Clinical smells alert me to the fact that I’m not in my room. In fact, going off the thinner, warmer air, I don’t think I’m even in Hollings Manor. My eyes fight to open, but I wind up getting only blinking snapshots of the room: narrow, quiet, and beige.
A mechanical beeping gives me a vague clue about where I could be. Then I attempt to move and the stiff mattress beneath me confirms it: a hospital room.
Panic flutters through my veins as I struggle to keep my eyes open. Part of the difficulty, I realize, is because the right side of my face is on fire. The constant throbbing triggers tears. Then everything’s a blur. My arms and legs feel near impossible to lift. Why am I so goddamn heavy?
“Stop.”
I stiffen at the harsh command, but I can’t bear to turn my head far enough in the voice’s direction to catch sight of the figure standing there.
“Where am I?” I wince. Is that me? My voice has never sounded so high-pitched and reedy.
“They say you fainted,” my visitor coldly replies. “Then you hit your head and fell into the lake. It’s a miracle you didn’t drown.”
He sounds so dry. As if my death is a topic no more intriguing than the weather.
Groaning with the effort, I lift my head far enough to see him standing in the corner, despite the pain the movement triggers. His arms are crossed over his chest, his face devoid of emotion.
“My face?” My fingers only twitch at first when I try to lift them. Eventually, I manage to bring one hand to my cheek. Pain flares with the slightest touch, and something’s covering my skin, stretching down to my jaw. Gauze?
“A minor laceration,” Blake says, but he stares right through me.
Overwhelmed, I let myself fall back against a single pillow. Gradually, more of the room comes into focus: the looming doorway from which I can make out the chaos of the hall. Harsh, artificial light clashes with the natural glow streaming in through my window. Someone pulled my curtains back, revealing a private view we couldn’t even secure for Ronan.
My lips part and an inquiry about my brothers springs to my tongue, but I bite it back. Silence builds into a stifling pressure between us—at least on my end. When I risk glancing at him again, he’s staring straight ahead, far beyond the confines of this room.
“You died,” he says, but his expression doesn’t change at all. Almost as if he isn’t even aware of the words leaving his mouth. “Your heart stopped beating. I felt it. You died in my arms.”
Images fill my skull, lacking context. Cold black. Gray sky. An angel. A devil—watching me suffocate.
Suddenly, he shakes his head and his lips flatten into a firm line. “They suggested you stay overnight,” he says, sounding more like the callous man I know. “And that you may have some memory loss.”
His silence draws attention to what he isn’t saying. He wants me to ask him something, but I don’t know what. My thoughts are liquid, too intangible to decipher.
He has no choice but to drip-feed me more subtle hints. “I’ll have the remainder of your things forwarded to the location of your choice before the liquidation,” he adds, and I frown as my heart picks up speed. Is that hesitation I detect? No. It can’t be. Blake Lorenz doesn’t hesitate to deliver his cruel bombshells.
And this one is the cruelest.
I don’t process it for the longest time, and when I do, it’s in snippets. Things. Liquidation…
“No…” I shake my head, and the nearby beeping sound must track my heart rate, because it increases, building into a frantic rhythm. “No, no!”
“Yes,” he interjects. “Our deal was that you stay with me for the entire year. Even the loss of one night was not in the agreement—”
“You can’t do this.” My voice still lacks real definition. I lick my lips and attempt to sit upright. “You can’t do this—”
“I’m abiding by our agreement,” he insists, stepping forward from the shadows.
God, he looks awful. Even the harshest swipe of his fingers can’t tame his wild hair. His clothes look damp, and the briny scent of still water wafts from his direction. Because, for whatever reason, he jumped in after me…
That much is clearer now, even though a part of me refuses to believe it: his hands slamming onto my chest, knocking the water from my lungs. My chest heaves at the memories as my rib cage constricts over tissue-paper lungs.
“You can’t do this.”
“It’s already done.” He shakes his head, and for the first time, his gaze seems to focus on me directly. He frowns at what he finds. Then he turns to the door, squaring his shoulders.
“Why are you like this?” My voice breaks openly, but I can’t even attempt to disguise the pain. I’m sobbing again, gritting my teeth against any sounds that might escape. But a moan does. Then a bleating whimper. I’m so fucking weak that even he flinches at the sound and his footsteps slow. “You knew Brandt…”
It doesn’t even hurt to say his name anymore. Maybe now I can finally admit that he’s a specter. He’s dead and gone, even if the man before me reminds me of him in every inch of his being. My Brandt is gone.
“He wasn’t… He was good,” I croak.
Blake laughs, but it’s a hollow sound that chills me to the bone. “He was good,” he says softly. “He did love you. And he is dead. I’ll send notice as to where you can collect your things—”
“You promised me.”
Again, he pauses near the door, his muscles bulging with suppressed tension. “A promise means nothing in the world of business. You’re a fucking Hollings. Don’t tell me you don’t know that.”
“F-fine.” I swipe at the blankets, shivering as I’m left exposed in a thin, backless hospital gown.
“What the hell are you doing?” He bares his teeth, his hands flexing at his sides. “Get back into bed.”
“I’m upholding my end of the agreement,” I state. Which is funny because I can’t even support my weight. Whatever happened between fainting and hitting the water sapped my strength. Freeing my legs from the sheets is an ordeal that has me panting and sweat creeping across my brow.
A flicker of motion alerts me to his sudden advance. He grabs my arm, shoving me down so hard that I’m left spinning. “Get back in the fucking bed.”
“You can’t do this!” Pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt rips through my chest, outlasting any injury. I see Hollings Manor lost forever and my heart physically fractures inside me. I can feel it beating in a disjointed rhythm. “You can’t…”
He heads for the door, and this time, he doesn’t look back. “Welcome to the real world,” he says. A sigh edges his words. He has the nerve to sound weary, as if he’s done me an exhausting favor. “A world where your name doesn’t mean shit once it’s taken away. Where the ones you love the most can betray you in an instant. Where nobody gives a shit if you howl in pain at the injustice of it all.”
He’s not speaking about me.
“Think about that the next time you dare to mention Brandt Lloyd’s name.”
“I loved him.” At this point, I’m little more than a broken record, croaking out the same tired line. But the repetition makes it no less true. “Everything I did was to protect him!”
If that assertion bothers him, I can’t tell. He leaves, melding into the clinical hallway. But he can’t go. Not now.
I kick my legs and strain to bring them over the side of the bed. Somehow, I wind up sitting with my feet braced on the floor. Then I try to stand only to fail. Over and over as time ticks stubbornly on.
“Miss?”
I glance up and find a nurse in the doorway. Her blue scrubs contrast with the white surroundings and highlight the wariness in her gaze. Instantly, I suspect she wasn’t here on her own, but sent.
“You should lie back down, honey—”
“I want to sign myself out,” I say. “Now.”
She frowns but scurries from the doorway. I barely get to relish in my apparent victory when a new figure appears in her place.
“Snowy?”
God, not now.
The man standing in the doorway looks so worn that I barely recognize him. Is it really Hunter? These past few days have aged him well beyond his thirty years. His suit jacket is wrinkled, the white shirt underneath stained with what I hope is coffee.
The smell betrays him: it’s wine.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters as his bloodshot eyes scan my face and quickly glance away. “I must have the wrong room—”
“Hunter?” I self-consciously touch my face, focusing on the bandage. A minor laceration, Blake said.
“S-Snowy?” Hunter blinks and shakes his head as he comes closer. He snatches my hand up in a grip tight enough to break. “Jesus Christ… What the hell happened? All I know is I get a fucking call in the middle of the night—”
“My face…” It should be the least of my concern. Still, vanity outlasts everything, even shock. Desperate, I scan the room, but I don’t find the hint of a mirror. “I need to see my face.”
“That’s probably not a good idea. They used those damn old-fashioned stitches.” Hunter winces as if he hadn’t meant to speak. “Snow…” His fingers cup my chin and gently lift it. They shake. “What the fuck happened? Where have you been? Sh-shit, I should have called the fucking police. A goddamn note. What the hell was I thinking?”
“I’m fine.” I shrug him off and struggle to tamp down the panic building in my veins. My breaths are shallow and frantic, impossible to slow. “How is Ronan?”
He glances at the door. “He’s fine. Better than expected, in fact. He’s been awake for three days. I tried calling you—”
“Miss?” The nurse calls from the hall, holding a stack of paperwork and tugging a portable piece of equipment. “Are you ready?”
I glance from her to Hunter and shake my head. Surprisingly, she seems to take the hint and says nothing. For now.
“I’m starving, Hunt,” I blurt, nodding toward my emaciated frame.
Questions he doesn’t voice out loud linger in his eyes as his fingers deliberately encircle my wrist, which is something he hasn’t done in years. The act was always his tried-and-true test whenever I’d gone too far. He draws away but can’t suppress his horrified expression before I catch it.
You’re only beautiful like this…
“Snowy?” He strokes my shorn curls. “I’ll get you something to eat. Would you like that?”
I nod. “Please. From the cafeteria.” I force a nervous laugh. “I can’t stand hospital food.”
“Yes.” He swipes his hand along his pants and then blinks as the realization of our precarious financials dawns on him. Then he shakes his head. “I’ll get it. Whatever you want.”
I send him off, and the nurse comes forward.
“You have the right to leave,” she tells me, as she hooks me up to a blood pressure cuff. “But I’ll only recommend it to the doctor if everything is within limits.”
I submit to her assessment, warily watching the time tick onward. It’s already late in the evening.
I have only until midnight.