After a night spent searching the resort for Jessa, she seemed to be nothing more than a phantom after our shit-scramble of a run-in. There was no other way of looking at it. That fucking bridesmaid, clinging to me like a child with her tits falling out of her shirt—Jessa had seen it all.
Maybe Jessa was just a ghost. That was it. She had to be a hallucination brought on by my lack of sleep, some liquor, and profound frustration at my current situation. Why else would I dream up the woman I never stopped loving, the woman I hurt most selfishly?
I sat in one of the empty cabanas, staring at the stars glittering in the night sky. It was hours before the sun would make its appearance, and I was trying desperately to convince myself that our interaction was a figment of my imagination. It wasn’t working, though, and this weak-ass coffee wasn’t working either.
For the hundredth time, I pinched the bridge of my nose, knowing that I wasn’t a man who created scenarios that didn’t exist. I didn’t live my life in frustration either—a trait handed down to me by my father. I was patient yet thorough in everything I did. Could I be pushed to my limits? Absolutely. Did this trip suck worse than I could’ve ever imagined and make me want to throw myself into the sea? Hell yes. However, despite my dismal circumstances, they weren’t bad enough for me to hallucinate my long-lost love.
I’d seen Jessa, and she’d seen me, so however unfavorable the situation might’ve been, it happened. No such luck deluding myself tonight.
I leaned forward and rubbed my forehead. “Jesus, has it really been sixteen years?” I whispered to myself.
“Since when does the confident Cameron Brandt talk to himself?” Jessa’s voice rang with humor.
My head snapped up to see her eyes glistening in the light of the full moon that rested peacefully above the ocean before me. I grinned, unable to withstand her beautiful smile and the reminder of the way I always loved hearing laughter in her voice when she talked.
“I’ve certainly turned into the worst version of myself, and here you are to amuse yourself with that,” I said, turning and placing both feet in the sand to face the lounge chair she took next to me.
She arched her eyebrow while she pulled her long, blonde hair casually into a ponytail. “Of all the people in this world who know,” she grinned playfully at me, “or should I say knew me so well, I could never amuse myself with anyone having so rough a time.”
“Not even the man who promised never to leave you, yet that’s exactly what I did?” I answered without hesitation.
She grew more serious. “We were both so young back then, Cam,” she stated. “We had a lot of crazy dreams and ideas about how our future together might look. It turns out that fate decided we should live those dreams separately.”
“You and your fate and always looking at the brighter side of things.”
She grinned again. I missed how Jessa smiled at everything. Even through tears, the woman found happiness. “I’m fairly confident that in your line of work, Dr. Brandt, you’re the same way now. Well, I hope so for your patients anyway.”
I softly chuckled. “If I weren’t, I’d have a lot of angry patients.”
“So, which medical specialty did you choose? I know you took the internship for pediatrics, and I heard through friends that you graduated med school, but that’s pretty much all I know.”
“The path I should’ve chosen was to stay with you.” I went for broke with that declaration.
“Answer the question, Casanova. Your charms aren’t going to work with me.” She smiled and then looked toward the ocean, more serious now. “Not now, anyway.” And in the way only my Jessa could do, she recovered her curious expression and smiled back at me. “So? Doctor of…” She left her question hanging in the air.
“Well, after busting my ass, I graduated and worked through fellowships, internships, and everything else that comes along with becoming a pediatric neurosurgeon.”
“Wow.” She stared at me in disbelief.
“You say that as though it’s a shocking reveal. I might’ve been a jerk, but I was always ridiculously smart, you know.”
I tried my best attempt at humor, but the truth was that I wanted Jessa in my arms right this instant. I wanted to move past this awkward reunion and beg for her to take me back. It wasn’t all about me, though. Sixteen years had passed, and what had happened to her in all that time?
“I’m not surprised that you managed to accomplish so much. You were definitely ridiculously smart, and sometimes you were just ridiculous.” She flashed that half-smile of hers that always made my heart skip. “So, tell me what it is you do. Brain surgery?”
“Close,” I answered. “I specialize in epilepsy and work with a pediatric brain and spinal surgery team. Do you remember how my sister passed away?”
“Of course, I do. She was born with a rare genetic epilepsy disorder. I remember you telling me that she passed in the night when she was five because she had a horrible seizure.” She shuddered at the thought briefly before recovering herself. “Wow. Your parents must be so proud of you for going into this line of work.”
“Yeah, of course.” My parents had been killed in a plane crash a few years ago. They were flying with some friends to a ski resort in the Italian Alps when their jet went down, and it was the most devastating time of my life. However, I decided to keep that info to myself because I hated talking about it and didn’t feel like bringing a storm cloud to rain on an otherwise lighthearted conversation. “Anyway, I wanted to pursue this career path since it is personal to me. And because neuroscience has exploded with breakthrough treatments, things are more promising than ever. I just want to help people so they don’t experience the same grief as my family.”
“Always thinking of others.” She leaned her chin against her palm. “I’m glad to see you haven’t changed much.”
“Speaking of change since you and I last saw each other,” I said, finding some bearings in this conversation, “what happened after I took off and left you to graduate college without me?”
“You might want to brace yourself for my exciting answer,” she chuckled.
“From the look on your adorable face,” I said when I saw her wide blue eyes dazzle, “I’m bracing for anything.”
“I dropped out of college soon after you left.” She held a finger up to stop me from blurting out my response.
Was it my fault? Did I fuck this up that bad?
“Jessa,” I reached for her hands, and strangely, she let me hold them, “I’m sorry.”
“Let me finish, dummy.” She chuckled and stared down at my hands as they held hers. “It wasn’t you; it was me.” I watched her intently as her eyes returned to mine. “I had a lot of things come up that…” She stopped herself and shrugged. “It was for the best that we broke things off. You stayed on an incredible career path, and let’s leave it at that.”
“Bullshit.” I became sterner, as if holding her soft hands brought me back to the days when I could call her out on anything as if she were still mine. “You had superior grades, and you wanted to be a dentist. What happened to make you drop out, aside from me leaving you in tears?”
“Life.” She shrugged again.
“No. I’m not buying that.”
“I have a son, Cam.” She looked at me, and my stomach dropped.
“Is it mine?”
She smiled at the way I croaked those words out.
“No. Rest easy, champ,” she advised me.
My stomach sank at the realization that my Jessa—who was definitely no longer mine—had not only been with other men, but one of those fuckers knocked her up? It’s been sixteen years, Cameron. She’s not a nun, I told myself. So much for the chill mentality that I so proudly proclaimed to have inherited from my father. I had no right to ask about Jessa’s personal life, and I had no right to stake any claims on her. I had no right to do anything but sit here and listen to the last thing on earth that a man who was still in love with a woman wanted to hear. I did this to her—to us—to me.
“May I ask what happened? I left a year before you were set to graduate. Was I that easy to get over?” That last part came out all wrong. I knew that because I could taste the venom of jealousy in my mouth when I asked it.
“No,” she said sternly. “You weren’t that easy to get over, Cam, but I did move on. I might’ve made a few careless decisions, but I was young. I had a casual boyfriend, and I accidentally got pregnant. Jackson is the result of that. I regret none of it, and I would never consider it a mistake because Jackson is far from that. He’s my everything, and even though I’m engaged to be married, Jackson will always and forever be my number-one guy.”
“Engaged?” Fuck me. She wasn’t lying when she told me to brace myself.
“To a man who will be a father to Jackson after all these years of him not having one.”
“Who’s the asshole who got you pregnant and just walked out on you?”
Her smile grew radiant as she glanced behind me, the sun now painting the sky as it rose. “I wish I had time to catch you up on everything,” she patted my cheek, “but there’s a wedding today, and I don’t feel like talking about the failures of my past at the moment.”
I stood when she did. “Jessa,” I ran my clammy hand through my hair, “I have to see you again. Please don’t just take off after dropping this in my lap.”
“I’ve missed you, Cam. I’ve missed our fun days together,” she said sincerely, “but we’ve both grown up, you in your profession and me with my son and being a single mom for a time. So maybe one day I’ll be in Southern California again, and we can catch up properly.”
“Fuck.” That foreign taste of venom flooded my mouth again. “Jessa, don’t leave. God, I beg you.”
Her eyes widened. “Cam,” she said softly, “it’s fine. I’m so happy to see you again, but this was more of a friendly catch-up between two people who can hopefully be friends again and not two exes who can’t get over their past.”
“What if I can’t get over it?”
“Nice try.” She smiled, always seeing straight through me. “I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s gotten around in the years we haven’t seen each other. Like I said, maybe if I fly to Southern California, I’ll hit you up.”
“Here,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Let me give you my number. If you’re out my way, you’re meeting up with me again.”
“And I’m sure you’ll be happy to meet my fiancé as well?”
I grinned. “The fact that you said fiancé gives me hope that perhaps something might happen, and you’ll call off that wedding of yours.”
“Oh? How? Because I ran into you, right?”
I eyed her, somehow feeling a bit more steadfast in this conversation. “If you only knew about the wedding party I came here with, then you’d believe anything was possible.”
“Ah,” she lifted her chin, grabbing her bag. “Like that lovely young woman last night?”
“Listen,” I said, “are you leaving today, or can you at least have dinner with me?”
“If I had dinner with you,” she said, “would you promise to respect that I’m getting married and not try to pull anything funny?”
“I’m not the Cameron you recall from our younger days. I grew up and matured a little, you know?”
“Well, if you respect my and my fiancé’s wishes and don’t play any games, then sure. As friends, I’d love to hear more about your job, and we’ll keep it light. That’s it.”
“You don’t trust me.”
She ran a hand through her hair. “I trusted you once, and we both saw how that turned out.”
“Touché,” I said with a smile, and it was only because this woman was perfectly chilled out with a smile of her own. “Well, here’s my number. I’m going to airdrop it to your phone. Hopefully, you can—”
“Got it,” she said, whipping out her phone. “I’ll text you if things don’t go over tonight. Nice seeing you again, Cameron.”
The way she said my name reminded me how quickly she could put my ass in its place. We’d both grown up. We both had gone down separate roads in life, but I had to believe fate led us to this resort simultaneously for a reason. I wasn’t going to wreck a relationship—even though I didn’t fail to notice that she wasn’t wearing an engagement ring.
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
I glanced down at my phone and answered it when the chief surgeon on my ward called in. “If there’s one person who never calls anyone, it’s you. What’s up, Chief?”
“They told me you were international, Dr. Brandt; is that still true?”
His tone was severe, leading me to frown. “It is. What’s going on?”
“We have a pretty rare case on our hands. It’s been referred to us by a doctor out of state. The patient will be here in three days if she survives. I know I’m stretching this, but this is your specialty, and the entire staff could desperately use your advice. Even me.”
“That’s saying a lot,” I said. “Okay. I’ll be out on the next flight I can get. This vacation was a bust anyway.”
“Mr. Mitchell insists that you’re taken care of. His VP, Mr. Monroe, has been vacationing close to where you are now, and Mr. Mitchell has seen to it that Monroe will stop to pick you up in Mitchell and Associates’ private jet on his way home. I’ll text you the information, and they’ll dispatch your departure time and inform the pilots and Mr. Monroe. Also, I’ll email all the information I have on the patient for you to inform yourself. That way, you will be prepared for our surgical team meeting in two days.”
Without another thought, I was packed, ready to bounce out of my nightmare so I could help a little girl—a girl who, if Saint John’s Chief of Pediatrics was requesting my opinion, was in a pretty fucking grim situation. I had Jessa’s number, and once I was settled on the jet, I’d text her and make this up to her. I knew she, of all people, would understand why I had to leave. I wouldn’t stand her up without notice or leave her like I did the first time. No. This time, I’d show her the mature man I’d become, even if only to keep her in my life as a friend.
Once I was settled on the private jet, waiting for my friend to board the aircraft, I pulled out my phone to call Jessa. And after Spencer Monroe had boarded and the staff on the plane shut the doors, the pilots had this bitch in motion faster than I could realize I gave Jessa my number, but I never asked for hers.
Fucking hell.
