Page 121 of The Temporary Bride

“Chloe! Watch out!”

I look up.

A car is barreling toward me, its headlights blazing white and huge—close, so terrifyingly close, with no sign of stopping. I’m standing in the middle of the road, stuck, and I don’t have time to do anything at all.

Chapter 45

Tristan

“Chloe! Watch out!”

She doesn’t stop. Doesn’t turn around. Whether she can’t hear me or whether she’s too far gone in her own pain to register my voice, I’ll never know. The car comes around the bend before any of it matters. I watch it hit her, and there is not a fucking thing I can do about it from where I’m standing.

The sound of the impact is something I’m never going to get out of my head.

I’m running before she hits the ground, feet hammering the asphalt, shouting her name in a voice I barely recognize as mine. I drop to my knees beside her, the pavement hard and rough under me. I want to pull her against my chest more than I’ve ever wanted anything, but I’m scared to move her, scared of making it worse. So I put one hand against her face, lean over her, and tell myself to hold it together because she needs me to.

She’s unconscious. A cut above her temple is bleeding, thin and dark against her skin, and her body is limp against the road in a way that makes my stomach turn.

I press two fingers to the side of her neck and wait, my body locked.

There’s a pulse. Faint and unsteady, but there.

I get my phone out and dial 911, my hands shaking badly enough that I have to try twice.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“My wife was hit by a car.” My voice comes out flat and hard. “She’s unconscious and bleeding. Oceancrest Avenue, just past the private gate. Send an ambulance right now.”

“Sir, stay on the line. Help is on the way. Don’t move her.”

“Okay,” I rasp. It’s hard to get the word out, my throat is so fucking tight. “Okay, I won’t.”

I leave the call open and set the phone on the asphalt beside me, needing to free up both of my hands. I lean over Chloe, one hand resting lightly on her chest as the other strokes her cheek.

“I’m right here,” I tell her, even though I know she can’t hear me right now. But maybe my words will still register somehow. They have to. “You stay with me, dimples. You hear me? Don’t you fucking go anywhere.”

She doesn’t answer. The tail lights of the car that hit her are long gone around the bend, and I keep glancing up to make sure there aren’t any other cars coming. They told me not to move her, and thankfully this road doesn’t usually get a lot of traffic, but the thought of her getting hurt any worse makes it hard to focus on anything else.

The minute she put that ring on my desk and walked out, something broke inside my chest. I was up and out of my chair before I even thought about it, despite the fury that had been building inside me as I waited for her to get home from her trip. Despite the anger I felt, despite the betrayal, I went after her. I couldn’t just let her go.

And now I’m afraid she’s going to be taken from me anyway.

“Fuck,” I murmur, tears blurring my vision. “Goddammit, Chloe. Hold on.”

The ambulance arrives in minutes, and the paramedics are out and moving before it’s fully stopped, two of them with the stretcher and a third coming toward me with an arm extended.

“Sir, we need space to work.”

I move back just enough to let them reach her, but I don’t step away. I watch them work, their hands moving fast and sure over her, checking her vitals, talking to each other in a fast, urgent shorthand. I keep my eyes on her face the whole time.

They get her onto the stretcher and start moving toward the ambulance, and I move with them. One of the paramedics, a guy in his thirties, puts a hand up as I reach the back doors.

“Sir, we need you to follow us to the hospital⁠—”

“No.” I step up into the ambulance. “I’m coming with her.”

“We have protocols⁠—”