Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 49562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 248(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 248(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Chloe put her hands on her hips. “I’d rather listen to Lucca’s lecture than be late.”
“That’s easy for you to say. He’ll fire me,” she mumbled but finally agreed.
“He won’t fire you.” Opening the door, Chloe waved her outside. “He might threaten to, but I won’t let him.”
Besides, who else was going to be able to take her to the bathroom? There was no going back to a man being her bodyguard.
When she opened the passenger side door, a still reluctant Gia pleaded, “At least get in the back seat and sit in the middle.”
Since Gia was doing her a favor by jeopardizing her job, Chloe managed to slide into the back seat. Buckling her seat belt, she tried not to wince as another pain struck her back. If not for the increasing frequency of the pain, she would have waited for Drago, but not wanting to alarm Gia, she kept silent about the pain.
As they drove, Chloe realized that Gia didn’t merge onto the lane that would take them to the interstate. “You’re going the long way. The interstate will be much faster.”
Gia turned on the blinker. “Lucca is going to kill me.”
“No, he won’t,” she assured her.
Chloe was reassured herself that she had made the right choice for directing Gia to the interstate since there weren’t many cars traveling in the direction they were going. She texted Elle that she was on the way to the doctor’s office then looked up to see how far they were from their exit when she saw a car coming toward them, heading in the wrong direction.
“Gia …” Chloe unconsciously dropped her cell phone to grab her stomach.
“I see it. Hold on!”
“Where the fuck is my wife!”
Chloe gave the doctor examining her an embarrassed smile when the curtain was pulled back to reveal her husband. And boy, was he livid.
“Lucca, calm down,” she tried to placate her husband as he strode into the curtained-off area. “I’m fine, see? There isn’t a scratch on me.”
He scanned her quickly before his glare returned to the person in the white coat. “Why hasn’t she been moved to a private room?”
The young female intern, who had only walked in moments ago, tried to maintain her professionalism, but Chloe could see the fear in her eyes, just like she could see it in Gia, who was trying her best to blend into the privacy curtain behind her.
“Y-You’re Mrs. Caruso’s husband?”
“Yes,” Lucca gritted out. “Now, why hasn’t my wife been taken to a private room?”
“As far as we can tell, your wife was unhurt in the accident. The woman who brought her in demanded that your wife be checked out thoroughly. I totally agree with her. With your wife being pregnant, we want to use an overabundance of caution to protect the health of the mother and children. All the tests are readily available in the ER, and the results will be expedited, as opposed to if she were to be moved to a private room.”
Chloe could see calmness overtake Lucca at the doctor’s serious attitude toward her health.
“Your wife was just telling me that she had been experiencing back pain, which is why she was enroute to her doctor’s office.”
Chloe found it difficult to meet his blue-green gaze that had only just started to calm.
“Which is news to me.” His wry tone told he was, in fact, no longer calm.
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
The doctor took her vitals, temporarily blocking Lucca from her view.
“You think it’s much better for me to find out this way?”
Chloe tilted her head to see her husband as the doctor pushed a button on a machine that made the cuff around her arm start tightening.
“I didn’t expect to get in a car accident. There was a wrong-way driv—”
“Chloe, I need you to lie back on the bed,” the doctor interrupted them.
Doing so, Chloe watched the doctor put her stethoscope into her ears. Her hands spread over her baby bump when she saw the growing concern in the nurse’s eyes, who was watching the same machines the doctor was.
She started to become afraid something was wrong when a wave of dizziness hit her.
“Get a crash cart, stat!” the doctor ordered.
“Is something wrong …?”
Agonizing pain hit her with so much force Chloe couldn’t fight the dizziness to actually place where the pain was coming from.
Fearful, she searched for Lucca, needing him to hold on to her to keep her from falling. She was in too much pain to realize she was lying down. When she saw he was just as scared as she was, her gray eyes clung to his precious jeweled ones in fear.
“Lucc—”
Excruciating pain prevented her from forming the words that she so desperately wanted to tell him before darkness hit her with a ruthless speed that was faster than her ability to get the words out.