I Need More

by Kimberley White

Genres: African American Women's Fiction; African American Romance

Synopsis

She Has Everything She Wants. . . Dr. Erika Johnson's life couldn't get any better. Her practice is flourishing and her hunk of a husband Brock can't keep his hands off her--until the day he suddenly leaves her without a word of explanation. Stunned, Erika has no choice but to cobble together a new life on her own. When she serves Brock with divorce papers, Erika is certain he'll sign them so they can both move on. But that's when the surprises really begin. . . Except The Man She Loves. . . Brock is sure he did the right thing. All he ever wanted was to bring joy into Erika's life, not pain and sorrow. But when rumors reach him that Erika is seeing another man, he's torn between what he thinks is right and what he feels is right. Despite everything, there's no denying the fierce attraction she and Brock have always shared is burning hotter than ever. And when Erika finally learns Brock's secret, they must decide if they will face the uncertain future together--or apart. . .

Release date: August 25, 2009

Publisher: Dafina

Print pages: 288

Sample

Dr. Erika Johnson slid the glossy black sachet across the desk, her heart pounding so rapidly she thought it would jerk into a rhythm incompatible with life, like a funky ventricular tachycardia. She watched him closely as his long fingers, attached to perfect brown hands once capable of caressing her into a crazed frenzy, reached out to accept the packet. He slowly brought the documents to rest on top of the medical file he’d been reading. He adjusted his glasses, in no particular hurry to open the mysterious offering. She willed herself to breathe deeply and stay calm. She searched for the tiniest sign of emotion as he slowly unwound the black string, threw open the cover, and read the heading.

Dr. Brock Johnson’s thick lashes flipped up to look at her. He spared this minimal reaction but gathered his composure quickly as he continued to peruse the legal papers. His hands rested on each side of the page, one finger stroking the edge as his eyes moved back and forth. His expression remained blank, giving no indication of how he felt about what he was reading.

Erika found his ability to shield his emotions maddening as she fidgeted, waiting for his response to her announcement. But hadn’t she fallen in love with this man of opposites? The hospital staff had warned her about the stoic doctor who wanted his patients cared for in very particular ways. She’d come to learn Brock wasn’t stoic, but highly conscientious about the welfare of his clients. Rumors were he was stuck-up because he didn’t associate with the staff at Christmas parties and after-work get-togethers. Actually, he was a man trained to be professional at all times and found it improper to socialize with those you were supervising. He was called mean because he never smiled. She uncovered he was bursting with love but needed a special woman give it to.

She watched him, more than his huge desk separating them, and tried to pinpoint exactly when things had gone wrong. It seemed so long ago when she’d walked into a patient’s room, instantly feeling Brock’s heat as he meticulously sutured a long scar across the man’s forehead. She had cried many tears since that day, and didn’t doubt she would shed many more.

“What is this about, Erika?” Brock’s wording was precise and well measured, the tone a school principal would use with a child about to be reprimanded.

She’d been preparing for this showdown for a week. She swallowed hard and matched his tone. “I want a divorce.”

His dark eyes challenged hers, struggling for dominance in her surprise attack. He didn’t look away as he closed the cover on the divorce papers. “And you approach me with this at work?”

“I didn’t want there to be a scene.”

“So you ambush me?” His voice dropped an octave, and for Brock it was the same as if he had shouted.

“If my intention was to ambush you, I would’ve had my lawyer deliver the papers to your apartment.”

“Lawyer,” he repeated as if he didn’t know the meaning of the word. “Were we supposed to have gotten lawyers?”

“At some point, yes.”

“Not at this point,” he countered. He cocked his right brow, challenging her.

There was a time when he could wiggle his dark brow and blink his thick lashes and Erika would melt. With a creamed-coffee complexion and dark facial hair, he was quite simply the most handsome man she’d ever met.

Brock pushed the divorce papers aside. “We’ll talk about this later. I’ll call you. We’ll have dinner.” He resumed his work, dismissing her.

“We’re going to talk about it now.”

Her forcefulness earned her another hitch of his brow. He braced the edge of the desk and pushed his chair back, just a few inches, as if he needed the room to exhale his exasperation. “I don’t discuss my personal life at work.”

“It’s my personal life, too, and I want to talk now.” She shook her head, refusing to let hurt feelings play a part in this interaction. The day he left, her heart had shriveled and died. It had taken a long time to become reconciled with his decision. Her newfound contentment with her life wouldn’t let her back down. “We’ve been separated for seven months. It’s time to make a decision.”

“And your vision has suddenly cleared.”

Erika’s strumming heartbeat came to an abrupt halt, and her new problem became fighting through an episode of dizziness and not ending up unconscious on the floor.

He knows.

She took a deep breath, fighting guilt. Brock Johnson was a well-respected intensivist at Mission Hospital, leading his physician group in the care of ICU patients. Of course he knew about the eye clinic opening across the hall from her internal medicine clinic in the hospital’s office building. It didn’t mean he knew everything.

“You’re seeing what our future should be with 20/20 precision?”

The office lapsed into silence. She hadn’t been prepared to discuss this. She could handle only one issue at a time with a man as stubborn and controlling as Brock. Today, it would be the divorce. She refused to be intimidated by his double-talk and pushed ahead with her purpose. “The settlement’s fair.”

His expression was frozen, his eyes locked onto hers with an angry fire blazing inside his pupils.

“All I ask is to keep using your last name. I’ve built my practice as Dr. Johnson. I’d like to avoid confusion or having to rebuild my reputation because of switching back to my maiden name.”

“Do you really think I’m going to sign this?” He shoved the packet across the desk, and it toppled over the edge into her lap. “You walk in here and present me with divorce papers without any warning, and the only issue you see is whether or not I let you keep my last name?” His voice dropped to barely a whisper when he said, “No.”

Erika clutched the sachet with icy fingers. “What?” she asked, sure she hadn’t heard him correctly. She knew he would be angry, but she didn’t think he’d refuse to grant her a divorce. He had been the one to walk out on their marriage.

“I’m not signing your papers.”

She took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled slowly before speaking. “This may not have been the best place to approach you, but it was going to happen sooner or later. We’re separated. We only see each other at work. Our only conversation is about our mutual patients. We aren’t in counseling. What did you expect to happen? Where else could this go?”

He seemed befuddled, as if he hadn’t contemplated this reality. He licked the corner of his mouth, deciding his next move. “I’m not signing your divorce papers,” he said with hard conviction. “I’m not granting you a divorce.”

“Why not?”

He wiped his forehead, and for Brock, who prided himself on keeping his emotions in check, this gesture was as good as him falling out of his big leather chair.

So she pushed. “Why are you trying to make this so difficult?”

“I can’t talk about this right now. I have to get ready for morning rounds.”

“I expected you to be mad I’d beaten you to filing, but I didn’t think you’d play games.” She spoke the words out of frustration of believing her feelings were being discounted again. The man who once put her happiness above everything in his life hadn’t been able to have a meaningful discussion with her in seven months. She couldn’t spend any more time trying to figure him out. She had to move on with her life.

“This may be some sort of a race for you, but I won’t end my marriage without any thought because I’m in a rush to get to rounds.”

“How much thought went into you leaving?”

His eyes shifted away from her. Being the first to break eye contact meant he was floundering.

A pang of worry moved through her. Brock was a formidable opponent for anyone who challenged him. He used his silence to retreat into his defensive shell, hiding his emotions from her. She’d given him the perfect opportunity to end it all, but he hesitated. Hadn’t he suddenly become distant the week before he’d packed his bags and left their home? Asking for a divorce had caught him off guard, but it wasn’t like him to be stunned speechless. Something else was going on. She’d suspected some hidden agenda since the day he up and ended their relationship without warning or cause.

She softened her voice and called his attention back to her. “Brock?”

After a long moment of intense contemplation, his gaze met hers again.

“Are you okay?”

He spoke with a passion long missing from their marriage when he said, “I’m not divorcing you, Erika.”

He refused to let her go.

He couldn’t let her go.

Brock knew he must let Erika go. Wasn’t this what he’d decided the first day? The moment he found out, his first thought had been of Erika and what it would mean to her life. He had struggled with his decision, continued to struggle with it now, but the right thing to do was to end his marriage with the hope that Erika would go on to live a happy, productive life. It was the reason he’d started to pull away from her. Not because he didn’t love her. It had been difficult to watch her hurt as he withdrew his affection, stamping out the core foundation of their marriage, but in the end, it would shorten her suffering.

He watched Erika approach, her crisp white lab coat unable to hide the fluid shift of her hips. He could smell her sweetness before she reached him, his mind playing tricks because he missed the softness of her touch, the unspoken understanding of his quirky ways, the gentleness of her kiss, and the ever-present support she gave by holding him in her arms.

He had come to the realization he had to end his marriage, and believed himself emotionally ready to accept his fate—until she walked into his office the other morning announcing she’d taken the necessary steps to end their limbo. The divorce papers made it too real. He had almost choked as his breakfast pushed its way up into his throat. His love for her materialized with such force he had become irrational, refusing to sign the papers when he had promised her a long time ago he’d always give her whatever she wanted.

“How’s my patient doing?” Erika’s presence settled around him like a broken-in blanket, soft and fuzzy and warm. He wanted to wrap her around him and absorb the love she had once offered. She encompassed the opposite of all of his qualities. Her kindness was genuine and unlimited, freely given to everyone she encountered. She calmed him, and made him believe he was invincible. Her face was not only flawlessly beautiful, her expressions openly displayed each of her emotions. She had barged into his life unexpectedly, opening her heart to him without pretense, and he’d immediately fallen in love with her.

“He’s stable. Neuro wants to keep him in the ICU for a few more days.” They began to leave the unit, walking side by side, her nearness enough to weaken his knees.

“Any deficits from the stroke?”

They were all about business, no signs of the closeness they’d once shared. “Hard to tell until he wakes up.”

She shook her head. “It was blood pressure related. He wouldn’t take his antihypertensives. He kept telling me he felt fine. I kept telling him it’s common to be asymptomatic with hypertension.”

“You did all you could do,” he assured her as he stood aside to allow her to exit the unit first.

“There’s always more I can do.”

Erika always thought there was more she could do for her patients. She took it hard when one became acutely ill. He’d witnessed her crying when her patients died. She offered a tiny piece of her soul to everyone she encountered, losing a bit of herself when those she cared about were hurting. His duty as her husband, as the man who loved her more than anyone else ever could, was to replenish her mind and body. How could he be contemplating reneging on his original plan and refusing her a divorce when his situation threatened to destroy her?

“Don’t beat yourself up for what you can’t control,” he told her.

She glanced up at him, cleverly finding double meaning in his words. She stopped, turning to him. “Things don’t always turn out the way we want them to.”

“No, they don’t.” He itched to reach out and caress her lips, wiping away her frown.

“We shouldn’t belabor this.”

He glanced away, checking the hallway to find they weren’t alone. “We’ll talk. Later.”

She watched him, clouds of confusion washing over the smooth planes of her face. “I’m going to hold you to it, Brock.”

He pressed his lips together, afraid he was about to blurt out how he really felt. Instead, he nodded.

“I’m going to check on my patient. I want to speak with his wife. See how she’s holding up.”

The long-suffering wife. Afraid her husband was going to die, prematurely leaving her and ending their life together. It would kill him to see Erika hurting this way.

“Erika,” he called as she walked away.

She turned to face him. Her gentle nature was palpable, warming the air and washing over him in soft waves. How could she be strong and determined, and so loving and forgiving at the same time? He knew it was selfish, but he couldn’t let her go. He needed to be in her heart; he had to be the man of her dreams.

“Brock?”

He blinked, unable to clear his warring emotions.

She came to him. “Are you okay?”

He watched for her reaction as he lifted his hand and rested his palm against her cheek. Shocked, there was a hitch in her breathing. A moment passed and her body relaxed into his touch. If they had been alone, he would have pulled her in close, buried his face in her neck, and apologized for all the grief he had caused her. Instead, he leaned in and pressed his lips very softly to hers. When he pulled away, she was watching him, her lashes beating frantically. Before she could recover and ask any of the hundreds of questions flashing behind her eyes, he walked away.

 

“How are you feeling?”

“Physically? Fine.” Brock slipped off the exam table and began buttoning his shirt. “A little tired sometimes, but otherwise okay.”

“Get more rest. I can write you off from work for a couple of weeks.” Dr. Hassan Kabul was already reaching into his lab coat for a prescription pad.

“No.” Work helped maintain his sanity when everything else was so out of his control. It gave him a focus other than how much he missed his wife.

“I don’t have to tell you there are support groups—”

“For husbands who have separated from their wives and now want them back?”

“No shit?” Hassan asked, smiling beneath his turban. His accent made his attempt to curse comical, but Brock hadn’t been able to convince him to stop trying. According to Hassan, he was a full-blooded American now, and his accent had been left behind with all the dark memories of the brutality in his homeland. “I told you, a wife’s place is next to her husband. What do your American wedding vows say? ‘In illness and in health’?”

“Something like that.”

“Erika would want to know what is going on. She would want to stand by you.”

Brock shrugged into his lab coat. “Not a word about this to Erika.” He knew doctor-patient privilege would make Hassan keep his secret, but he wanted the promise of a friend.

“Not a word from me.” Hassan crossed his legs, balancing himself on the tiny stool. “Any decision about what you’d like to do?”

How many options did he have? “You act like I have a choice.”

“There are choices.”

Brock leaned on the edge of the exam table, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

Hassan continued, “I think we should move beyond the observation phase.”

He froze, everything coming to an abrupt halt in his mind. “Surgery?”

“It was my recommendation from the beginning.” He leaned forward, an earnest expression on his face. “My friend, you have testicular cancer. We should have acted seven months ago. You wanted time to get your life in order. Your tumor makers have changed. We have to move on this now.”

“Surgery?” he asked again, not believing it had come to this.

“Radical orchiectomy followed by single-dose carboplatin adjuvant therapy.” Hassan scribbled something in Brock’s medical chart.

“Wait. You want to remove my testicle and give me radiation therapy?”

“It’s the recommended standard of care.”

His nightmare began in the shower eight months ago, after making love to Erika. He’d had a hard day, and she’d been so sweet, greeting him at the door naked except for a short silk robe. His emotions were on overdrive, so foreplay was short. He would often play with Erika’s body for hours, not making love to her until she begged, on the verge of implosion. This night was different. He was the one in a hurry. He wanted her more than he’d ever needed her before. He dominated her body, egotistically taking what he wanted. She bucked beneath him, encouraging his selfishness until he turned over his control, coming with an explosion he would never forget.

As an internal medicine doctor, Erika preached prevention to her patients. At home, they’d made a sexy game out of her monthly breast exam. But he was like so many other physicians, keyed in on his patients’ health but neglectful of his own. He’d left Erika to sleep after their vigorous lovemaking while he showered, and that’s when he’d discovered the small lump on the right side of his scrotum.

Hassan had been encouraging, assuring him it was probably epididymitis, an infection of one of the cords responsible for transporting sperm. He was treated with antibiotics and scheduled for a follow-up visit. The antibiotics didn’t work. The lump remained, and he began experiencing swelling and tenderness. Hassan scheduled an ultrasound of his testicles, which warranted more testing, and eventually a tumor was confirmed. The mass measured two centimeters, which should have placed him at stage II, but the cancer hadn’t spread to his lymph nodes, and Hassan labeled it a stage I seminoma—it was all a play on words, because the cancer had already grown enough to limit his treatment options.

Brock shook his head adamantly. “I can’t let you remove my testicle. I can’t do radiation.” He couldn’t deal with the side effects when he’d just decided to get Erika back. “I need a quick fix, doc.”

“Being a doctor, you know there aren’t any.”

“Remove my testicle?” He laughed sarcastically.

“This cancer has a greater than 95 percent cure rate, but we have to do something. We can’t just wait around hoping it will go away on its own.” Hassan began writing in his chart. “I’m ordering more tests today. We’ll get you scheduled for surgery next week.”

“I can’t—”

“Brock, you know what can happen.”

He did. His father had died from the same disease.

“Next week, Brock.”

“I need to do a couple of things first.”

Hassan stood and approached his friend. “I’m in this with you, but we can’t fool around anymore.”

He dropped his head in defeat. The moment he’d found the mass, he knew his life was changing for the worse. He fit the profile. An African-American man between the ages of 15 and 35, with a familial history of testicular cancer was at the top of the hit list. At 35, he’d thought he’d managed to escape. At 30, Erika was too young to watch her husband die.

“If the surgery and radiation don’t work?”

“Don’t get so far ahead.”

“Hassan, please.” He already knew the answer, but male cancers weren’t his specialty. Maybe there had been medical advances he wasn’t aware of.

“We try chemotherapy.”

“And then?”

“And then? We won’t worry about ‘and then’ because the surgery will remove the tumor and radiation will keep the cancer from spreading to the lymph nodes.”

“But if it doesn’t?”

Hassan sighed. “Surgery. Radiation therapy. Chemotherapy.”

Brock looked away, not wanting his friend to see his weakness. The muscles in his neck were so tight he couldn’t turn his head. The taste of bile lingered at the back of his throat. His mind raced uncontrollably and he was unable to filter out incoherent thoughts. The stench of industrial-strength disinfectants threatened to strangle him. He was scared. He was afraid of dying. He was afraid of losing Erika. But mostly, he was afraid of dying and leaving her alone.

“There’s something else to consider,” Hassan hedged.

“What?”

“You said you want to get back together with Erika.”

“I can’t do this to Erika. I can’t saddle her with an invalid.”

“Brock, my friend. You can go on to live a healthy, happy life.”

Not without Erika. And he couldn’t have Erika if he was half a man.

“You must tell Erika. Let her make her own decision. It is what you Americans do—let your women make their own decisions.”

He managed to smile at his friend’s peculiar personality. Hassan, a man who suffered prejudice every time he went near an airport, dismissed the rights of women.

“Seriously, you have to consider a future with her. If you decide you want kids later…”

“I won’t be able to have any.” If the radiation didn’t zap his ability to produce sperm, the surgical removal of his testicle would severely limit it.

“It may become an issue.”

Brock couldn’t handle any more issues right now.

“Visit a sperm bank before we begin treatment,” Hassan said matter-of-factly. “Secure your future ability to make a choice.”

“Good. It’s done, then.” Mark Garing was the opposite of what Brock had become. He expressed his feelings for Erika at every opportunity. He was affectionate and available, knowing how to manage his work and still have a social life. It was his warmth, when Brock’s love had turned chilly, that had made Erika gravitate toward his friendship.

“Not quite,” she told him.

“What do you mean?” He placed his arm across her shoulders, bringing her into him. He always sat next to her in the booth of their favorite restaurant, telling her he didn’t like the table separating them.

“Brock said no.”

“No?”

“No, he wouldn’t sign the papers, and, no, he won’t give me a divorce.”

“How can he not give you a divorce if you’re asking for it?” Mark lifted his drink to his lips, sipping it slowly as he gathered his thoughts.

Erika angled toward him. “I think he knows about us.”

“Did he say something?”

She repeated Brock’s cryptic statements. Mark was the kind of man who grew on you, and before you had realized what had happened, you were falling for him. His kindness made him a good friend; his openness would make him a good lover. A friendly person, he’d come across the hall the day before he saw his first patient in the new eye clinic to introduce himself. He’d waited patiently, being a good but not intrusive friend, until Erika had shared the news of her separation from Brock. Two months later, he’d made his attraction known. Another month passed before Erika’s lonely heart told her it was all right to start dating. After keeping their relationship discreet for four months, Mark was getting anxious.

“It sounds like he knows,” Mark agreed. “Is that all he said?”

She nodded.

“What are you going to do? He has to give you a divorce,” he added as an afterthought. “Once the shock wears off, he’ll come around.”

Shock was not what she’d seen on Brock’s face when she handed him the divorce papers. She couldn’t quite name what emotion had caused the fiery storm in his eyes, but she would. She would have to. She needed to know what he was thinking—feeling, because whatever was moving through his heart and mind was keeping him from giving her her freedom. His sudden public display of affection outside the ICU only helped to muddy the waters. She didn’t know what was going on with him, but maybe it was the answer to this whole strange situation.

“That’s your cell,” Mark said, jostling her.

“Dr. Johnson,” she answered.

“Erika, I’ve been called to see one of your patients in the ER,” Brock said without formalities. “I just finished the consult. I’m going to admit him. Meet you in the ER?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes?” Brock questioned. “Where are you?”

“Out of the hospital having dinner. I’ll be right there.” She hung up before he could question her further.

“Let me guess,” Mark said. “You’re meeting Brock. It wouldn’t be about the divorce papers, would it?”

She shook her head, already putting on her jacket. “One of my patients is in the emergency room.”

Mark grunted, downing his drink.

“What? If something’s on your mind, say it.”

“Is there some reason Brock can’t handle the admission?”

“I like to evaluate my patients when they’re admitted to the hospital. I’ve always done it this way. The receiving doctor calls to notify me, and I go in to check on my patient.”

“You can consult over the phone like all the other doctors do.”

“Too impersonal. My patients count on me being there.”

Mark nodded, his expression saying he wasn’t convinced.

“What do you think this is about?”

“I think your husband has said he won’t divorce you, and now he’s tightening the reigns. You said yourself he’s suspicious about us. He’s going to do everything he can to keep you close to him until he’s ready to make his move.”

“Brock will get over my asking for a divorce, and then he’ll sign the papers. Remember, he left me. It was just a shock to him. That’s all.”

Mark shook his head, not convinced.

“Believe me, he wants this as much as I do.”

“And how much do you want it, Erika?”

She angled toward him. “What does that mean?”

“Take him to court and force him to divorce you. He can’t stop it, really.”

“Make . . .