Chapter 37 – Braelyn #2
“Roman, do me a fucking favor and take a deep breath in, and after you release it, then tell me that.”
He chuckles lightly, but I have no humor in me. “Yes, Nurse Fritz.”
“Do not try my patience,” I warn.
“Are you going to look at me?”
“Not yet.”
Dutifully, he sucks in a deep breath, fully expanding his lungs, and releases it slowly.
He’s in a lot of pain with that, likely having cracked a rib or two or four.
But it doesn’t seem to be puncturing his lung.
At least nothing terribly obvious. I shift around to his back, and there’s a large purple and a black welt over his right kidney.
I curse under my breath, but I don’t touch it.
“Survey says?”
“Very likely a renal contusion and some fractured ribs. If you’re lucky. It could be a lot worse, but I don’t have CT vision.”
“What about my face, Braelyn?”
A tear hits my cheek. “I’m so fucking mad at you right now.”
“I know, baby,” he says, his voice soft and tender. “Come here, okay? Come where I can see you. I’m sorry. I know you’re upset, but I couldn’t say anything, and I can’t really tell you more here either.”
Jesus. What is going on?
Pulling my big girl panties on, I force myself back around the table to him.
Then I slowly lift my chin and bite my lip so I don’t sob.
Not to be ironic or cheesy or anything, but he looks like fucking Rocky at the end of Rocky 1 where he’s crying for Adrian and his eye is all swollen up and his face is a bleeding pulp of a mess.
Roman’s right eye is completely swollen shut, and that side of his face is so bruised, there’s hardly any pink skin remaining. He has a gash that’s still bleeding pretty heavily, and I feel like a bitch because I didn’t look at his face first, and he’s been bleeding like this.
I grab some gauze from my bag and press it to the wound, feeling worse when he winces.
“You either have a maxillary or orbital fracture or both.” I can barely get the words out. His hand comes to my hip, and he holds me close.
“I know. I felt it when it happened.”
My eyes close, and I release a tremulous breath.
He squeezes my hip. “Tell me why you’re mad at me.”
I shake my head, and he pulls me in a little closer.
“Braelyn, tell me why you were mad,” he urges.
I don’t open my eyes as I ask, “Do you know any redheads?”
“Redheads?” he repeats as if the word doesn’t make sense to him. “You mean other than Quinn? Does she even count as a redhead? Or Keegan and Kenna?”
“Yes, she counts and no, I don’t mean Quinn or your cousins.”
“Baby, look at me. I know it’s not a pretty image right now but look at me please.”
My eyes snap open, only to narrow.
His other hand comes up to my shoulder. “Talk to me. I can’t fix this if you won’t tell me what’s up.”
“Have you ever hooked up with one of your waitresses?”
“No,” he answers quickly, his one good eye on me. “Not ever. I’ve never touched an employee. Why?”
I shake my head. I really should have known it wasn’t what she said. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s something. I want to know.”
“Argh!” I take his hand and place it back over the gauze for him to apply pressure against his cheek. Then I dig through my bag until I find those stupid pictures. The ones I crumpled and shoved to the bottom.
He takes them from my hand, studies them, and says, “Where did you get these?”
“Asshole, that’s not the response I was looking for.”
He shifts, switching hands with the gauze and the images so he can look at it clearer. “This was taken this morning.”
And now I’m going to be sick. “I know.”
“No, you don’t know. Who was following me to take this, and where did you get it?”
“Jesus, Roman!” I spin around, my arms flying everywhere. “You’re kissing a woman, and that’s your response?”
“Braelyn, I wasn’t kissing her. A woman came up to me in the coffee shop, literally blindsided me with a hug before she kissed me out of fucking nowhere.
What you’re seeing is my hands on her shoulders, pushing her back.
She was acting like some deranged fan, and I told her to back off. So again, where did you get this?”
He’s telling the truth. It’s written all over him.
“Corporate Barbie, who turned into Super Psycho Stalker Barbie. She’s been having us all, including Adam, followed.
But it all started with a vendetta against me.
All of it. Her husband was my patient, and he coded and died, but she heard me tell one of the doctors that I knew he was going to code before it happened.
Since then, she’s believed I had something to do with his death somehow. ”
He blinks at me. Well, with one eye. But he’s staring at me and blinking. “That’s… seriously fucking scary. Are you okay? Did you have her arrested?”
“No. Adam showed up and blackmailed her to stay away from me. She said she was done with me anyway now that she took you from me.” I jut my chin toward the pictures.
“But you came here tonight anyway.”
“I was angry and hurt, but I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“I knew deep down that you’d never hurt me like that.”
“Never. Not ever.” He sets the pictures down on the table he’s sitting on and grabs my waist. “I finally won you after all these years. Do you honestly think I’d ever throw that away?
Braelyn, there is no other woman on this planet for me but you.
And there never will be. It’s you and me, kid.
That’s how our story goes.” He flips his hand over and shows me the infinity symbol tattoo. “This is us.”
I sigh and sink into him. He’s right. Ours is the sort of story that never ends. It’s forever.
A second later, the door opens and in walk Hayes and Forest. I hadn’t thought much about the fact that they weren’t in here with us until now.
“It’s done,” Forest announces.
“What’s done?” I question.
“Adam,” he replies.