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“Seriously? That hottie is really my husband? Adira is going to die when I tell him.”
She smiles. “The anesthesia should wear off soon.”
Chapter Four
Rogue
Igripthebackof my neck as I arc around and stalk back toward Ivy’s room. She is so fucking adorable coming off the anesthetic. I’ve never seen anything quite as cute as this happy, outgoing version of Ivy.
I almost wish it could last forever so she wouldn’t have to relive all of the pain and trauma that led to us ending up here. Or what the next three days will entail once they take her to psyche.
I stall in front of the door while I call Adira yet again. Idle there, boring holes into the barrier with my gaze while the hinge of my jaw throbs. I can’t stand that I’m not in there with her. Not when I came so close to losing her.
My lungs burn and my eyes are gummy. Seeing her like that… on the floor of Narnia. Blood everywhere. It’s going to stick with me for as long as I live. If I’d been with her it would never have happened. If I’d stopped to think for even one second when she told me about Alec, she wouldn’t have been alone. I would have been there.
The call connects to voicemail. Still no answer from Ivy’s best friend. Where is he? Why wasn’t he with her tonight? He should be here.
“Call me as soon as you get this.” Ivy needs him to be here. I need him to be here. I end the call and shove my phone in my jacket pocket.
A lifetime dealing with my mother and her mental health issues didn’t prepare me for what it would be like to find Ivy the way I did. And all I keep thinking is if I’d lost her tonight I would have fucking followed her right over the edge.
“Fuck it.” I can’t bear another second apart from her. If the nurse isn’t finished by now she’ll have to deal with me hovering. I shove open the door and enter the room.
“There’s my man,” Ivy squeals as she throws her arms up toward me. “Hug me.”
I don’t hesitate to go to her. When she wraps her arms around me I swallow away the wetness in the back of my throat and bend lower to press a kiss to the top of her head. I can’t believe how close I came to losing her, but she’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. I will never let her go again.
“Ivy Love? Where is she?” a feminine voice demands, a second before that voice is followed into the room by a beautiful woman. “There you are, Ivy.”
Everything about the older woman is immaculate, from her pointed toe heels to the cosmetics on her face to her straight blonde hair. Nicole Hawthorne.
The resemblance is there… but not to Ivy. To Alec. Because this woman is his mother too.
“Mom?” Ivy trembles as she drops her arms from around my waist.
I catch her hand and hold onto it as her mom sashays toward us in a form fitting black pencil skirt and a designer blouse. There is no way I’m going to let this woman intimidate Ivy.
A man files into the room behind her.
I’ve seen him and his Tom Ford suit and his slicked back hair before. He was hanging around Ivy like a total creep at the alternative wedding expo. And prior to that on the college campus. That was weeks ago? Longer? It seems like a whole other lifetime.
I assumed the lawyer had gotten the message that Ivy wasn’t interested in dating him, but apparently I’m going to have to make it more clear.
The nurse hurries up to Nicole. “You can’t be—”
“Do you know who I am?”
“No, but that doesn’t—”
“I own this hospital wing. I’ll have you fired if you don’t get out of my way.” Nicole is addressing the nurse, but she glares at me like I’m the crap she stood on and now wants off the bottom of her shoe. “Now, go and get the doctor.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The nurse sounds peeved but hurries out of the room.
Nicole clutches at the double string of pearls around her neck while she assesses us all through eyes the same color as her son’s.
When those shrewd, cold orbs settle on me again my hackles rise.
“Get your hands off my daughter,” she orders.
