Christy McKellen - Mills & Boon Showcase

He walked into the boardroom five minutes before their scheduled meeting and was surprised to see her already seated at the table. She was reading from a large textbook, her hands tangled up in her long brown hair. She stopped reading the moment he entered the room, her eyes rising to stare up at him.

It reminded him of their past. She had been sitting exactly the same way the first time he’d seen her. She had easily been the most beautiful woman in the café but, compared to almost all the other women he’d known, she hadn’t seemed to notice or try to use it to her advantage. He had seen her in the same spot every time he’d gone to the café, until one afternoon he could no longer resist the temptation she’d presented.

Within a few hours of talking to Kate he’d known that his instincts had been dead on. She had not been like any other woman he had ever met. Matt had never been without a woman from a young age. His appearance, confidence and social status had been enough to ensure a willing and ready woman on his arm and in his bed. The fact that he’d had such a woman already in his life had not been enough to keep him from exploring Kate.

Soon she had become his favorite person, his best friend, and Matt had liked himself most when he’d been around her. He would sometimes stand back across the coffeehouse and just watch her. The intense look of concentration on her face, the way she would abstractedly run her fingers through her hair, and then she would look up and see him and smile. She had made him feel welcome and like he belonged. But that had been then, and today Kate was not smiling.

He took the seat opposite her across the table. He needed to remind himself that his purpose was the lawsuit and sitting too close to her was a distraction from that purpose.

“My firm has acquired and reviewed all the documents related to the case. There are a few depositions we need to talk about.”

“Your firm?” she asked, the question holding more censure that he’d expected from her. She was still angry and he needed to do his best to calm her down if they were ever going to be able to discuss the case in a constructive manner.

“I’m a partner at my grandfather’s law firm. I started and head up the medical defense division.”

The McKayne family was rich and powerful and known for their prominent presence in the New York legal community. His grandfather had founded a law firm decades earlier that had grown to be one of the best, making his family very wealthy. Matt’s father had been in line to succeed his grandfather until he’d died suddenly of a heart attack when Matt had been four, leaving the family’s dynasty and future firmly on Matt’s shoulders. Matt often wondered how different his life would have been if his father had lived.

The medical defense division was his creation and he was involved in every aspect of its operation. He represented clients but also oversaw the operations of all the firm’s satellite offices, which was how he’d ended up back in Kate’s life.

He had been reading the monthly client reports at home one evening when he’d seen her name. A combination of fear and desire had broken through his whole body. He’d called the Boston lawyer assigned to the case and confirmed it was his Katie being described. Without hesitation he’d released the other lawyer from the case and arranged to handle it personally. He had never once considered the ramifications of their reunion.

“Did you pick this case because of me?” she asked, her shrewd intelligence piecing together what he wasn’t saying.

“Yes.” He knew better than to lie to her but also wasn’t willing to offer her any more of an explanation for his actions.

Matt had been raised to be responsible, with the high expectations and demands of his family behind his every decision and action. He hadn’t realized he resented it or what a heavy burden it was until he’d met Kate.

She’d never asked him for anything and in return she had been the first person in his life that Matt had wanted to do things for, simply to make her happy, to make her smile. This was in stark contrast to his family, who had been blatant and demanding in their needs, wants and expectations. Kate had got more joy out of simple things than Matt had known was possible. Remembering how she took her coffee or asking about how her exam went had seemed to mean the world to her, and had been a far cry from the over-the-top and lavish gestures his family had expected.

He had been the best version of himself during his time with her. It hadn’t been anything she had done or said, it had been all the things she hadn’t done that had made him feel a sense of freedom and a willingness to give of himself that he had never experienced. She’d had no expectations or demands of him and had never pushed for more than he’d offered.

It was that part of Kate that was driving his need to personally defend her, not his guilt, he told himself. She seemed to take in his answer, an internal debate apparent in the emotions that crossed her face before she let the matter drop.

He took her cue and refocused on the case. “Kate, I want you to think back to that night and the interactions you had with Mr. Weber and his family. Can you think of anything you said or did that would make the Webers believe there was negligence involved in his death?”

She was silent across the table, but her nonverbal cues made up for the lack of words. She tangled her hair into a knot, pulling it from her face as her perfect posture slouched in defeat. “Yes.”

“What happened?” He knew the answer. He rarely asked a question without knowing the answer but he needed to hear it from her, even though he knew it would kill her to say it.

“I cried.” No emotion was in her words, just a statement of fact. But the look on her face told a different story.

“When did you cry, Kate?” Memories of the two times he had ever seen Kate cry revolved in his mind. Both instances had been extreme, when she had been pushed to her limit.

“When I was talking to Mrs. Weber after her husband died.” Still no elaboration. He hated this. Hated that his job was to force her to discuss something she had no desire to share with him. It went against everything they had once been.

“I need you to tell me exactly what happened.” She stared at him and he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Minutes went by and he started to worry she would refuse him. Not for the first time he reconsidered whether he should be representing Kate, or whether the past between them was too much to overcome.

Finally she sighed, obviously resigning herself to the situation. “After Mr. Weber died, Tate, as the attending surgeon, went to talk to Mrs. Weber to disclose his death. When he was done I joined her in the operating room’s family room. I had met her earlier in the night and felt compelled to see her. She already knew her husband was dead and was crying alone in the room when I got there. When she saw me she reached for me and I let her embrace me, and she didn’t let go. The more she cried, the harder she held me. Eventually I started to cry too and I told her I was sorry.”

“What were you sorry for, Kate?”

“I was sorry that she had lost the love of her life. That she was going to have to go on by herself and try to make a life without the one person she was meant to be with.”

“Do you think it’s possible that she misinterpreted your empathy as guilt?”

“Given that we are talking about it, I would say yes, wouldn’t you?” Her derision was very clearly focused on herself, despite the sarcasm in her response.

Yes, he would. Kate crying and saying she was sorry would definitely raise suspicions when reflected on after the fact.

“Are there any other patients, nurses, or colleagues that would speak for a pattern of behavior? That you frequently empathize with your patients and their emotions?”