I Could Read Minds But Never His Sincere Love Chapter 04

I Could Read Minds But Never His Sincere Love Chapter 04

Miles looked at me and said nothing. His mind said plenty.

[Why is she getting emotional in front of Clara? She’s exhausting. Is Clara going to be jealous now?]

Something in my chest ripped open all over again. I got my breathing under control and forced a smile.

“Clara, we broke up. He doesn’t have to fix anything.”

Clara’s smile froze.

“Hazel, I didn’t even know you came by that day until I checked the security footage. Is this about the session you saw? Don’t be upset, I’ll do it differently next time, okay?”

“Hazel. That’s enough.”

Miles’s voice cut in, flat and cold. I looked at him, and there it was, right on cue.

[Why is Clara the one apologizing? It’s therapy. What is there to make a scene about?]

I kept my voice deadpan.

“It’s just therapy. Nothing to be jealous of, right?”

A flash of panic crossed his face and vanished. His fingers twitched around his fork.

I gave him my sweetest smile. “That’s what you were thinking, right?”

An icy silence fell over the table. Clara kept trying.

“Hazel, don’t do anything rash. He’s got his issues, that’s all. He’s a good man, he just needs you to cut him some slack.”

Everybody has one person they put on a pedestal, somebody you love in a way that has nothing to do with romance. Clara was mine.

She was a year ahead of me in grad school. She always wore that soft smile, and she never once ran out of patience with me.

More than once, when the lab group botched the data, she went to bat for me and argued our professor down until her face went red.

So why now? Why was she defending him with every breath?

I tilted my head and met her eyes. “Clara. Do you have feelings for Miles?”

Both their minds flared at the exact same second.

Hers was shock at the question. His was hunger for the answer.

The air left the room. A long moment passed before his face went red.

“Hazel! Enough!”

Then he turned to Clara, and his voice went soft. “Ignore her. She loves making a scene until everyone’s uncomfortable.”

I didn’t have it in me to listen for what was underneath that.

My knife scraped against my plate, and the sound cut through me. I made myself smile.

“I’m done. I’ll leave you to it.”

After that day, Miles and I settled into another round of the silent treatment, and I knew the shape of it by heart.

We’d done this dance more times than I could count. Every fight, he would go quiet and cold and perfectly calm.

Then he’d wait. He’d watch me come apart by degrees until I broke and came crawling back.

Not this time.

Redwood barely stayed on the market. A buyer snapped it up almost right away.

Dead center of the city, and I’d slashed the price. The buyer got a steal.

The overhead light bounced off the contract and made my eyes ache. I turned and looked at the place I’d poured six years of my life into.

I knew every inch of this place by heart.

I’d treated more patients here than I could count. All of them but Miles.

I was supposed to be the best therapist there was, and I couldn’t even reach the one man I loved.

I let out a shaky breath, turned back to the table, and signed my name clean across the line.

I’d just walked the agent and the buyer out when a notification lit up my phone.

[Breakout bestselling author Miles is back with another highly anticipated romance, A Touch of Clara]

A Touch of Clara. That was her name. He’d put her name on it.