Chapter 65 Chapter 65
Chapter 65 Chapter 65
The hospital cafeteria was a landscape of humming vending machines and the smell of burnt coffee, a place where exhaustion usually overrode ego. But as AJ sat across from Katherine, the plastic tray between them felt like a live wire. He had just finished a grueling six-hour stint reviewing Catalella’s hematology reports, and all he wanted was to sink into the quiet sanctuary of Katherine’s presence.
Then she told him about the "family reunion" dinner. And then she mentioned the guest list.
"She did what?" AJ’s voice didn't rise, but it dropped into a dangerous, gravelly register that made a passing intern scurrying by steer an extra three feet away. He slowly set his plastic fork down, his knuckles whitening.
"My mother," Katherine sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose where the familiar headache was now a rhythmic throb. "She invited Lyle. She told my father—right in front of me—that she was bringing 'Katherine’s doctor friend' to Sunday dinner."
AJ felt a surge of cold, calculated fury that had nothing to do with Lyle’s arrogance and everything to do with the woman who had already stolen eighteen months of his life. Caroline Henry wasn't just playing matchmaker; she was declaring war. This was the woman who had intercepted his calls, who had likely looked him in the eye and lied while he was desperate for word of Katherine’s recovery. To hear that she was now hand-picking a replacement—a man she deemed "appropriate"—felt like a jagged blade twisting in an old wound.
"The gall of that woman," AJ ground out, his jaw muscles bunching. "She spends a year and a half acting as a human firewall, making sure I can’t breathe the same air as you, and the second I step back onto the soil, she tries to seat another man at your father’s table? In my place?"
"AJ, please. I told her I was seeing someone. I told her it was you."
"And how did she take that?" He leaned forward, his dark eyes boring into hers. "Did she apologize? Did she admit she spent eighteen months treating our relationship like a stray hair she could just brush off her Chanel suit?"
Katherine looked away, her silence giving him the only answer he needed. Caroline Henry didn't apologize; she pivoted.
"She’s a piece of work, Kitty Kat. But Lyle?" AJ let out a dry, humorless bark of laughter. "That’s the part that really sticks in my throat. She knows exactly who I am. She knows what we were. And she chooses him? The man who follows you around like a lost puppy with a savior complex?"
"Lyle is... complicated," Katherine tried to intervene, though her heart wasn't in it.
"Lyle is a vulture," AJ countered, his voice low and vibrating with intensity. "He’s been circling you, waiting for the desert to swallow me whole so he could step into a life he didn't build. And your mother is leaving the gate wide open for him. She’s not just inviting him to dinner, Katherine. She’s inviting him to replace the memory of me."
AJ stood up abruptly, the legs of his chair screeching against the linoleum. The protective, possessive instinct that had been honed by the harsh realities of the mission field was in full bloom. He had spent months operating in shadows, in places where life was cheap and truth was hard to find. Coming back to the high-society machinations of the Henry family felt like stepping into a different kind of war zone—one where the weapons were snide comments and dinner invitations.
"She thinks I’m still the boy she could intimidate with a glare and a bank statement," AJ said, his eyes flashing. "She thinks that because I was gone, I surrendered my seat at that table. Well, she’s about to find out that eighteen months in Djibouti doesn't make a man forget what belongs to him. It makes him much, much less patient with people who try to steal it."
"What are you going to do, AJ?" Katherine asked, her voice a mix of trepidation and a secret, thrilling spark of pride.
"I’m going to that dinner," AJ said, his voice flat and final. "I don’t care if I’m on the guest list. I don’t care if she has the help bar the door. If Lyle is going to be there, I am going to be there. I want to see her face when I walk into that dining room. I want to look her in the eye—the woman who 'lost' my messages and 'forgot' to tell you I called—and I want her to realize that her walls didn't work."
He reached across the table, his large hand covering Katherine’s, his thumb stroking her knuckles with a possessive heat. "She kept me from you when you were hurting. She let me believe you hated me while you were recovering from a crash that nearly took everything. I owe her a debt of conversation, Katherine. And I intend to pay it tomorrow night."
The thought of Lyle sitting in his chair, drinking his father-in-law's scotch, and pretending to be the man Katherine leaned on sent a fresh wave of adrenaline through AJ’s system. He wasn't the same man who had left. He was harder, leaner, and far less concerned with the "proper" way of doing things.
"I'm going to find Lyle," AJ muttered, his eyes drifting toward the exit.
"AJ, don't start a fight in the hallway," Katherine warned, though she didn't pull her hand away.
"I'm not going to fight him, Katherine. I'm a surgeon; I know exactly where the pressure points are. I'm just going to make sure he understands the seating chart for tomorrow night. If he thinks he’s walking into that house as the guest of honor, he’s practicing medicine without a brain."
AJ squeezed her hand one last time before stepping away. As he walked toward the elevators, his mind was already moving through the logistics. He envisioned the look on Caroline’s face when he brushed past Lyle at the front door. He thought about the eighteen months of silence she had manufactured, the cold, calculating way she had tried to rewrite Katherine’s future.
He reached the cardiology floor and spotted Lyle at the nurse’s station, looking every bit the "doctor friend" Caroline so admired—pressed lab coat, perfect hair, an air of unearned stability. AJ felt a primal growl deep in his chest.
Lyle looked up, his expression shifting from smugness to a flicker of genuine fear as he saw the "caveman version" of AJ Ross bearing down on him. AJ didn't stop until he was inches away, using his height and the sheer, rugged intensity of his presence to crowd Lyle against the desk.
"I hear we're having dinner tomorrow," AJ said, his voice a terrifying, quiet rumble.
Lyle swallowed hard, his eyes darting around for an audience. "Caroline invited me, Ross. It’s a family affair."
"That’s the thing about families, Lyle," AJ said, leaning in until he could see the beads of sweat on the other man's brow. "They’re built on blood and history. You don't have either in that house. I'm the one who's going to be sitting next to Katherine. You? You're just the entertainment your mother-in-law-wannabe hired to keep things interesting. But fair warning, I don't find you very entertaining."
AJ didn't wait for a response. He turned and walked away, the weight of the upcoming confrontation with Caroline Henry finally feeling like a burden he was ready to carry. He wasn't just going for the food. He was going to reclaim his place, and he was going to make sure that Caroline realized her eighteen-month blockade had officially been breached.