Chapter 5
Sophie
Ibroke my foot.
It could have been worse: I might have broken my ankle or my knee or hip, so to have snapped two proximal phalanxes in my first two digits, as well as the middle phalanx in my second toe, that it was only my foot seems like a blessing.
But when you look at how my foot has never done anything wrong—no plantar fasciitis, corns, or even an ingrown toenail, and lets me wear whatever shoes I like without protest, it seems kind of unfair.
The doctors worried that I might need surgery to repair my toes, but after much prodding and pushing, they decided that three of my toes were to be taped together to heal on their own.
The weight of the blanket is too much for my poor toes, and my foot lies on the bed uncovered and cold, bruises blooming vivid shades of purple and blue.
I can’t stop staring at it because it’s such an overreaction for such a little injury.
Toes. They break.
It could have been a lot worse.
There are also various bumps and bruises on my body, some of which I don’t find until the next day, and a possible concussion in case I hit my head when I went down. I can’t say if it’s probable or possible, since I don’t actually remember going down. They want to run more tests to make sure.
They kept me in the hospital overnight, and now with my second meal of hospital food looming, I wonder when I’m getting out of here.
All this concerns me, but I trust the hospital staff to take care of me. But there’s one other thing that I can’t get my head around.
“Ashton Carrington carried me,” I tell Stella when I finally get her on the phone later that morning.
“Where and why?” Stella demands. She’s never been a fan of the Carrington twins, although I think Fenella might be growing on her. My sister doesn’t like a lot of people actually, but when she first got together with Prince Gunnar, she was smiling at the world.
The honeymoon phase has worn off, and Stella is back to scowling.
“Into the hospital. And into the car.” There’s a pause, and I hear Stella’s quick intake before she blows. “He did hit me with his car,” I quickly add. “Or, Fenella’s car.”
“Ashton Carrington hit you? He ran you over with his sister’s car?” Stella’s screech can be heard straight in the hospital hallway.
“He didn’t do it on purpose,” I protest. “It was an accident.”
Ashton carried me into the hospital like some romcom hero, with Basher running ahead to gather the troops. They got me into triage right away, and waited with me, muttering between themselves but never speaking to me, until the doctor arrived.
Then they were asked to leave, and I haven’t seen either one of them since.
“If he did do it on purpose, he should be in jail,” Stella snaps. “Was he arrested?”
“No! Why would they—I don’t think so.” Surprisingly, the thought of Ashton Carrington and his eyes and cheekbones, along with his grouchiness, stuck behind bars, alarms me. “Do you think they arrested him?”
I told the police it had been an accident, and that’s all it was. I was crossing the road; Ashton hit a patch of ice. It was an accident.
I know that, but the fact still remains that I am here in the hospital with a broken foot. Two broken toes, and serious bruising.
It doesn’t hurt that much.
Maybe a little.
I don’t actually remember much of what happened, either before it happened or directly after.
“Does Dad know about this?” Stella asks darkly.
“I haven’t told him yet,” I admit. There’s another pause, and I hope it’s a delay because of the distance between Laandia and Australia, but I have a feeling it’s Stella preparing to unload on me again.
Or maybe not. Things between us and Dad are still… awkward? Not exactly, but it’s not as comfortable as I’d like. Stella is prickly with most people, so I’m sure she hasn’t noticed, but the gap where our father hadn’t been part of our lives hasn’t filled in yet.
“Mom was here last night for a while, but I told her to go home,” I say defensively in case Stella gets offended on my behalf that I was in the hospital without either parent.
“Really?”
“Really that I told her to go home?”
Stella scoffs. “Really that she showed up.”
Our mother is a selfish woman, plain and simple. While she does have some admirable qualities, her maternal instincts have been… shall we say, failing… lately.
Or always.
“You should call … Dad.” There’s always a pause before Stella says the word. “If he doesn’t already know, he’s going to soon, so he should hear it from you. If you’re all right enough to call?”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically. And I do feel fine—for the most part.
“You were hit by a car, Sophie. You are not fine, and the sooner you get that through your stubborn, people pleasing head, the better you’ll be.”
I really wish I could argue with Sophie’s opinion of me. “I’ll call Dad.”
Stella sighs. “We tried to get on an earlier flight, but no luck. When are you being sprung?”
“They haven’t told me yet, and you shouldn’t cut your trip short. I don’t need—”
“Sophie!” This outburst is loud enough to ring my possibly concussed ears. “You. Were. Hit. Byacar. Hospital. Where else would I be?”
“I feel bad…”
“You should feel bad for Ashton after I get finished with him,” she practically growls. “And don’t you dare say it was an accident. What’s the plan when you’re released, because you can’t go back to our place?”
Stella and I moved out of our mother’s house a few months ago. I love the independence, but Stella calling it our place always makes me laugh.
She spends most of her time with Gunnar, even staying with him at the castle most nights.
“I hadn’t gotten that far,” I admit. I love our little apartment, but it’s on the third floor of a big rambling house. There are a lot of stairs, and none of them accessible to me and my broken foot. “I could go back to Mom’s…”
Another pause, and I wonder what’s going to come out of her mouth. “I’m calling Dad,” she announces. “Be there as soon as we can.”
Stella hangs up.
Not fifteen minutes after I hang up with Stella, my father arrives.
I hear his voice from the hall, and a wash of emotions crash over me with more impact than the car.
The soft assurance of knowing that my dad is here and everything will be okay. He’ll make everything okay.
He cares enough to come and see me, even though I didn’t call him.
The flash of guilt—he doesn’t have time to be here because he’s so busy. What if the king needs something while he’s here?
I didn’t even call him. I should have called him. What daughter doesn’t call her father when she’s hit by a car?
All this and more, so as I listen to his voice having a conversation with the doctor outside my room, I quickly become a jittery mess.
Is he mad? Disappointed? Happy to see me? Upset that Mom was my first phone call?
It’s difficult to find a way to have your father fit back into your life after not being a part of it for fifteen years. There are no hard feelings—twenty-five-year-old me understands the reasons why he left. (My mother)
Ten-year-old me is still trying to get over it.
We’ve both made efforts, but the fact remains that my father doesn’t know me. And I know more about him, than actually him.
Everyone in Laandia knows the facts about my father: best friend and advisor to the king, former member of Kr?ftig metal band, former romance novel cover model, best looking man in Battle Harbour.
I know he drinks green tea and is trying to cut back on sugar. I know he takes pride in his wardrobe. I know he says he’s proud of me and Stella, but there’s so much about Duncan Laz that is a mystery to me, his own daughter.
He tries. I know he does. But being the king’s advisor doesn’t leave a lot of spare time for family. At least not daughters who missed out on a decade of having a father in their lives.
Dad working with the king is what caused my parent’s divorce.
He would spend long hours at the castle, in meetings and doing paperwork and basically helping King Magnus run the kingdom. The country of Laandia is less than a hundred years old, and Magnus is only the third king, so there was a steep learning curve when he took the throne.
My father is very good at learning curves.
He also became very good at running a kingdom.
He was a natural, Magnus would say to my mother, who would smile behind gritted teeth.
No one expected much from King Magnus, who had been a former athlete and musician, and Dad’s practicality and charm smoothed edges and unruffled feathers for Magnus.
He worked long into the night as the advisor to the king, and a few nights every week, he didn’t bother coming home at night.
But he’s come to see me in the hospital. “Sophie,” he says, his voice choked. “Sweetheart.”
I smile and try to forget the pain in my foot. “I’m okay.”
“But you—” His handsome face is a mix of sadness and anger and worry.
“I’m okay.”
He hugs me then. I close my eyes, breathing in the scent of his cologne. His dad smell. “You should have called.”
“I didn’t want to wake you last night.”
He pulls back with a frown. “You wake me whenever you need me.”
I nod as Lyra pushes her way to the bed to hug me, dragging along a huge stuffed teddy bear.
“It’s the biggest one I could find in the gift store,” she says, perched on the end of the bed.
Lyra and I were friends growing up but the distance between my father meant that I didn’t have much to do with the royal family, or Spencer, my half-brother who lives at the castle with Dad.
Lyra’s return to Battle Harbour coincided with my reunion with my father, so it was fun to hang out with her again.
It’s even better now that she and my brother have finally gotten their act together and realized what everyone else has known for years: they’re meant for each other.
“Maybe if you walk around carrying it, it can be a buffer for when cars hit you,” she adds.
I watch as Lyra looks for a place for the bear and settles it on the floor beside my bed. “I’m hoping this is the first and last time for it.”
“Your mouth to God’s ears,” Dad mutters.
Lyra looks at him strangely. “Since when do you talk about God?”
“Since my youngest daughter is lying in a hospital bed after getting hit by a car, and I only heard about it a half hour ago,” he says through gritted teeth.
“I just got off the phone with Stella, and I was going to call you,” I apologize.
Or she was going to call him. If he hadn’t heard from Stella, then who told him? I might not want to know that. Spencer’s network takes over all of Battle Harbour so it could have been anyone.
“You should have let me know last night,” he chides.
“Mom was here.” And I didn’t want the two of them in the same room because that only gives me a headache, and I already had one. “She’s my contact person.”
Spencer clears his throat. “She should have called.”
There is no love lost between my mother and Spencer. Dad is perfectly civil, but the same can’t be said about my mother—with anyone.
There’s a knock on the door, and at first, I’m relieved that a nurse wants to do anything to me so I can slip out of the conversation. But then I see it’s not a nurse. Or a doctor.
It’s a billionaire.
“Ashton,” Lyra says in a low voice. She gets up to hug him, while Spencer and Dad just glare.
Seriously glare. If they could will magic flames to shoot from their eyes, Ashton would be crispy fried.
Detangling from Lyra, Ashton holds out a hand to my father. “Sir.”
He hasn’t even glanced at me. In fact, no one in the room is paying attention to me. Why is that, when they’ve come to visit me?
“Don’t think you’re getting away with this?” Dad rumbles.
“Dunc, it was an accident,” Lyra points out.
“I want to express my heartfelt apologies for injuring your daughter,” Ashton says, finally dropping his hand. “It was not my intent to cause her any harm.”
“But you did,” Spencer cuts in. “Look at her.”
Four heads finally turn to me. “Hi.” I wave.
Ashton’s expression softens for an instant, then morphs back into his blasé billionaire face. “How are you feeling?” he asks formally.
“I’m fine,” I say a little more forcefully than I would have liked, but broken bones apparently make me cranky.
“You’re not fine, or you wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed.” Dad’s tone is light, but there’s a dark storm in his eyes when he looks at Ashton.
I can’t blame him, but I have issues with conflict, and that’s all this visit has had.
“It was an accident,” I say in a tired voice.
“Yes, we are all aware of that,” Lyra says before Dad or Spencer could respond. “But the most important question is when are you getting sprung?”
“They said I could probably go home tonight. They’re waiting for some test results to make sure I didn’t break my head, along with my foot.”
This is a joke, but no one reacts like it is.
“I’ll go make sure the results get back ASAP,” Dad says.
“I’m sure they’re doing everything they can,” I soothe. “There was an accident between here and Mary’s Harbour last night, and it was busy.”
“You can’t go back to your apartment,” Spencer says suddenly. “There are too many stairs. It’s too small.”
“I know,” I relent, even though it pains me to say. I like my independence, and if I move home, even for a short time, my mother will treat me like an invalid as well as a disappointment to the family.
“No,” Dad decides. “Come to the castle. You can stay in Camille’s room, it’s big enough for you to have space if you need a wheelchair.”
“A wheelchair?” Ashton asks in a strangled voice.
“I don’t need a wheelchair, I’ll be fine with crutches. But there are so many stairs in the castle.”
“There’s an elevator. We put it in a few years ago before the Queen of England came for a visit. Just in case.”
“I’m sure she appreciated that.”
“She never used it. But it’s there, and it’s the best place for you to recover.”
“It really is. We’ll all keep you company,” Lyra promises.
“I’ll be there, too,” Ashton says.