The Surgeon's One-Night Baby

‘I don’t know, something more banal.’ Archie had no idea how she managed to execute such an atypically graceful and nonchalant shrug. ‘Like a childhood accident. Falling off a bike? Charging into a table? Tumbling from a tree?’

His eyes sharpened for a moment.

Something hanging there. Teetering between them.

‘You have brothers?’

Her breath caught in her chest. A tight ball of air. Was Kaspar finally remembering?

A slew of emotions rushed her. Feelings she’d thought long since dead and buried. Idealistic, romantic, intense fantasies she’d cherished as an adolescent fancying herself in love with the oblivious Kaspar.

He’d ruined her, without ever touching her. Archie was sure of it. His mother had hauled him back to America right at the peak of her crush on him. If that hadn’t happened, no doubt the infatuation would have run its course, as it did with most young girls. Instead, for years, she’d imagined she and Kaspar to be some kind of modern-day star-crossed Romeo and Juliet, torn away from each other before Kaspar had even had a chance to open his eyes and see what had been in front of him all along. She’d carried the ridiculous dream with her long after she should have let it die.

It was the reason she’d never had a serious boyfriend, always holding a part of herself back in her relationships. Until Joe, of course. But that had been tainted with other issues.