Chapter 17: The Door He Didn't Lock

Declan's POV

She said eight o'clock.

At eight I stood in my own front hall with the door unlocked and my hands in my pockets.

At nine I took my hands out of my pockets.

I had torn up the only thing that could make her come back, and I had done it on purpose.

I knew the arithmetic.

A woman with a contract has a reason to walk through the door.

A woman without one has only her own mind, and I had given her a morning to change it.

At nine thirty I poured a glass of water and did not drink it.

I thought about the ICU.

I thought about a nurse who had told me, kindly, that the surgeon had gone and that the hospital couldn't release her name.

I had lain there with a drain in my side, and I had known one thing about the person who had saved me, which was that she had left.

I did not want to know it twice.

At nine forty the elevator opened.

I heard it from the hall and didn't move.

Then there was a knock.

Three knocks, level and unhurried, on a door that stood unlocked.

I opened it.

Imogen stood in the corridor in her navy coat with a duffel bag over her shoulder and a paper cup in each hand.

"Gallbladder," she said. "It went long. I got coffee."

"You knocked."

"I could have walked in. The door was open."

"Yes."

"You didn't lock it for me." She held out a cup. "I wanted to be asked."

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