And I don’t know if I’ll be able to have children of my own. So I’m certainly more flawed than you’d like to believe.”
“Who says perfection is interesting?” Miklo shrugged and drank from his water glass. “In my book, perfection is overrated.” He sighed. “But I’m sorry about the fertility question. Are you certain?”
“No. They saved one ovary and tube, the uterus isokay, too, but with the amount of infection I had, there’s no telling how things will work if I get to that point.”
“Do you want to have children?” he asked, his eyes now guarded.
“I don’t know. I grew up thinking I’d have a family some day. Don’t all little girls?” She huffed out a trembling breath as every fear she’d ever known churned away in her stomach. “I think the time for that dream has come and gone already.” Facing that fact was a hard reality, but she’d have to accept it sooner or later.
“There are so many breakthroughs in fertility medicine these days, there’s no telling what could—”
“No.” Jeannine pressed a hand to her forehead, trying to suppress the ache forming there. “Can we talk about something else for a while?”
“Sure.”
Their lunches arrived and they ate in silence for a moment. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you,” he said. “I never meant to hurt or offend you.”
“It’s okay, Miklo. It’s something I’ve got to get used to, haven’t I?” she asked and avoided his gaze.
Miklo put down his fork and waited for her to look up. “Do you trust me?” he asked. Startled, she didn’t speak. After a moment she nodded. “Let me see your arm.” This time, she placed her hand in his without hesitation.
Looking down at her wrist, he now saw in the bright light the scar that would never go away. “This is deep,” he admitted, and turned her wrist to see it from another angle. “There are things that can be done to decreasethem, there are creams and, as a last resort, surgery, if you’d like to go that far.” Running one thumb over the mark, he held onto her. “You won’t be perfect, but pretty close. You have beautiful skin.”
“Miklo, I just agreed that I trusted you. Don’t go lying to me now,” she said, and removed her hand from his and picked up her fork.
“We all have scars, Jeannine. Some are just more visible than others.” With a sigh he took a few bites of his meal, then gave up any pretense of interest in it. “Since you shared some of your past with me, I’ll share some of mine with you.” That was only fair, right? And he had just asked her to trust him. The best way to earn her trust was to give her his. “A few years ago my wife died in a car accident. She was six months pregnant, and I lost the baby, too.”
“Oh, my God, Miklo. I’m so sorry,” she said in a sharp whisper. The compassion in her voice was almost his undoing. “I had no idea. I’m sitting here whining about my problems when you’ve lost so much.”
“I was supposed to take Darlene to a baby shower for my cousin, but I was working, and she went alone.” Memories of that night would haunt him always. “It was monsoon season, and the roads were wet everywhere. Another car lost control and hit her head on.”
“A car accident isn’t your fault,” she said. “You can’t believe that.”
“I believe that I wasn’t where I should have been. If I had just taken a few hours off, I could have saved them. I know it.”
“Just how much power do you think you have, Dr. Kyriakides?” she asked, challenge in her eyes.
“None at all.” That had been made abundantly clear to him.
“Playing the ‘what-if’ game will only drive you mad, you know that, don’t you?” she asked. “I had six months to play it myself recently and it didn’t accomplish a damned thing.”
“You’re right. In my head I know you’re right. But I just can’t let it go yet.” He gave an awkward smile. “I didn’t mean to put a damper on our day, but I wanted you to know