Free Odin (Billionaire Titans Book 2) by Alison Ryan Page B

end of the Strip to the other, never running out of things to talk about.
    He was from Cork City, Ireland; a member of the UNLV soccer team. I was from Kingman, AZ; I’d never watched a soccer game in my life.
    We got married the weekend after medical school graduation on the beach in Malibu. His parents, brother and two sisters all flew in from Ireland. I had plenty of friends there, but I was an only child and I’d lost both my parents to cancer while in high school. My inspiration for pursuing medicine, I suppose. My surviving grandparents weren’t up for the travel. I had two cousins make the trip, but I loved the fact that Callum’s family was large and close. They welcomed me with open arms and made me feel like I had been an O’Grady from birth.
    I sat next to Odin’s bed holding his hand and I broke down. The tears trickled at first, but once the dam was broken, they poured out of my eyes. For weeks after Callum’s passing, all I did was cry. Then I’d go a day without a panic attack. A few days. Then a week. After a while, it would take something like a certain song or line in a movie that was a favorite of ours to bring the memories flooding back and make the tears start falling again.
    It had been almost two years since I’d sobbed uncontrollably over him. I wasn’t sure what triggered these tears, but there was a feeling of finality to them. As if the time for mourning was past. Not that I’d ever forget Callum or ever want to, but that he was putting a hand on my shoulder to reassure me that he wanted me to be happy. To find peace. To get up and walk away from his grave and let the sun shine on my face again.
    I wiped my tears away and sipped from a bottle of water to help compose myself.
    Odin lay peacefully, unmoved by my blubbering. Still, when you have a moment in front of another human being like I’d just had, I think you feel the need to offer some sort of explanation.
    “I’m sorry, that was so weird and ugly,” I said. “The last thing you need is me crying.”
    I sat and squeezed Odin’s hand, lifting it and pressing the back of it to my cheek. It had been years since I’d recounted the story out loud or had reason to discuss it, even in part with anyone.
    But if I’d truly reached a turning point in my life, I had to share, at least this final time, the story of Dr. Callum O’Grady’s passing.
    So I started babbling, I’m sure, adding in all sorts of details that nobody would care about, and bringing that awful, tragic day back to life. Odin listened, as Odin was wont to do, but for the first time in our relationship, I worried that I was being selfish. That rather than being therapeutic, my words could be damaging. My job was to heal and uplift, not to crush his spirit. Once I started, however, I couldn’t stop until the tale was told.
    It was a November morning, a Thursday, unseasonably warm, even for Las Vegas. I’d just come off a shift and woken up after only a few hours’ sleep to share breakfast with Callum before he left for work. Our beagle, Abner, lay on the floor with his doleful eyes awaiting any bacon that escaped our mouths.
    We discussed plans for the weekend; a hike to the top of Mount Charleston with some San Diego-based friends of ours on Saturday and then brunch with them before they departed for home on Sunday afternoon.
    Callum asked me if I wanted to meet him for lunch later in the day, but I begged off, knowing I’d be exhausted and in a deep sleep with Abner tucked tightly up against me in bed.
    He was a clinical psychologist, with a booming practice, and he’d just taken on two new partners to help handle his caseload. He departed for work with a deep kiss that I refused to break. Between my long hours at the hospital and his own hectic schedule, it had been too long since we’d had any “fun” together, and I did everything I could to tempt him to stay and give me what my body needed. I pressed my body against his as we kissed, making my intentions