Billionaire Bad Boys of Romance 1(93)

I didn't even bother to check if he was alive. I crawled along the narrow sidewalk. A chain link fence on one side of me, and I reached out and pulled myself to my feet before I staggered onward.

A corner. There were always people at a corner. Stores. Human beings. I had to get to a corner. If I could get away from Don, I would be okay.

Well. Malcolm would be okay.

Help me, I begged silently, and then I was stumbling down a long tunnel toward two men. Dark faces, dressed like me. They were staring. They'd heard the gunshot, and as I staggered toward them they backed up. I realized they were afraid of me.

I looked down and saw the gun still in my hand. I dropped it. Mercifully it just fell to the concrete and didn't go off. I looked up again, peering down the tunnel.

They were still there. Not running. Thank you.

I reached out, but my vision was blurring, the world tilting. The wind nipped and bit at me, cold against my skin, but nothing compared to the dark void opening up inside me, blooming like a black rose.

I remember their faces. One looked scared, the other horrified as he lunged forward to catch me, but, as though from far away, I saw myself hit the pavement, crumpling, and then I closed my eyes and turned inward and fell into the blackness.





Chapter Seventeen

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a hospital. White and cream and blue and sterile. Felicia sat by my bed, staring at her phone, a line of worry between her brows as she restlessly scanned the screen. I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but a bone deep exhaustion filled me and my mouth was dry as desert sand.

I wheezed, but it wasn't even loud enough to catch her attention. I let my eyes close.



I woke again, this time as nurse bent over me, her perfume overwhelming my nose. My stomach heaved and I choked on vomit. She took one look at me and slammed a button on the wall.

Doctors and nurses and interns flooded the room. Tubes fed down my throat, sucking the vomit out. This time I felt pain, but it was far away, happening to someone else.

It must suck to be that chick, I thought, and fell asleep again before they even finished clearing my airway.



When I finally woke up for real, Malcolm was there.

If I could have commanded my lungs to sigh in relief, I would have, but the pain that had been at bay suddenly reared up and struck, and I could hardly breathe.

Malcolm noticed my eyes opening almost immediately, and in a flash he was at my side, his large, sweet hands running over my forehead, stroking down my cheeks, his thumbs running against my temples as he leaned over the hospital bed and kissed my brow, soft and gentle, over and over again.

Warmth spread through me, chasing away the pain. Malcolm, I thought. Malcolm, you're free. I must have done it somehow. They must have found the files. He must have proved his innocence.

I did it, I wanted to say. I freed you. But I couldn't talk. My mouth had the sticky, bone dry feel of too much morphine, and I tried to lick my lips to wet them. It didn't matter. It was like my tongue was plastic.

“Wait, don't strain yourself,” Malcolm said. His voice rumbled through me, the sound painful in my head, but burrowing deep into my aching heart, and I subsided, willing, at last, to let him do what he wanted, completely and totally. I closed my eyes, and I drifted into a snap of sleep before I felt the sting of cold on my lips and I opened them again.

Malcolm stared down at me, his face so tender I thought I would shatter. I need to be handled roughly to survive. Be kind to me, and I break.

His warm hand landed on my throat, his thumb coaxing my chin down, and when I opened my mouth he slipped a chip of ice into it. It hit like a balm from heaven.

Patiently, Malcolm fed me ice until I fell asleep again.



That was how it went for a while. I would wake, and Malcolm would be there. With each waking I felt a little stronger. Doctors and nurses came and went. Felicia and Anton fluttered in and out. Friends appeared and disappeared.

But Malcolm was always there, slipping ice onto my tongue like a sacrament, and with every kiss he pressed to my brow I crumbled a little inside, my armor breaking under his tender assault. I learned later that it was only about twelve hours between my vomiting incident and the first time I was able to speak, but it felt like a year. Ten years. A lifetime.

So after a lifetime I opened my eyes and saw him curled over the edge of my bed, sleeping. He looked exhausted, the same way I'd seen him when we'd first met, when he'd resolved to die, except now the dark circles under his eyes were almost black with the beautiful tan he had obtained on the sea. His shaggy blond hair, now sun-bleached and far messier than it had been when we first met, fell across his forehead, and I had the urge to reach out and brush it from his eyes.

I got as far as lifting a hand before I realized it was stuffed full of needles and tubes, and I remembered I'd been shot.