Chapter One
Bree
I REACHED OUT, KNOWING Luke was close. His hand grabbed mine, pulling them both to his thigh. The sun washed over my skin, flooding my body with warmth as the two of us laid next to the pool. I was wearing one of my favorite bikinis. I knew exactly what it looked like and could almost picture myself in it. Luke had been a huge help with helping me organize my clothes with the new toy my dad had bought. It was a pen that I could use to scan a tag, which told me what I was looking at.
My body felt relaxed after the brief workout Luke and I had gone through earlier. It was part of my recovery he insisted. I needed to work out and do the things I used to enjoy. I had never run on a treadmill blind and didn’t think I could, but he had helped me figure it out. It felt good to run. And, for a blind woman, running on a treadmill was perfect.
Despite everything going well, I still felt something was a little off. Damn the heightened senses.
“Are we good?” I asked him, feeling the tension between us that had been slowly been building over the last couple of days.
It had been a week since we had been to the doctor. Barely two weeks since we had decided we were going to be a couple and Luke had talked with my father, but I already felt like something was off. I never realized how much I depended on being able to see someone’s expression to tell how they were feeling until I couldn’t see them at all. Now, I found myself listening to their breathing. I felt the way he touched me and even now, he was holding my hand but I could feel tension.
“What do you mean?” Luke asked.
I turned my face to his. Even though I couldn’t see him, it just felt natural to be facing him while we talked. “I feel like you’re holding back, like there is something you want to say.”
He blew out a breath. “Bree, I care about you. Probably far more than I should. All my training, all my experience, everything I know tells me I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Doing this? What do you mean?”
“You and me,” he said the words and it sounded like he was in pain.
My heart sank. “You’re breaking up with me.”
“I don’t want to. I care about you and I care about your recovery. I want to be here to support you, but I don’t think it’s smart for us to have a romantic relationship while I’m working for you. You are technically my boss. It blurs the lines. There are going to be days when we have an argument. I need to be able to do the right thing for you without worrying about whether you’re pissed at me or not. My job is to take care of your physical needs. I’m worried that I’m not going to be able to be objective and miss something.”
“Is this because I don’t want the surgery?”
“No. Yes. And wait, you’ve made a decision? I thought you were still thinking about it.”
“I am, but if I don’t do it, which we both know is what I’m leaning toward, you’ll be angry,” I summarized.
“I’m not saying that,” he said, but he didn’t say it with enough conviction to make me believe him.
“You don’t want to be together,” I said.
“I want to spend time with you. I want to be here with you. I want to be in your life, but I can’t be your caregiver and your boyfriend. I feel like a piece of shit for getting paid to have sex with you.”
I had to laugh at the thought. “You don’t get paid to have sex with me.”
“No, but we have sex when your dad is at work, during the time when I am being paid to be here with you. It feels dirty.”
“Luke, it isn’t dirty.”
“I would love to say I’ll just quit and still hang out with you, but I can’t afford to not have a job. I would still need to work which means I couldn’t be here with you. I don’t want that. I know it sounds stupid, but maybe we can take a step back until something changes.”
That’s not at all what I’m saying. I’m saying right now, we need to get you in a place where you are independent without sight, or get your sight back. I want you any way I can get you, but I need you to be confident in who you are.”
I knew what he was talking about because I wasn’t exactly relationship material at the moment. I was riding the line and couldn’t make a decision. What he was saying was that I needed to choose which world I was going to be in.
“What if the surgery doesn’t work?” I said again for what had to be the hundredth time since we had met the doctor.
“Ellis is a good doctor,” he said.
Hearing him say her name set my teeth on edge. The woman was undoubtedly beautiful and I was jealous. And insecure. “I don’t care if she is the best doctor, she told you it’s very experimental. It’s a procedure they’ve only tried. It isn’t the gold standard.”
“But they’ve had success,” he insisted.
I shook my head. “Are you saying that if I don’t get the surgery, you don’t want to be with me?”
Feeling him move, I knew he was sitting up. “I am not saying that. Not at all. If you choose not to do it, I understand. If you choose not to do the surgery, then you need to accept your future as an unseeing person. Can you do that?”