Page 197 of Always: A Legacy Novel

Clothes. Her. Good food. Soft blanket.

He crossed a whole bunch of shit off his list just like that, and his bad mood started to dissipate instantly.

“I am resting,” Cross said.

“You look like it.”

She walked into the room, and the three men visiting stood to leave.

“You’ll be released tomorrow, likely,” his step-father said. “Try not to be too unpleasant while you wait, son.”

Cross sighed. “I’ll try.”

Once they were gone and the door was closed, Catherine shaded the blinds on the windows. She dropped his duffle on the bed, and Cross was quick to get dressed. Even though it hurt like hell, he grabbed that blanket she brought. It smelled like home and her. He pulled her into the small bed with him and the blanket. She tucked into his side, and buried her face into his neck, hiding away while he tangled his hands into her hair.

The bed wasn’t so hard with her in it.

Cross kissed the top of her head, but Catherine didn’t move an inch. She just wanted to hide away, he thought, and she could only do that with him.

“You lied to your father about that night,” he said absently.

Catherine stiffened. “And your mom.”

“What?”

“I told your mom I was with you and you were working. So, I lied to her, too.”

“You have to stop doing that, Catty. You need to stop lying, it’s not protecting you, it’s hurting you, or it will. Don’t you get that?”

It was her only fault, he thought. Her lies. That she wore a different mask depending on who was looking, and controlled how she appeared to them. She lied to people she didn’t even need to lie to, just because she could keep up the act. It would do her no good, though, when her lies piled too high and finally came crashing down.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m not the one in a hospital bed.”

No, but she had been attacked, almost assaulted again, and he was worried that he had come in just a little too late. Not to save her physically, but her mind.

In there, she was too quiet.

He couldn’t get in there.

Catherine tipped her head back to look at him—no makeup, lost in her eyes, and oh, so tired.

“This wasn’t your fault, huh?”

“It kind of was,” Catherine said softly.

“It wasn’t, not really. Nothing you did caused those men to come at you like that. Just like when it was Derik, it wasn’t your faul—”

“Please, don’t.”

Yeah, Catherine was locked up tight in her mind. Cross wasn’t loud enough to get in. She couldn’t hear him yelling to let him in. He was worried he wasn’t going to be able to hear her screaming for help, either.

He figured as long as he kept a hold on her, and his arms were tight enough to keep her locked in with him, so she couldn’t start to spiral again; she wouldn’t fall. He wouldn’t need to catch her, if she didn’t fall at all this time.

Cross just got the penthouse door opened after running his ass off all night for a Donati Capo, when his phone started to ring in his pocket. He got that one single week after he was released from the hospital to relax, and then it was as if the entire world decided that was quite enough. For the last two weeks, he had been going non-stop, with very little downtime in between.

He answered the call with little patience left, and kicked the penthouse door closed with more force than was necessary. “Yeah, what?”