gray and beige stone. The
two-story basketball gymnasium rises up on the right of the building, with the rest of the school sprawled out in one flat-roofed level on the left.

  I park as close to the front doors as I can get—which isn’t very—and lug my leather backpack down the front walk and into the enormous cafeteria/locker corridor that’s just inside. The cafeteria space is a big pit in the middle of several walls of lockers. I stop off at mine, leaving my cell phone and backpack inside, and grabbing my books for homeroom, first, and second periods.

  On the way to homeroom, I pass my friends Makayla and Sunny, headed to their room across the hall from mine.

  “Cute shorts,” Sunny says. “Lookin’ good.”

  “If you get bored,” Makayla calls as we pass each other, “draw me a diagram.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  The three of us have anatomy sixth period, and Makayla thinks it’s funny how good I am at drawing diagrams. We have a running private joke that I should be a dirty diagram drawer when I’m older—like, for penises or sex toys.

  My own homeroom class is pretty boring. There are twenty other kids—none of them my close friends—and mostly we just do our homework and listen to intercom announcements while our handler, the sophomore English teacher, Mrs. Zorn, reads romance novels.

  I take my usual seat on the second row and open my big, blue binder while Mrs. Zorn reads us announcements. In the binder, there’s a plastic pouch, and in it, there are gel pens. Some that smell, others that sparkle. I prefer the rich colors: eggplant purple, ocean blue, sunset pink, lipstick red. I blow most of my time in homeroom color-coding my day planner like the closet geek I am. That’s what I’m doing when someone knocks on our door.

  Mrs. Zorn looks up from her paperback. “Come in,” she sing-songs.

  The door opens, revealing a short girl with pink hair and teal green glasses; I recognize her as one of the seniors who works in the office in the morning. She’s holding a note.