Luis (Royal Caleva #2)

CHAPTER 23

Eve sat on the edge of the sofa in the waiting area, staring at the door to what she thought of as Mikel’s interrogation room. When Grace emerged, she looked concerned and upset, but she didn’t have the shattered look of a daughter who had just been accused of murdering her own father. The security chief remained in the conference room.

“No word from the doctors?” Grace asked as she sat beside Eve.

“Not yet,” Raul said before he resumed pacing between the reception desk and the windows.

Eve did not attempt to soothe him with empty words. They all knew that Luis was receiving the best, most focused care available in the country of Caleva. They knew he was healthy and strong. But none of them knew how much poison he had absorbed.

Eve considered Mikel’s suspicion that Luis might have come into contact with the thallium via the fencing book. She worried that Luis had possibly been handling the book over several days, which could mean that the thallium had been building up in his organs and causing them damage, even before today.

She tried again to remember if she had seen Luis touch the darned book but couldn’t.

“He’s going to be okay, Mom,” Grace said, taking her hand.

Eve realized she had been staring straight ahead without seeing anything.

“Of course he is,” Eve said with hope rather than conviction. “I just want him to be okay right now.”

“We all do,” Grace said as they exchanged worried glances. As a vet student, Grace knew all too well the deadly effects of thallium poisoning. “Hey, Raul, are you trying to get in your steps for the day or something?”

Raul halted in the middle of the room. “I feel better moving.”

“Maybe we could play a game,” Grace said. “I’ll bet someone could find us a deck of cards.”

Jacobo leaped out of his chair at the reception desk. “I will get them for you.” He jogged over to one of the wooden cabinets and pulled out a square storage basket. “How many decks would you like?”

“Two. We’ll play Oh, Heck!” Grace said.

“I’m not familiar with that game,” Raul said. “Please play without me.”

“It doesn’t work with just two people,” Eve said, supporting Grace’s attempt to distract Raul. “We’ll teach you.”

Raul hesitated, but his good manners overcame his reluctance. As the receptionist placed two brand-new decks of cards on the coffee table, the prince sat in one of the chairs.

Eve let Grace explain the basic rules of the game to her half brother. Although he kept casting glances at the door to the medical wing, Raul caught on quickly and was on track to win the game when the door finally opened.

Raul was out of his chair before the woman in the white coat had taken two steps into the room. “Su Alteza Real,” she said with a small dip of a curtsy.

“Dr. Ibarra, how is he?” Raul asked.

“Su Majestad is receiving hemodialysis to flush the poison from his system. He has also received the antidote. He is responding to both right now,” she said.

“That means he’s not going to die?” Raul asked.

“No,” the doctor said gravely. “He is very strong, and we began treatment quickly.”

“Oh, thank God!” Grace said, her voice cracking. She and Eve had come to stand beside Raul. The doctor looked confused by their presence.

“My apologies,” Raul said. “Dr. Ibarra, may I present Eve and Grace Howard. Se?ora Howard was with my father when he collapsed. She is the person who suggested you test for thallium poisoning.”

Dr. Ibarra shook Eve’s and Grace’s hands before turning to Eve. “Your suggestion was very helpful. Without it, we might have taken longer to look at thallium as a possible cause for Su Majestad’s symptoms. You are a doctor?”

“A veterinary technician,” Eve said in a dry tone. “I’ve seen the symptoms in dogs who ingested old rat poison.”

To her credit, Dr. Ibarra did not bat an eye. “Sometimes experience is more valuable than a degree.”

“We would like to see my father,” Raul said in a tone that made it clear he was a prince.

Dr. Ibarra hesitated before she said, “Of course, Se?or. Keep in mind that he is medicated for the pain. He is also exhausted from both the poison and the treatment. He may be sleeping, and it would be best if you did not wake him.”

“We will not disturb him,” Raul said, making it clear that he would not be dissuaded.

Eve almost volunteered not to go, thinking that would make the doctor happier. After all, she was neither Luis’s child nor his wife. When the doctor turned to lead them through the door, though, Eve followed.

She needed to see Luis, even for just a moment.

As they walked into a wide, well-lit corridor, a security guard in a dark suit stepped in front of them. Seeing Raul, he gave a bow and went back to his post. Eve knew immediately which room Luis was in, because two more security guards stood outside the door. She could see another one at the far end of the hallway.

Dr. Ibarra ushered them down the corridor, which was eerily quiet for a hospital. Luis must be the only patient in the royal wing. Since he was the king and he needed to sleep, everyone near his room spoke in hushed voices or not at all.

It brought home yet again the vast gulf that separated her life from his.

The doctor opened the door silently and waved them through. The room was large and dim. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust enough to focus on the figure lying in the bed, surrounded by blinking monitors and seemingly held captive by a web of wires and intravenous lines running to his body.

His eyes were closed, and his face was drawn, the angles of his strong bones painfully sharp. More shocking was his terrible stillness. All his charisma and power and life force had been stripped away by the poison. He looked not like a king, but like a very sick man.

Eve had to swallow a gasp as fear seared through her. The doctor had said Luis would survive, but his appearance made that hard to believe.

Grace lifted her hand to cover her mouth, tears gleaming in her eyes. Eve pushed her own distress aside and squeezed her daughter’s shoulder in reassurance before checking on Raul.

The prince’s face had lost all color. He looked as though someone had walloped him in the gut. She reached for his hand, folding her fingers around his, not caring if she was being presumptuous. He looked startled and then gripped her hand almost convulsively.

Eve could almost feel all of them sending their hearts toward the man lying motionless on the white sheets. If a person could be healed by the force of love, Luis should be rising from his bed at any moment.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way.

No one moved for several minutes as they hoped Luis would open his eyes or at least stir to demonstrate that he was alive.

Dr. Ibarra finally stepped between them and the bed, gesturing that they should leave the room.

Raul released Eve’s hand when they turned to exit. The moment the door closed behind the doctor, he said, “I wish to stay in the room with him tonight.”

“I do too,” Grace said. “I’ll sit in one of the recliners.”

Eve had noticed the two overstuffed chairs at one side of the room.

“I…” Dr. Ibarra hesitated as her gaze traveled between Raul’s and Grace’s faces.

“I want to be with him when he wakes up,” Raul said, his voice carrying a snap of command.

Dr. Ibarra gave in with a nod. “But you must not attempt to wake him. His body is in a battle to recover from the effects of the poison. He needs all the rest he can get.”

Grace turned to Eve. “Mom, you’ll stay here, too, won’t you? There’s that sofa in the waiting room.”

“Of course I’ll stay,” Eve said, although she once again felt the pang of having no official reason even to be in the waiting room in the royal wing of the hospital. But Grace would need her if Luis took a turn for the worse.

“I’ll text you when he wakes up.” Grace hugged her and headed for the door with Raul and the doctor.

Eve returned to the waiting room and sank into the closest chair. Doubling over, she gave way to a long, wrenching sob. She had expected Luis to look ill, but not so inert that he seemed lifeless. She felt like she had been kicked in the stomach. Another sob twisted itself from her throat.

Mikel had said that the doctors refused to make a commitment about Luis’s full recovery. After seeing Luis, Eve discounted Dr. Ibarra’s reassurances to Raul that his father would be fine. She feared that the doctor had just been offering comfort to a worried son.

She hoped like hell that Mikel was hot on the trail of whoever had done this. The poisoner deserved to rot in CárcelMax along with Odette Fontaine.

“Se?ora, may I get you anything?”

Eve straightened to find Jacobo kneeling beside her, offering a box of tissues. The gesture reminded her of Luis’s handkerchief, and a fresh wave of tears coursed down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she said, accepting the tissues. “I…”

There was nothing he could get her that would cure this anguish.

“I can show you to a bedroom where you can rest. It will be more comfortable.”

She felt like she shouldn’t have the luxury of a bed when Grace and Raul were keeping vigil in chairs. Big, comfortable chairs, but still not beds. Her rational self reasserted itself. “That would be great.”

The receptionist led her to a carpeted hallway that looked like it belonged in a hotel. Opening one of several doors, he gestured her into a small but plush bedroom. “The bathroom is equipped with toiletries,” he said. “You’ll find the Wi-Fi password on the credenza. Buenas noches.”

He closed the door with a soft click, and Eve went to the bed to touch the soft cream-colored blanket folded at its foot. The coat of arms of Caleva was embroidered in teal green in one corner. She rubbed her fingers against the fabric, guessing by the texture that it was cashmere.

She didn’t belong here. In this room. In this wing. Anywhere near Luis. It didn’t matter how much she loved him, he was the king. She was not a queen.

She used the bathroom to splash cold water on her tear-streaked face. Before she turned on the spigot, she stared at herself in the mirror, noting every line at the corners of her eyes, every laugh line around her mouth, the slight sag of the skin under her chin, and the dark circles under her eyes. The dark circles could be attributed to her worry and the fact that it was the middle of the night, but the rest of it? Definitely not queen material.

And she couldn’t handle being a liaison, with all the brevity that implied. Luis hadn’t asked for it, but she had given her heart into his keeping. She couldn’t bear to have him toss it back to her when he got bored.

As soon as Grace’s identity had been announced publicly, Eve would be on a plane back to Iowa. Time away from Luis—and the spell of seduction he had woven around her—would help her get her mind right before she returned to Caleva permanently.

In the meantime, she closed her eyes and prayed for his life.