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“That would help me out a lot actually. Tristian keeps offering up his new secretary, but she’s swamped with him.”
“Not a problem,” I said. “But you have to do something for me.”
“Oh I’ll pay you for your time.”
“But not in money. I want you to tell me all of the public meltdowns the bridal parties have. I want all the juicy gossip.”
“You’ve got it,” Emilia said. “And thank you again. The phone calls alone are sucking precious time away from trying to get every single color azalea known to mankind grown in that back room.”
“I’ll help in any way I can,” I said.
I finished my lunch with her, then hugged her goodbye. Our lunches were few and far between, but I needed them. Every once in a while we could talk on the phone at night, but even those were growing less frequent. I watched her get into her car and drive away, then I turned to mine and sighed.
It was back to the hospital for me. And if we were lucky, Hayden would be sent home before the week was out.
Which meant I’d have an answer for Emilia sooner rather than later.
Chapter Sixteen
Hayden
I reached for the refrigerator door and lost my balance. We had just finished my physical therapy and I was hungry as hell. And of course, Grace had gone to get a shower. I could hear the water running as she washed herself down, so I figured I had enough strength to hobble into the kitchen and get myself a snack. I knew she wouldn’t approve, but it was about damn time I started moving around by myself. It had been five weeks since that fucking surgery, and I needed my life to get back to normal again.
Then, as if my leg didn’t fucking exist any longer, it gave out on me and I fell to the floor.
“Ah! Shit!”
“Hayden?”
“What the fuck!?” I asked, groaning.
“Hayden? What’s wrong?”
I could hear Grace slam out of a door somewhere as wet footsteps fell onto the floor. She was running around the damn apartment trying to find me, and it dawned on me out much of an inconvenience I was to her. The woman couldn’t even take a fucking shower without me screwing up her world and worrying over me. I gripped my hip and clenched my teeth, trying to find a way off the damn floor before she found me.
But every move I made sent blinding pain shooting up my side.
“Hayden! Where are you!?”
I couldn’t breathe in deeply enough to call for her. And part of me didn’t want to. I’d been in physical therapy with my hip for all of three damn months, and it was time I was upright again. It was time I got back to my work. To my world. To making money and building hotels and running shit the way it needed to be run. I was putting off investor meetings and flooding my COO, Mike, with way too much shit.
And the worst part was he was doing a really good job. With every passing day he was in the driver’s seat, it made me look worse.
I had to get back to my company and show them why I fucking ran the damn place.
“Oh my gosh. Hayden. Come here.”
I was groaning and holding my head, trying to abate my embarrassment. I could hear that tone in her voice. That small tone women took with stubborn toddlers. I hated that fucking tone. I hated that she saw me as beneath her. As some insolent child she had to take care of instead of a man who could take care of her. Grace squatted down onto the floor, trying to be careful in her movements, but once she reached for me something snapped.
I smacked her hand out of the way to try and get her to leave.
“Hayden, what in the world?”
“Get the hell away from me,” I said.
“We have to get you off this floor. I have to get your pants off and-”
