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“You thought it was odd that I’d been worried for your safety and someone had taken you,” he finished for me, understanding what I had been saying. “No. That wasn’t a coincidence. I kept things from you. Things I didn’t think I could tell you yet. And my fear was that I’d lose you if you knew before …” He paused and took a deep breath. “Before I could get you to fall in love with me. I thought you’d leave. I doubt I will ever forgive myself for that. If you’d known then, this wouldn’t have happened.”
I was listening to him, but the wordsfall in love with mewere the ones that kept replaying in my head. We hadn’t talked about love. There hadn’t been enough time for that, had there?
“You want me to love you?” I asked him.
“If you love me, then you won’t leave me,” he said.
I didn’t think that was a good reason to want someone’s love, but I didn’t know how to say that. There wasn’t time to either because the doctor and nurse both entered the room.
“There’s our patient,” the doctor said with a friendly smile. He had white hair and a short white beard. “How do you feel?” he asked me.
“Good,” I replied.
“Where does it hurt?” he asked and began to check my head.
While he examined me, Blaise stood on the other side of the bed with his arms crossed over his chest, watching. I kept looking over at him and getting distracted. I knew he was going to tell me things I wasn’t going to like. I knew now that the power I’d thought the Hugheses had wasn’t exactly the power people were referring to. Blaise was dangerous. But he was mine.
When faced with death, you realized what was most important to you. He was all I had thought about. The only thing on this earth that I didn’t want to leave. That must be love. After all, he was my home now. After losing my dad and brother, I’d thought I’d never have one again. That wasn’t the case.
“Blaise, do you mind stepping out of the room?” the doctor asked.
My eyes flew from the doctor to Blaise. Why did he have to leave? I didn’t know these people. I wasn’t ready to be left alone with them.
“No,” he replied.
“She’s having a hard time answering my questions with you in here. She is, uh, distracted,” the doctor told him.
Blaise’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “I’m not leaving her.”
The doctor sighed, and I turned to look at him.
“I’ll pay attention,” I assured him.
He began asking me questions, and I answered them the best I could, only glancing over every few moments to make sure Blaise was still there. He never left.
When the doctor finished and the nurse took the IV out of my arm and detached all the equipment, I was tired. I felt my eyes closing and fought it. Blaise spoke to the doctor, and I began to drift off. His voice made me feel safe, and I knew he would stay while I slept.
“Door stays locked. No one comes down here,” Blaise said in a low voice.
I blinked, slowly opening my eyes to see the lights were off, except for the television and the bathroom. Blaise stood with a towel around his waist and his back to me as he talked on the phone.
“Nothing yet. I’ll make that plan when she’s better.” His bare shoulders lifted and fell in a sigh. “I’ll deal with Garrett.”
He ended the call and tossed the phone on the chair in front of him. Then, he turned around, and his eyes met mine. A slow grin stretched across his face as he walked toward me.
“You’re awake,” he said.
I could see the water droplets on his chest from his still-damp hair. He’d taken a shower. I thought about our last shower together.
“You need to eat,” he told me, coming to sit on the side of the bed. “Let me help you up so you can use the bathroom, and then we will get you some food.”
Both of those things sounded good. I started to sit up and winced.
“Easy, baby,” he said, reaching for me. “The strongest pain meds have worn off. We need you to take some of the new ones once you eat something.”
I let him help me up, and when I was finally standing, I looked down to see a soft, pale blue silk nightgown that came about mid-thigh on my body. I lifted my eyes back to meet his.
“I sent for some things,” he told me.
