Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
“Oh,” she gasps. “You’re awake.”
I need to sit down. That’s what I need to do before I pass out. My god, it hurts so much. Everywhere. Everything. It’s consuming me. And I can barely see.
“Leon?”
“Just…need a second.” I put out a hand. The words are gritty, and my mouth tastes foul. I force myself away from the dresser and stumble over to the edge of the bed. I just about miss finding the edge, but I catch myself and make myself sit.
The bed dips beside me with Darby’s slight weight, and I can hear her worry as soon as she speaks. “You were…I was…scared. You slept all last night and all of today.”
My eyes fly open, and I nearly let out a groan. Rapid movements right now aren’t smart. “I’ve been asleep for over twenty-four hours?”
She bites down on her bottom lip and nods. “I was worried there was something wrong, but I remembered you saying you hadn’t slept in three days, so I thought maybe you just needed to catch up. I came in and checked on you every couple of hours since this morning. I…I checked to make sure you didn’t have a fever.”
Her hands. Her hands brushing against my forehead. I don’t remember it. For some reason, the thought of her touch, those soft, gentle fingertips, makes me want to cave in. It threatens to undo something that is already rattling around in my chest ever since yesterday morning. It makes me feel worse, not better. It’s another ache, another brittleness that I can barely handle.
“I wasn’t being creepy or anything,” Darby rushes on to say. “I just…you were sleeping for way too long, and you said you weren’t feeling well.” Her soft, blue eyes take in my appearance. I’m still in my rumpled clothes from yesterday. “You look worse, honestly.”
“Right next to the ‘you have constant resting buttface face’ that my sister gave me last year, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
She sighs, clearly frustrated. I know I’m an obnoxious asshole. It’s easier to be that way, to be hard and cranky on the outside, than to allow people to get past that. “I want to take you to the clinic in town, but it’s not open until morning.”
“No.”
“Okay, fine. I knew you would say that, so grab your bag. I’m taking us back to Seattle and straight to the hospital.”
She’s not mad. She’s not annoyed. Her frustration is born of worry. She’s looking at me like she wants to care for me. It would be so easy to sink into the light in her pretty blue eyes, but I can’t. Happiness isn’t for people like me. It’s actually decidedly off the table. Even if the way she’s looking at me makes me want to believe it would be possible to let her help me learn to smile and laugh again. She has that look my sister often gets. A look that says if I would just let her, she could help me heal, but I won’t allow that because I can’t. This isn’t a fairy tale. This isn’t even a real marriage. Darby is just my assistant who sees too much and is way too sweet. She’s too naïve. Innocent. I have this terrible feeling that if I asked her to open her arms and hold me, I think she would, and maybe not just out of obligation.
A shiver of shock rattles through me, making my teeth ache. I can stop the pain. I can go somewhere else. No, I won’t break apart in front of Darby. My jaw juts out with renewed determination. “I’m just…fine.”
Thankfully, she changes the subject. “My family isn’t here. They had to leave, but we went boating earlier today. I’m sorry you missed it.”
“I don’t care,” I snap, just to be cruel. Darby doesn’t take the bait.
“Do you need something to eat? There’s fresh fish in the fridge. I could cook some.”
I can’t stomach the thought of a single thing, but I find myself nodding if only to make her leave me alone. I need to change my clothes, and I also need a cold shower. Standing under a frigid spray would work wonders at banishing the hot pain lancing through every bit of me.
“Okay. Twenty minutes and it’ll be ready.” She walks out of the room, leaving the door open a crack.
Darby is smart. She knows something is wrong, and she’s worried as hell, which is why she wants to take me to the damn hospital. Since she doesn’t know what to do with me, she’s picking her battles. She’s going to try and feed me to care for me that way. She wants me to prove to her that I can get up and get my ass out there and eat. Prove to her that she doesn’t need to call a damn doctor or haul me out of here and stuff me in the car.