Page 22 of Reckless Seduction
“No problem.”
We lull in a surprisingly comfortable silence as she continues to poke and prod at me like a pincushion. She takes a few samples of my blood, performs a chest exam, and then asks me to lie on my back.
Over my dead body.
“I’m drawing the line at a pelvic exam,” I sneer, pushing her hand away when she tries to coax me onto my back.
“It’s just standard procedure.”
Un-fucking-believable.
“So is me breaking your fingers if you try to get anywhere close to down there,” I threaten. The doctor huffs.
“I’m not your enemy, Bailey,” she huffs. “I’m just trying to do my job.”
“Always wanted to be a mob doctor, huh?” I roll my eyes. “High aspirations.”
“Actually, yes,” she admits candidly. “I grew up wanting to do exactly this. My entire family has served the Kavanaughs since Liam’s father started here in Seattle, and some of them even longer for the rest of the family in Ireland.”
“Good for you,” I mutter. “Still not going to get you in my knickers. My last gyno appointment was three weeks ago, and I haven’t had sex since then. You’re the one with all my medical files. Take that and shove it up your?—”
“Are we having a problem here, Dani?” A feminine voice speaks up from the bedroom doorway. The doctor, whose name I now know as Dani, turns toward the new voice and shakes her head.
“Not at all, Nan.” She smiles warmly at the woman. “We’re just finishing up.”
Damn right we are.
“Good.” The woman in the doorway eyes me shrewdly. Her cold hazel eyes assess me as she steps into the room, a pile of clothes in her hand. Placing the clothes on the bed next to me, she draws herself up, hands on her hips. At full height, she looks to stand about five foot eight. Several inches above my measly five-foot-four frame. She is slender and willowy, with long legs encased in flowing black slacks and a paisley blouse. Her graying brown hair is tucked into a slick bun at the top of her head, accentuating her long neck.
The woman could give my stepmother a run for her money in the intimidation factor. Eyeing me one last time, she turns back toward Dani, and the two start their own lax conversation that I don’t even bother to try to eavesdrop on. I don’t care what the two women have to discuss. What I care about is figuring out how to get the hell out of here.
I wonder if my father is searching for me at all.
Or even Drew.
Will they have discovered my car in the parking lot? I haven’t answered a single one of my stepmother’s texts. She sent the guards after me one time for not answering one of her phone calls while I was in a lecture at college.
It was embarrassing to have them storm into the room during the middle of a lecture and tow me out of the room like an errant child or criminal of some kind. Some of my classmates even filmed it, and within hours it spread across campus. She never did that to my sister.
Dalia, of course, could do no wrong. While my father kept me in the background of our family my entire life, Dalia has always been at the forefront. While I worked my ass off in college, she walked Parisian runways and posted her vacations on hersocials. Her future was handed to her on a silver platter. Mine was made with sweat and tears.
A lot of tears.
On the surface, it appears as if I was one of their shining jewels. They talked me up like I was Queen of the Nile. Once the lights faded, so did the affection, and I was no longer the miracle adoption child but the dirty product of an affair.
It isn’t that I didn’t also live in the lap of luxury. Growing up, I wanted for nothing except the one thing I wished for most. Affection. I was given clothes, food, a roof over my head.
But I was rarely taken on family vacations unless it was political. There were no hugs or kisses unless it was staged for the cameras. I grew up with what most in the world would kill for. Luxury. But that came with something no one should experience.
Loneliness.
I wonder if that is why I clung to the idea of marrying Drew so much. At sixteen, most girls would have been mortified by the idea of having to one day marry the boy their family picked for them, but I saw it as a way out of the cold pit of isolation I was surrounded by. My clothes were handpicked by a designer. The food I ate, the classes I took before I stood my ground and applied for journalism, the friends I was allowed to keep, and the events I went to were all chosen for me.
Lina was my only real friend. One that wasn’t chosen by my stepmother to spy on me. She never sucked up to me because of who my father is. Lina never knew.
“Into the bathroom with you, love.”
“What?” I shake the thoughts from my head, trying to clear the cobwebs I got lost in. No use reminiscing about what can’t be changed. The past is the past, and all that matters is going forward.
