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With the click of the turn signal, my heart races as he pulls over to the side of the road. It’s not until the car is parked that hespeaks again. “You safe word, we pause, I fix whatever is wrong,” he says as if it’s truly that simple. As if there isn’t a problem at all with everything that’s going on. His hand grips my chin and he stares deep into my eyes. I wish he wouldn’t. I’m worried what he’ll find there.
“Why are you scared?” I can barely breathe at the question. It seems in direct opposition to what he told me before.
The truth slips from me anyway. “I feel like … maybe what happened before …” I swallow thickly as his jaw tenses. “I’m afraid I’m going to do something and it’s going to happen again because I swear I didn’t. I didn’t leak anything or give anyone anything or say anything.” My voice cracks on the last word and my breathing quickens. “They said I gave information to someone. I didn’t, though. I swear I didn’t.” As the words rush out of me, Declan forces me to look at him, his hand on the back of my neck. His hold is so possessive it silences me.
“The only way anyone will ever touch you again is if you leave me.” His expression is nothing but deadly serious with a hardness I’ve only seen from him a time or two. “Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” I say, the single word coming out in a breathy voice, feeling a heat between us that has nothing to do with sickness.
“You stay with me, you do as I say and you are safe. I don’t care what anyone else says or what they want, or what they think or what they tell me. Do you hear me? I don’t give a fuck. I’ll slit their throat before they can say a damn thing to me about you. Do you hear me, Braelynn? You are mine. I choose you.”
With a single beat of my heart a second passes before I whisper, “You promise?”
“I don’t like that you’re questioning it.”
I confess, “I don’t either.”
He leans back in his seat and it groans. His attention turns from me for a moment as quiet settles between us. Twisting hishand around the leather wheel, he looks back at me. “I allowed someone to come between us. I know that I did and I am sorry, Braelynn. I never should have allowed it. It won’t happen again.”
My heart thuds in the faintest way. Like it gives in. Like it believes him with its entire existence. I know right then and there, he’s ruined me.
“I promise,” he adds.
“Thank you,” I murmur, caught in the emotion that swirls in his gaze. A million things about this man have me doubting my sanity, but I don’t question that he wants to keep me safe and that he has the power to do so.
His tone shifts to one that’s more demanding. “I don’t want you to think about it anymore. I don’t want you to worry anymore. I’ve made those points clear, haven’t I?”
“Yes.”
“You are only to worry about pleasing me. That is it. Everything else is mine to take on. Give in to that and you will feel so much better.”
His hand grips my chin again and his strength is weakened. “For fuck’s sake, Braelynn, you’re sick. Don’t worry about this. Not now and not ever again. Do you promise me?” he asks, emphasizing the words with his brow cocked.
“I promise,” I answer him and he grips my hand like that act puts an end on the conversation.
“You make me a desperate man,” he comments and a half smile pulls at my lips. I wonder to myself, at what point did the tides change between us? I start to think as he pulls away from the shoulder and the soft hum of the car soothes my nerves, that maybe this was fate and it was meant to happen. For whatever twisted, fucked-up reason that the universe has in store for us. I start to think that the worst is behind us.
If only that voice in the back of my head would stop whispering that I should be terrified and that it’s going to happen again.
It’s only a fever,but it still sucks walking into the hospital feeling mostly dead and pathetic. I wish I looked halfway decent, especially compared to Declan, who’s got his arm wrapped around me in support. Shamefully, I’m happy to lean on him as we stand at the reception desk. In dark wash jeans and a Henley, no one would know who he is. He still radiates authority, though, and a darkness that’s only swept away when he smiles. Which he doesn’t do for even a second as we stand there in silence, waiting for one of the two receptionists to look up. The first woman is closest to us and scribbling something in a notepad; the other has her back turned, tapping away on a computer.
Both are in light blue scrubs so I wonder if they’re also nurses.
“Checking in with Doctor Jacobson,” Declan says evenly and calmly, but with an authority that has the young woman in front of us peeking up from the notepad. Her horn-rimmed glasses are bright teal, her lips the perfect shade of cherry red and her dark hair is pinned back in a high bun on her head. She’s young, much younger than the woman behind her who looks over her shoulder the moment the first questions, “Name?”
“Mr. Cross,” the older woman with bleach blond hair says and pushes her chair back so quickly it nearly tips over. “I’m sorry for the wait, right this way.”
The brunette in a bun seems to realize who he is right before my eyes. At first there’s confusion and then we’re given wide eyes as the blood drains from her face.
“My apologies; she’s new here,” the woman leading us attempts to explain before clearing her throat and ushering us to an elevator.
It’s quiet as we ride up the elevator, stopping on a floor that requires a code. It’s unsettling, and I find the fever competing with an anxiousness that makes me feel sicker than I think I am.
All the while, Declan holds me, comforts me and leads me down a quiet hall, far too quiet and then into a private room.
It’s … jaw dropping. What. The. Fuck.
“I didn’t know rooms at the hospital existed like this,” I murmur as I stop short of the hospital bed in the middle of the room. The bed itself is adjustable and that sets it apart from a posh hotel room. But the linens are luxurious and the furniture reminds me of the estate.
