Three days, and not a sign of the man who had once caused her heart to fill with so much love that she had thought it would burst. Anxiety burned a hole into her stomach. What was he up to? He had shown up out of the blue and now he’d disappeared.
The day after their encounter, she learned he’d been filling in for Dr. Boakye’s replacement. On Tuesday, her introduction to Dr. Ampofo, the new ED doctor, caused a wave of relief to wash over her. She’d gotten a reprieve. By the time the day ended and she hadn’t seen Jason, she let her nerves take a break.
Seeing him again had opened up a barrage of memories she’d been able to keep locked away.
“This is crazy,” she mumbled, not for the first time, to herself while home alone on Wednesday evening, trying to read a novel. “I can’t let him stress me. He’s just a man.”
But she knew better. He’d been the man who captured her heart in such an overwhelming manner that even after three years, she still hadn’t gotten over him.
The chiming of the doorbell startled her out of her depressed thoughts. After peeping though the side window, she dove to the floor.
“I know you’re in there, Aurora. I saw you look out the window. Please open the door. I need to talk to you.”
“Sugar,” she mumbled instead of the other more potent “S” word that had threatened to slip out of her mouth.
She pushed herself up off the floor, patted her hair in place, and made sure her clothes were in order after doing her tuck and roll manoeuvre.
The panel swung open. “Good evening,” she said without a smile. Her voice held steady although she trembled all over.
“Good evening.”
“Please come in.” Ora took a deep breath as he walked past her and she almost fell onto his back when she caught the familiar spicy citrus scent of his cologne. The desire to burrow her face into his neck threatened to overwhelm her.
She walked into the hall and led him to an armchair. She’d been tickled when she learned a hall was called a living room elsewhere when she’d visited a decorating show in South Africa before meeting Jason.
“Please have a seat. Can I get you some water? We also have minerals—Coke, malt, and juice.”
“Water would be fine, thank you.”
“I’ll be right back.” In the kitchen, she took her time gathering a tray, two glasses and a bottle of water, then did a slow death row walk back into the hall trying to forestall “the talk” for as long as possible.
She opened the bottle and poured it into the glass for him and then for herself.
“Thank you.” He took a sip. She drank her full glass and refilled it, wishing the glass contained rum instead.
She covertly watched him. His brown skin reminded her of raw sugar darkened with extra molasses. She settled her gaze on his firm, thick brown lips and her body heated up at the thought of what she wanted to do to them.
“What are you doing here?” she asked a little harsher than intended. Those errant thoughts would lead her someplace she could never go.
He chuckled. “You always did like to get straight to the point. I needed to talk to you.”
She raised her eyebrows as if saying, “Well, talk then.”
“What happened?”
“What happened to what?” she asked, knowing full well what he meant.
His dimple appeared when he grinned at her evasion technique and her stomach quivered.
“What happened to you? Why did you close me out on our last morning together and not tell me how to get in touch with you? What happened to make you stop all contact with me once you got back to Ghana and told me you’d arrived? Instead of using your own cell phone, you used a service. I found this out the hard way when I tried to call you back.”
Experience had taught her that if she didn’t tell him the truth, she’d regret it, and she’d had more than enough of those in the past three years. She scooted forward to the edge of her seat and clasped her hands together. “Let me ask you a question first.”
“Okay.”
“Why aren’t you angry with me? You hunt me down at my home after I refuse to talk to you for years, and if we hadn’t met by accident at the hospital, we would have never seen each other again. I’d be angry with me if I were you.”
His expression remained neutral. If she’d been in his shoes, she would’ve been pissed enough to key his car; not have a polite conversation with him.
“Well, you aren’t me,” he said in a quiet voice. “Do you think us meeting at the hospital was a coincidence?”
She’d been trying to school her reactions, but she couldn’t hide her confusion. Unable to respond, she waited for him to continue.
“Ora, you’ve been on my mind every single day since I last saw you. Six months ago, I decided to look for you. Once I learned where you worked and that you hadn’t married, I quit my job and relocated to Ghana.”
She gasped, placing both of her hands on her chest. “You moved all the way here for me?” There had to be more to the story. Nobody would pick up and leave their home for a lost love. At least she didn’t think they would.
“Well, for you and my parents. They returned to Ghana two years ago and were harassing me to relocate here so we can be together. On Monday I picked up the courage to see you. Dr. Ampofo had a family emergency so I volunteered to do his rounds for the day.”
She slumped back into the couch, incredulous. “You engineered the meeting? You looked so shocked to see me.”
“I was. Seeing you confirmed that our connection hadn’t been imagined. Your grace and beauty took my breath away.”
She ignored the pleasurable heat snaking up her neck in order to focus on her annoyance at his manipulating his way into her life. “You could have called. I presume since you know where I work and live, you have my phone number.” Each word she spoke came out hard and clipped.
“Would you have met me if I’d called?”
With his question, her irritation dissipated. She hesitated for a second before answering with her voice little more than a whisper. “No.”
His expression broke her heart. One touch to his handsome face would help them both through the pain she’d caused. She longed to have his skin touch hers once more, but she didn’t move.
“I have my own personal stalker,” she said to lighten the mood.
The lines around his mouth deepened with a scowl. “I’m not a stalker.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Your actions tell me something different, Dr. Lartey.”
“It may seem that way, but that’s not what I’m doing.”
“Then what’s going on?”
He crossed both arms over his broad chest. “Miss Aurora Serwaa Aikins, you’ve asked an abundance of questions and now it’s time to get down to mine.”
“All right. I’m surprised you remember my full name.”
“There’s a lot I remember about you, but you’re stalling.”
Her mind wandered back to their time together in South Africa while she thought of what she’d tell him. She smiled before she could stop herself.
“Ora? Are you all right?” He touched her shoulder.
She shook her head trying to clear it, surprised to see him sitting on the couch with her. “Pardon me?”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, why?”
“You seemed a galaxy away.”
“Oh. Lost in a memory. Sorry.”
“What were you remembering?”
“When we first met,” she replied after a slight hesitation.
Jason smiled. “I thought you were one of the most wonderful women I had ever met. I still do.”
This time, the compliment made her stomach flip. “Thanks.”
“I was so nervous that day at the hospital. The strength of my attraction to you seemed unreal. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself, but somehow, I had to see you again. I didn’t care that you were engaged, I had to get to know you.”
Silence loomed like the aftermath of a sonic boom.
He cleared his throat. “But my favourite memory is the last night when we talked until just before the sun came up. We couldn’t have spent the time any better than we did. I wanted to live in those moments forever.”
The raw emotion in his voice rendered her speechless. The night had replayed itself so much in her mind that she’d been sure the DJ of life did it as a punishment. The moment she’d woken up and seen his peaceful sleeping countenance, she realized she’d fallen in love for the first time in her life with the most amazing man in the world.
“You haven’t answered my question. What happened? We were having such a good time.”
Ora shrugged. “My vacation had ended.”
“But you didn’t stay in contact once you were in Ghana. You dropped me.”
“The most important thing was me getting on with my life. You knew I had a man waiting for me.” She feared the intensity in his eyes and looked away. Her gaze met one of her favourite paintings, done by a Ghanaian artist, displaying the bliss of a child splashing in the ocean. The painting didn’t bring about the sense of joy it tended to evoke in her. Instead, she wished the sea in the image could swallow up her pain.
“Is this the same man you never married?”
His question hit a nerve.
She stood and walked to the other side of the hall. The world outside the window ceased to exist. She found herself stuck in memories of sadness and regret. “I had to try to make things work with him. He was my fiancé and I had done him a grave injustice by being with you.”
Even to her own ears, her voice sounded detached.
His large hands touched her shoulders, reminding her of the last time they’d been together. The nearness of his body overwhelmed her and she stepped away before she gave in to the urge to lean back into his strong arms and melt into him.
“Why didn’t you call me after you broke up with him?”
She turned to face him and caught her breath. His model-like good looks never failed to set her off balance. “My betrayal and the guilt over what we shared crushed me under their weight. For months, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
With an unsteady gait, she walked back to sit on the couch. Her weak legs wouldn’t have been able to hold her up for much longer.
“We didn’t do anything to be ashamed about. There should have been no guilt.”
Her silence spoke volumes. He wouldn’t be able to convince her that what they shared could never be considered wrong.
“I think I’d better go. I’m sorry to have intruded.”
Curiosity had burned within her since she first saw him on her porch. “How did you find my apartment?”
“Your cousin Esi showed me.”
“Esi?”
She’d beat her meddling cousin senseless when she saw her that evening. “I’ll show you to the door.”
She didn’t want him to leave. For a split second, she tried to force time to move backward so she could correct all of the mistakes she’d made with him, but she could no more control time than she could fly. What they’d shared had to stay in the past.
When they reached the door, he turned to her. “Can I hug you?”
Against her better judgement, but in accord with her heart and body, she agreed and walked into his arms.
She wound her arms around his shoulders and hugged him as if they’d never see each other again. He cradled her to his body and her head swam with the smell and feel of him against her. He rubbed her back and she leaned into him with contentment.
Moving away a little, he peered into her eyes. She gathered all of her energy to loosen her arms from around him. In a flash, his lips touched hers in an electric kiss. Their soft fullness glided over hers and when she kissed him back without hesitation, he moaned, sending a rush of heat through her.
Reality crashed in and she pulled away.
He rubbed the back of his fingers under her chin. “I’ve been waiting to do that for three years. Have a good night.”
“Good night,” she replied, closed the door, and touched her burning lips. “Shit.”