Chapter Forty-Five
Paige
I need water.
My mouth feels like sandpaper, and there’s a dull, throbbing pain behind my eyes that only gets worse when I try to open them.
The soft morning light filtering through the curtains is blinding, and I squint at the ornate plastering overhead, at the artwork on the walls I don’t remember seeing in my room before, the décor I know I don’t recognize.
I focus on breathing, trying not to freak out when something shifts behind me and I realize I’m not alone. There’s an arm around my waist, a chest pressed to my back, a steady breath warming the hair behind my ear.
My stomach flips, nausea and confusion clawing up my throat, wrapping around fear. My body aches, my legs feel like they’re made of wet sand, and my skin feels…wrong. Like it doesn’t belong to me.
I close my eyes, trying to piece last night together, but the memories are disjointed. The bar, my drink, Eli laughing. That guy… I squeeze my eyes tighter, trying to recall his face, his name, but it’s all gone. Nothing but a blur.
So is everything after.
I tense, swallowing a sob I can’t let escape, and the body behind me stirs. Their arm tightens slightly, the hand resting lightly on my stomach flexing.
“Paige?”
My heart kicks hard, and I could almost cry. Maddox’s sleepy voice is the best sound I’ve ever heard. Relief crashes through me, dissolving the terror about waking up with a stranger.
But it doesn’t last.
Humiliation seeps in the second he presses a light kiss to my shoulder. Seriously? After everything, I go and drink myself stupid and end up back in bed with him? Heat crawls up my neck, flaming across my face.
But then my eyes settle on the cannula sticking out from my arm, the half-drained IV bag hanging from a makeshift pole.
What the hell?
“Paige,” he says again, his voice soft, careful even.
I don’t want fucking careful, not when my heart has dislodged from behind my ribs and is now hammering in my throat as fear starts taking over again.
“Maddox, what is this?” I ask, my fingers hovering over the medical tape securing the needle in place, terrified to actually touch it.
He breathes heavily, his arm stiffening as he unwraps it from around me. “It’s nothing. Just the doctor thought it was best—”
“Doctor?” I feel awful, my gut coiled so tight I think I might be sick. The only reason I would have blacked out is because I was… “What happened?” I don’t remember drinking that much last night. In fact, I’m almost positive I only had one. “Maddox, did that guy spike my drink?”
“Fuck,” he mutters. “Paige…”
I want to disappear. Crawl out of my skin. Pretend none of this happened, pretend he didn’t see me like that.
Was he the one who found me? Did he see me slumped and unconscious, no longer in control of my own body?
Shame digs its ugly claws into my bones, my skin itching with the need to feel clean again.
Sliding out from under his arm, every movement is sluggish, like my limbs are filled with lead. I grip the mattress and wait for the nausea to pass, for my vision to settle. Maddox shifts behind me, rustling the sheets, rubbing gentle circles on my back.
“I’m fine,” I mutter, my throat scratching with the lie. “Where’s my stuff?”
As I push off the bed, my knees nearly buckle. I want to scream at my own body for being so weak, for betraying me at the one moment I need it to be strong. I catch myself on the nightstand, the IV tugging sharply at my elbow.
“You should lie down— Paige!” He’s on his feet, rounding the bed as I yank the needle free, the stinging sensation making me hiss. “What are you doing? You were fucking drugged last night! Don’t you get that?”
Oh, I fucking get it, and I hate how I feel like I’m no longer in control, that last night, I lost hours of my life, never to get them back, and Maddox is only trying to help when all I want is to be alone.
I try to brush past him, hating how warm the room suddenly feels. Hating that I remember how good it felt to sleep next to him. Back when things were simpler, when they were good.
But things aren’t good now.
“Here,” he says, stepping in front of me with a water bottle. “Let me order some toast from room service or something. Doc said carbs would help.”
I don’t reply. I can’t bear to look at him without feeling like I’m splintering. I accept the water, the cap already unscrewed, and take a sip.
“Where’s my bag?”
“Paige—”
“Just…” I inhale sharply, trying to steady my voice. “I just need my things, Maddox.”
He moves slowly, the floorboard creaking under his steps.
“It’s here,” he says, lifting it. “I… Lockie brought it up.”
I nod and take it from him, kneeling to check through it, hiding my face as fresh embarrassment rises in my throat. Everyone saw. Fucking everyone. The guys, Lockie, Reign…
Maddox hovers nearby, everything he wants to say caught in his throat, loud in the stillness of the suite. He’s trying to find the right way to reach me, I know he is, but I don’t want him to. I just want to be alone.
Digging through the bag with trembling hands, I pull out my phone and tap the screen. Blank. Dead. I smother a groan and drop it back in, then get to my feet.
His eyes never leave me, and I don’t know what pisses me off more, the look of concern, or the part of me aches for him, even now.
I walk toward the closed double doors, assuming they lead into the rest of the room, catching my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror.
Blotchy. Pale. Weak.
Someone who needed to be rescued.
Someone who couldn’t protect herself.
This is not your fault.
I know that. Logically. But logic isn’t running the show right now, and the intrusive thoughts are getting louder.
Keeping my back to him, I thumb toward the doors, voice low as I say, “I’m gonna go to my room.”
“Wait,” Maddox says, stepping toward me, eyebrows drawn tight, something fragile shining in his dark eyes. “Please, just talk to me.”
His voice catches on the last word, and it takes everything not to break apart, too. Not to scream, or cry, or beg to rewind the clock to before drinks and hands and nightmares.
“I need space,” I whisper, bowing my head. God, my body aches. I just want to be alone. To fall apart without feeling like I’m on display with him watching.
“You need a hospital,” he insists. “Get tested. Get checked properly.”
“You said I already saw a doctor,” I say as I pull the door open, but his hand stops it from moving further.
“He said you should still go.”
“I’m fine,” I snap, trying to elbow him off. “Let go.”
“No. You were unconscious for five hours, Paige.” His fists clench at his sides, his chest rising and falling too fast, breath ragged.
“I don’t need a babysitter.” My eyes narrow on his. “I need air. I need a shower. I need to feel normal, not like a fucking victim.”
His jaw tightens. “This isn’t about babysitting. It’s about making sure you weren’t—”
He stops, like saying it out loud might make it real. And suddenly, I want to scream at him, to hurl something across the room, because his fear could only confirm mine.
“I wasn’t,” I say, throat burning with certainty. For some reason, that much is clear to me. Just knowing how close it came is enough. “I don’t want to sit in a sterile room and have someone ask me questions I can’t fucking answer.”
My chest heaves as his eyes search mine, filled with hurt and anger and fear and something close to desperation.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay,” he says, almost pleading.
“Well, I’m not.” I laugh without humor, my stomach coiling all over again, rattled with panic, bruised pride, and leftover terror. “But I don’t need you to fix it.”
He drags a hand through his hair and steps away from the door. I open it and stop. Beau and Eli are on the couch, their positions making it evident they’ve been here for hours. Beau rubs his eyes as Eli snores beside him, mouth open, head tilted back.
Fucking great. The gang’s all here.
“Jesus, Paige,” Maddox snaps. “Why are you making this so hard? I’m just trying to help.”
“I don’t want your help,” I cry.
He flinches, looking at me like I’ve gutted him. My hands ball into fists, heat prickling at my eyes, but I don’t care. I want him to feel the sting of it. I want him to feel even half of what I’m choking on.
“What do you want from me?” he asks, frustration lining his tone. “I’m doing the best I can.”
“Yeah? Little late for that, don’t you think?” I snap as I storm through the suite, ignoring Beau and a now-alert Eli, both watching silently.
Maddox follows. “You think this has been easy for me?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is this hard for you?” I turn and hurl the words at him. My bag hits the floor as I face him, toe-to-toe. “Is it hard being the guy who gets to walk away? Pretend like none of it mattered? Like I didn’t matter?”
He shakes his head before I’m even done. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.” My chest rises fast, head pounding for a whole new reason. “But congratulations, your sense of guilt or whatever, forcing you to play the hero is done. I’m good now. I don’t need you pretending to care—”
“You think I don’t fucking care?” he roars. His eyes burn black, two obsidian pools of anger. “You have no fucking idea what it was like finding you like that. Watching you fade in and out, not knowing if you were gonna be okay.”
He’s shaking, voice breaking, breathing ragged, like the fear’s still fresh inside him trying to claw its way out.
And for a second, all I want is to reach for him.
To close the distance, bury my face in his chest, and pretend none of this ever happened.
But I don’t move, can’t give him the comfort we both so desperately need. Because he still hurt me.
“You think I give a shit about being the hero?” he yells. “I didn’t help you to feel better about myself. I did it because I’m trying to save you, Penny!”
The name slices through the air.
He freezes, breath caught, only realizing what he said the moment it leaves his mouth. Staggers back like he’s been punched. And I just stand there, gutted, hollowed out, unable to feel the moment my heart breaks. Only the echo of it after.
“What did you just call me?”