KATIE
I tugged at the hemline of my dress, one of Oscar de la Renta’s runway beauties. A mid-thigh, crystal-embellished masterpiece. Embroidered flowers, their leaves and vining stems covering my body. I’d seen it featured in Vogue’s spring layout. Even my mother wouldn’t have been able to get her hands on the wildflower dress, but somehow, Thomas had managed it.
Trauma did strange things to the brain. Mine used the dress to keep me present, to help me hold on for Thomas’s sake. He needed me, needed me to be strong for him and for his brother.
Something wet and cold dripped onto my thigh. I let go of the hem, looked at my hand.
John’s blood.
Thomas was on his knees, beside me, telling his brother to hang on, to be strong, that he would be okay. I told him to move his hands back to the knife’s handle again. Thomas gripped the top with his other hand while I quickly slipped mine under the one with which he held the blade. I applied pressure on the towel surrounding the blade. My hands were smaller, a better fit to secure the blade at the point where it’d entered the flesh.
John lost consciousness. “From the pain, the shock,” Carl said.
Andrew hovered above with a gun, his head turning, turning, watching our backs.
Blue beading. Ruby crystals. Sapphire. Sparkling white. Thomas’s face. His smile. His horror. No numbers. No goddamn numbers. Why? Where has that part of me gone? My heartbeat quickened. Nude tulle. A halter neckline. An open back.
“John, come on, brother. Open your eyes,” Thomas ordered.
Sirens screamed through the streets. Flashing red and blue emergency lights pierced the glass and spun around on the interior walls. The paramedics had arrived. Three men and one woman rushed in. The woman instructed us on moving our hands, so she could take hold of the blade and wrap it.
We got on our feet, and I staggered backward, bumping into Andrew. His arm snaked around my waist to catch me. I righted myself and watched Thomas cradle John’s head in the palms of his hands while the paramedics lifted his brother onto the wheeled stretcher.
“Is someone riding along with him?” the woman medic shouted.
“Where is she?” I heard John say.
Thank God. He’d come back to us.
“Katie’s safe with me,” Thomas said. “We’re coming with you.”
John turned his head as much as he could to see me. The medics had strapped him to the stretcher, immobilizing him to keep the blade stable until surgeons could safely remove it.
“You take her home, Thom. Evans can ride along.”
I stepped up to the stretcher, touched John’s cheek. “We’re not leaving you. I’m fine. Thomas won’t let anything else happen to either of us.”
Thomas held up his finger in answer to the medic’s repeated question. “She’s quite right. I’ve got you both. Now, be still, John.”
John gave a slight nod, and then he closed his eyes as the medics rolled him out.
We arrived at the hospital twelve minutes later. The trauma team took John to the operating room at once. Carl and Andrew had stayed behind to speak with police and get the cars home. It wasn’t long before they joined us at the hospital.
Thomas’s heart pounded heavily as he held me against his chest, his strong, warm arms like a cocoon. We stood that way, waiting in the surgery corridor for word from the physicians. My feet ached, having worn the stilettos for hours, but Thomas was comforted by our position, and I wouldn’t take that away from him. I held on to him, my arms wrapped tightly around his torso.
When we spoke, we spoke softly without letting go.
“Was it the assassin?” I asked.
He kissed the top of my head. “No, it was not.”
“How do you know?”
“The incident was quite slipshod. But it must be related.”
I lifted my head to see his eyes. “What makes you think so?”
“I feel it in my gut. My instinct is never wrong. Maybe one of his mates gone rogue. A male employee was missing from the lobby just after John went down. That isn’t a coincidence.”
A set of steel doors burst open, startling us. Three doctors pushed through.
“Mr. Hastings,” one said. “We have good news. Your brother will be fine. The blade got caught up in the cartilage between his second and third ribs. The attacker didn’t have the momentum or the strength to penetrate it. John’s a healthy young man, and he’ll heal nicely. He’ll need time off from anything strenuous.”
Thomas pushed his hand through his hair and let out a heavy breath. “Thank you. That’s quite good news. How much downtime? He plays football for Loughborough University.”
“One rib is cracked. It’s not misaligned, so we believe it’ll mend properly over the next six to eight weeks. Once fully healed, it shouldn’t affect his game. He only needs to manage the pain. Some patients will alter their breathing to avoid the pain. If John does this, get him to rehab for breathing exercises. We don’t want him damaging his perfectly good lungs. I’d like him to rest here tonight.”
“Money’s not a problem. Give him whatever he needs. Thank you,” Thomas said, shaking hands with each doctor.
I held on to his arm, rubbing his biceps, as we made our way to the recovery room. Thomas conducted a visual inspection of his brother, kissed him on the forehead, and then stepped out of the room to call Will, their older brother.
John and I chatted about his mother, his sister-in-law, and his niece, Lissie. The morphine then kicked in, putting him to sleep. God, he didn’t deserve to be there. He was an amazing guy, kind, always concerned about his family. I couldn’t imagine losing him. He’d become such a good friend to me.
I looked over my shoulder to see Thomas no longer on his phone. He stared into the room from the opposite side of the glass, his body like stone, his eyes moving back and forth between John and me.
It was my fault his brother was lying in a hospital bed.
Thomas placed a hand on my back as he escorted me to the car. He was alert and businesslike. A cold, distant mood had settled between us.
One step forward, two steps back. Addition and subtraction—the simplest forms of math.
We’d had a breakthrough. I’d found a better understanding of the way he was behaving, the guilt he was drowning in and why it existed in his heart.
But just as I’d begun to get a handle on it, he seemed to be letting it go. He asked me to forgive him—or rather he ordered—admitted he didn’t want to lose me, and then he told me I was his everything. As he was mine now.
He finally saw what I’d been trying to show him all along—that he’d freed my soul. In that moment, there was a shift in him. Our step forward. A glance at a future together.
Only minutes later, we’d lost our momentum, sliding backward, losing ground again. John had been attacked, and I was the reason for it. I could see the emotional chaos in Thomas’s eyes, the way he had stared into the hospital room. He wanted to blame me as well.
There were two things I understood clearly about Thomas Hastings. For one, I was in love with him. And two, he loved his brothers so much that he would die for them.
When we reached the car, I turned to him before getting into the back. “I’m so sorry. Leave me at the penthouse with guards from now on. Please, I won’t argue when you need to go.”
He stared at me for five seconds, six, seven. “You’re tired, Katie. Get into the car.” His words were soft, his breath warm on my cheek, but he broke eye contact too quickly.
I nodded, salty tears building up, burning.
Guilt had found its way between us again. But now, the guilt belonged to me.
Our car arrived in front of my father’s building, and Carl let us out at the lobby entrance. Andrew rode down to the parking garage with Carl. Thomas had instructed the two men to pop in on the security guards, conduct a full-scale building check, and use the private stairwell entrance to the penthouse. Carl had stepped up to help with security detail.
We exited the elevator, and Thomas locked it down at once. “Take off your shoes. You’ll stay with me while I’m inspecting the rooms.”
But before I had the chance, he crouched and removed them for me. Then, he ran his hand up my leg, under the hem, to my inner thigh. His blue eyes burned into mine with white-hot fire. He kissed me there. His lips, his tongue, moving heat through him onto my body, boiling my blood, sending it all to my core. With one kiss, he set me on fire, took my breath away.
I slipped my fingers into his hair. “Thomas, what are you doing? You’re upset with me.”
A fleeting moment of confusion flashed over his face. He stood, gripped my waist. “What you see is concern for my brother.” A soft kiss on my lips. A tug on my hand. Back to business.
He led me through the apartment and surveyed the windows and doors. We entered my bedroom last. The terrace doors were secure, the draperies closed. No words. Neither of us spoke.
Thomas slowly peeled off my dress, every movement agonizingly slow, his hot mouth on my shoulder, my neck. “So beautiful,” he whispered against my skin.
I shivered.
“Beyond exquisite.”
“Thank you,” I whispered back. “I can say it when you say something like that.”
He nodded his agreement—a compromise—and dragged his lips to my ear. “You’ll stay in this room until I tell you otherwise.”
My breath rushed out. “Stay with me.”
Thomas stepped back, his eyes raking over my bare body.
“Get some rest, Katie.”