Chapter 1 #2
Mainly because he knew Fergus wouldn’t appreciate Declan doing anything to hurt the young woman he was in love with and who would soon be his wife. Declan was pretty sure that refusing Thea’s help would come under that heading.
Maybe Declan would have protested more strongly if he could have stood for longer than five minutes without swaying on his feet.
If his pulse and breathing didn’t both pick up if he was on his feet for too long.
And if he thought he could stand upright for long enough to be able to prepare his own drinks, let alone cook his own food.
He wasn’t about to admit it, but he currently felt exhausted just from getting up this morning and washing himself before dressing in a black T-shirt and faded jeans.
He also had an added incentive to get well as quickly as possible. Thea, her father having died when she was a child, had asked Declan to walk with her down the aisle at her wedding once he was well enough to do so.
Fergus’s scowl at this delay in making Thea his wife had told Declan that his boss wasn’t pleased and now wanted him to get well as quickly as possible.
So, much as Declan knew having someone in his space for the next few weeks was going to be a big intrusion, if it also meant he could be discharged from the hospital and go back to the peace and quiet of his apartment, then he was prepared to put up with the inconvenience.
He liked Thea, and he really didn’t want to hurt her by refusing to escort her down the aisle. Any more than he wanted to irritate Fergus by delaying their wedding for any longer than was necessary.
Both those things seemed more important right now than Declan’s need for privacy.
He straightened. “That person will be arriving shortly, presumably to help me finish packing and then drive me to my apartment.” His four-bedroom penthouse apartment was more than big enough to accommodate someone he could happily ignore most of the time?—
“The person would be me,” Fawn Meadows now informed him cheerfully. “Which is the reason I just offered to help you pack your bag before we both leave the hospital to go to your home.”
The look of complete horror on Declan Quinn’s face was absolutely priceless.
A little insulting too, she inwardly admitted, but she also found his immediate and completely unfiltered reaction to the news to be hilarious.
Declan Quinn was, hands down, the most breathtakingly attractive man Fawn had ever set eyes on.
Not only was he well over six feet tall, with a powerfully muscular body, but he had thick, prematurely light and dark gray hair, what she believed was called salt-and-pepper, and deep Irish-blue eyes above sharp cheekbones.
His mouth was so full and sensuous, it made Fawn’s panties wet if her gaze lingered on them for too long.
And they often lingered. His strong, square chin had a light dusting of trimmed, gray beard.
His voice was also husky, with an even sexier and enticing Irish lilt to it.
In other words, Declan Quinn was a complete silver fox!
Fawn’s kryptonite.
Men of her own age of twenty-four were fun to spend time with in a group of guys and girls, but they did absolutely nothing for her individually in a romantic or sexual way.
Whereas just looking at Declan made her nipples tingle and ache and her pussy juices soak into her panties. He was just such a presence . A powerful male, despite his injuries.
Fawn’s defense against that attraction was to tease and torment Declan every time she came into his room to do something for him. A little school-playground behavior, maybe, but Fawn needed all the help she could get not to actually drool all over Declan the moment she entered his hospital suite.
He was looking especially enticing today in a black T-shirt that stretched across all those defined muscles on his chest and arms, along with a pair of faded jeans that hung low on his hips.
“But you’re a nurse,” he now accused.
She nodded. “Which is pretty convenient, considering a nurse is exactly what you’re still going to need for the next couple of weeks.
If only to dress and take care of your wounds and dispense the appropriate medication, if necessary.
I can also cook basic meals.” She’d had to because her parents had been pretty useless at feeding their two children.
“I can also ensure you have the required fluids, also necessary for your complete recovery, by making you hot and cold drinks.”
“Isn’t all that a little out of your job description?”
She chuckled. “Believe me, for the extra money Mr. Wynter is paying me, I’m also willing to do your washing and clean your bathrooms.”
Declan’s eyes narrowed as if he was studying, assessing her, as he seemed to dismiss that statement except the part that implied she needed the extra money.
The reason for which Fawn had absolutely no intention of him ever knowing. “I’m also very good at packing stuff.” She didn’t bother asking for Declan’s permission but instead crossed the room to neatly put the last of his belongings into what looked to be an army camouflage rucksack.
Which, considering that Declan’s medical notes said he had been in the army for several years during his twenties and thirties, it probably was. He was probably good at packing stuff himself, if that was the case.
The old, visible scars on his chest and arms looked as if they had been caused by bullet and knife wounds.
Add them to the more recent bullet wounds in his back, and it was obvious Declan had lived a life of danger even before he became a bodyguard two years ago, employed at Wynter Security. That employment was also in his notes.
The fact that Declan had been admitted to the hospital a week ago with two bullet wounds said that danger was still very much a part of his life in his work as a bodyguard.
Fawn had been a nurse for three years since completing her three years of training, and never once during that time had she nursed someone who had been shot in a busy London street, in broad daylight, twice.
Gun-related crimes really weren’t that normal in England.
Declan’s notes had also revealed that he wasn’t married, nor did he have any children.
Fawn had already known some of that information from the nurses working in ICU. They hadn’t mentioned any names, because that would have been an invasion of Declan’s privacy and against hospital rules, but they had all been aflutter about the “gorgeous Irishman” in their care.
It hadn’t been too difficult to add two and two and come up with the right answer of it being the same man when Declan had been transferred to this private room four days ago.
Despite not having any family of his own, Declan hadn’t been short of visitors. Thea Morgan and Fergus Wynter had visited him the most, either individually or together, as well as the other three owners of Wynter Security, two of them with their wives.
Only the youngest member of the Wynter family, Linus, remained unmarried, it seemed, in a family that all appeared to be exceptionally handsome and also collectively and individually wealthy.
She had been told by some of the other nurses that Linus was some sort of computer guru who spent most of his time locked away in his apartment, sitting in front of numerous screens.
Even if that were true, Fawn had no doubt his boyish good looks still attracted hordes of women to him.
She doubted he would remain single for much longer.
The police had visited Declan a couple of times in the past four days. But as there now seemed to be a media blackout, online and in the news, on the events of the day Declan was shot, Fawn had no idea what the outcome of those visits had been.
Members of the four-man team, of which Declan was apparently the head, and other employees of Wynter Security, had also visited regularly.
One of them had been a woman, and Fawn had wondered if the ICU nurses had been mistaken about Declan being unattached. But it soon became obvious the woman was only visiting as another employee of Wynter Security and friend, and not because she was romantically involved with Declan.
Fawn had no idea how or why it was that Declan didn’t have women lining up to be with him, or for one of them to want to look after him when he was discharged from the hospital.
Having witnessed the size of his very impressive erection on the first day of his stay in this room in response to her helping Declan to the bathroom, she was pretty sure it wasn’t because he was gay.
Even so, she had a feeling those hooded Irish-blue eyes hid a multitude of secrets. Ones no one would ever learn unless Declan chose to tell them.
But as Fawn was a very private person herself, with her own secrets, she had no intention of ever attempting to probe.