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When my stomach eventually collapsed in an exhausted heap, I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and fell back against the sofa. Suddenly, the room felt very bright. As my eyes adjusted, the figure of a man formed above me.
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
I closed my eyes, half of me ready to fall asleep for a hundred years, the other half zinged wide awake and on high alert. Seconds later, a cool damp cloth was pressed against my forehead and I sighed into it. Anything would feel blissful after that expulsion.
“You okay?”
I popped open one eye. “What are you doing here?” My voice was a croaky hot mess. “Shouldn’t you be back at Blackcap Hall keeping up appearances?”
Through my haze, Hector frowned. “You think I give a fuck about appearances now?”
“But… as far as anyone else knows, you’re still a Thorn. Shouldn’t you be behaving like one?”
Hector snorted. “Oh I am. Behaving like one, I mean.”
I watched him fold the cloth in half before gently nabbing my temples.
“I’m not giving a shit what anyone thinks,” he said, with a bitter sneer. “I’ve hidden Minty away for years, and for what? I’ve been hidden from my own family my entire life. They don’t get to tell me who I can and cannot fall in love with.”
I couldn’t help the smile tug up the corners of my mouth. “You… you’re in love?”
His response was an annoyed frown. “Don’t go all fucking mushy on me. You know I am.”
My gaze dipped to the sweatpants hung low on his hips and it was only then I realised his upper body was naked. I suppressed a flush then realised I had way more to be embarrassed about. Or ashamed of, to be more accurate.
Hector pressed the cloth to the side of my face and angled my focus back towards him. “What’s wrong?”
I pushed myself up the arm of the sofa and backed away, unable to look him in the eye. “Nothing. I just… I’m wondering when I can go home. That’s all.”
Hector sat back on his heels and lowered the cloth to his lap. “I’ll find out,” he said with a sigh.
My eyelids flashed. “What do you need to find out? I’m leaving the island, Hector. As soon as possible.”
A vaguely panicked look crossed his face but it had nothing on the panic that infused my blood.
“Minty!” I shouted.
Footsteps thumped across a carpet and a bedroom door was flung open.
“What?” Her gaze flitted between me and Hector. “What’s going on?”
I shot her a pleading glare. “I want to go home. I want to leave. Now.”
Minty directed her own panicked features at Hector. “What’s happened?” she asked, her voice low.
Hector held up his hands. “Nothing. She said she wanted to know when she could go home. I said I’d find out.”
Minty glared at him before scraping her hands down her face and cursing loudly into them.
“What’s going on?” My voice trembled.
“I knew this would happen,” Minty mumbled, her face still covered. “I knew I’d end up being the bloody messenger.”
“What are you talking about?” I gasped, gripping the edges of the sofa and cutting my gaze from Minty to Hector and back.
Minty’s hands slid down her face in slow motion and she huffed out a long, resigned sigh. “You can’t leave. Not yet.”
Fury began to grow in the pit of my stomach. They couldn’t do this to me. Not after everything I’d done for them.
